Page 1608 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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MR LAMONT: It would mean that they would not participate in this essential element of training within their industry. Madam Speaker, I believe that this is a fundamental issue not only in apprenticeship training but also in post-apprenticeship training. The area that I am specifically involved in and specifically concerned about - the Minister for Education and Training will address a lot of the other qualitative issues - is this question of proper ongoing training, both during apprenticeship and post-apprenticeship. It should not be something which starts this week and ends in three weeks' time. It should continue over the entire period of an apprenticeship and beyond. It should provide training within the building and construction industry for the life of the building and construction worker, whether they are an apprentice chippie, an apprentice electrician or whatever. Whatever industry sector they happen to be involved in, we should provide training and retraining over the whole of their life.
Mr Moore: You have just - - -
MR LAMONT: I know that I have convinced Madam Speaker, Mr Moore; I am just trying to convince you. That is what I see as the essential part of the underlying philosophy associated with this Bill, and that is why I am quite passionate about it. I do believe, coming back to that essential point on which I started my address tonight, that it will deliver quality. Not only will it deliver quality to the apprentices; it also will deliver quality to the people of Canberra in relation to the end product - the buildings and the houses in which we live.
MR KAINE (9.45): It is quite amusing sometimes to sit here and to listen to Government Ministers defending the indefensible. We have seen it again tonight. A Bill has been put forward by the Minister for Education and Training and at one stage the only person left in the house to defend it was a backbencher, the former Minister for Health. More recently, Mrs Grassby and Mr Lamont have sprung to the defence as well. This Bill, Madam Speaker, is a Bill that has missed its time. It has missed its time in a couple of ways. First of all, it has missed its time in the sense that this Government is still pushing Marxist principles, while everywhere else in the world - - -
Mr Lamont: Here we go - the last Stalinist government with a AAA credit rating.
MR KAINE: It has been said, and it has been said by former members of this Labor Government, that there are only three Marxist governments left in the world - one in China, one in Cuba and one in Canberra. It is interesting that the only one of those three that still has the nationalisation of the means of production in its platform is this one. Even China and Cuba have been dragged into the 1950s, kicking and struggling. This one is still being restrained, back in the 1920s and the 1930s. All this rhetoric about making the employer pay, about these employers who exploit the means of production - that is what this debate is all about - is last century's debate. This Government is still 100 years behind the times.
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