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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4260 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

knowing that an alternative was necessary, and then go into a phase of consultations very late in the piece. It seems to me that is a quite deliberate act to get the Government off the hook so far as doing anything about this issue is concerned. This needed some decisive action to ensure that appropriate resources for training funds were made available from some source other than the Long Service Leave Board's funds. The Government has failed on this score.

It seems to have failed on its long-argued claim that 150 jobs would be created. I am sure it would have been mentioned in the Minister's speech were it to be the case. I have not seen opportunities lost by the Government so far as trumpeting their successes is concerned. This, apparently, has not been so successful. A little while ago, I referred to the Minister's speech and the problems that the construction industry has been facing in recent times. They ought not complain about it too much, because they created it; that is, the Liberals created it. First of all, the Liberal Government opposite cut about 2,500 jobs out of its own public sector. That amounted to about 7.6 per cent of its work force, setting the pattern for John Howard, I suppose, who then came along and decided he would do a little better and cut 7.8 per cent out of his ACT work force, with some dramatic effects on the ACT. This, of course, is something that has been constructed by the Liberals opposite. Let us not forget Senator Campbell's comments about the ACT: "We have created a recession in the ACT". To paraphrase it, "Isn't that good?". So, there is a certain amount of glee amongst the Liberals about their effects on the ACT and no shame from those opposite that they belong to the same group of ideologues who are anti-public servant and anti-ACT.

Mr Speaker, Labor will be supporting this Long Service Leave (Building and Construction Industry) (Amendment) Bill, with some reservations. I have some personal reservations about the ability of the fund to provide the necessary money for this continued increased drain on its funds for training purposes. I know that it is a meagre $250,000 and, if you say it quickly, it does not sound like much; but it will, in due course, affect the ability of the Long Service Leave Board either to make its own operations more efficient or, in fact, to provide benefits to those people who are beneficiaries of the fund. Indeed, it may lead to an earlier resumption of increased levies on employers in the ACT. Those factors are important in considering the matter.

But the most important fact that has to be understood in relation to this matter is that the Government has failed in its commitment to this Assembly that it would create an alternative funding arrangement for training in the construction industry in the ACT and will not have achieved the promised outcome in its entire term of government. It will be leaving this, like many other things, for future governments and future generations in the ACT to deal with. This $250,000, though a minor amount when you compare it to the other wrong priorities of the Government opposite, will be a burden for somebody else to worry about, which is just typical of the way that this Government has operated in relation to many of its portfolio areas. Not only will the funding be a matter for somebody else to worry about, but it will also be left for somebody else to devise a scheme whereby training funds are collected from the construction industry and applied to training within that industry. Again, it is a shameful performance by this Government and a performance that they could not boast about. But then there is not much over the last three years that this Government could boast about truthfully.

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