Page 4775 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 28 November 1990
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Building and Construction Group Apprenticeship Scheme
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (5.01): Mr Speaker, I would like to speak on an unrelated matter. I had the pleasure recently of attending the annual group apprenticeship scheme awards of the Master Builders Construction and Housing Association of the ACT and was able to observe some of the benefits of that scheme. I think it is worth recording in Hansard the good work that is done under that scheme, under the auspices of the Master Builders Construction and Housing Association. The scheme is 21 years old, making it the oldest such scheme in the country. I think that 21 years of persistent support for that scheme by the MBCHA deserves to be acknowledged and applauded.
The scheme operates in the building and construction industry in the ACT, and it optimises the use of training capacity in smaller businesses in the Territory, which by themselves would have neither the training facilities nor a suitable range of work to provide adequate employment and training for apprentices.
The scheme involves contracts of training with apprentices who are then assigned to a number of host employers progressively throughout the apprenticeship period. Obviously, that provides for a wide range of work experience for apprentices. It is a scheme which has attracted wide support and is obviously a very effective one.
The award ceremony to which I referred is an annual event. It recognises excellence in training, from the point of view of both the apprentices and the employers who offer those apprenticeships. The recent awards, for example, included awards to the best apprentices in each of the four years of training in various trades and also to the best female apprentice.
There were also some new awards, including the best community oriented apprentice and the best employer of the year, which I am pleased to note was won this year by ACT Public Works. Mr Duby would be much too modest to blow that trumpet, but I am happy to do so on his behalf.
Mr Duby: Very well deserved, too.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am sure it was. Another new award was for the best host employer of the year providing quality training. Those kinds of awards offer encouragement to employers to take on apprentices. I do not think any employer who takes on apprentices does so with a desire to make a profit, since apprentices obviously need to be trained and are not as productive as fully trained workers. I think that those employers who have a somewhat civic-minded attitude in choosing to employ apprentices do the whole community a very great deal of good.
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