Page 1605 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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The expansion of entry level training and the new training wage will also serve to increase substantially the level of training places, requiring an even greater commitment by business. In recognition of this, the Government will abolish the Training Guarantee altogether if there is a credible commitment to the creation of these new training places by business.
How about we go along with what the Commonwealth is saying on this and throw out this Bill?
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (9.33): This debate, I suppose, is about quality. I do not mean quality of argument; I mean quality within the building and construction industry. That, I think, is what the MBA group apprenticeship scheme would profess to be all about. It certainly is an issue that the Housing Industry Association and the Master Builders Association and their members who met with the Minister for Education and me not more than two weeks ago were on about. That meeting was about quality within the building and construction industry. It comes as no surprise to me that Mrs Carnell, in her diatribe just now, has shown that in her short sojourn on the Retail Trades Industry Training Council - - -
Mrs Carnell: Five years.
MR LAMONT: That is a short period, Mrs Carnell. I am just surprised that you learnt so little during that five years; but I suppose that, in relation to your time as Leader of the Opposition, that pales into insignificance.
Mr Deputy Speaker, what this is all about - I will say it again - is quality. My colleagues opposite argue about the question of quality and say that the MBA group apprenticeship scheme is a quality scheme that delivers a quality result. What is being proposed by this training levy scheme is a wider quality outcome for the building and construction industry. It is taking it one step further. We are saying that the Government should not say how that should be arrived at; it should be determined by the Industry Training Council. Lo and behold, Madam Speaker; guess who is on the Industry Training Council.
Mr Humphries: Lo and behold.
MR LAMONT: Okay. How about, "Behold who is on the Industry Training Council"?
Mr Cornwell: The "lo" part I understand; it is the "behold" that amazes me. I am amazed that you are using the other one, Mr Lamont.
MR LAMONT: Thank you. I know that you would understand low parts, Mr Cornwell, particularly given some of your questions in question time. Madam Speaker, this is about trying to provide not only better quality for apprentices within the industry but, indeed, a better quality industry per se, so that consumers in the ACT can proudly boast that they do have working for them within the building and construction industry some of the most highly qualified and professional building and construction workers in the whole of Australia. That is a standard to which I think we
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