Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3348 ..

MS MacDONALD (continuing):

There are a number of recommendations. I know that it may look a bit daunting at first, but I do believe that they are achievable. I do hope that goodwill will be undertaken in trying to achieve these recommendations.

Finally, I would like to give thanks to all the committee members who participated in this report with extreme goodwill. I know at the end it was a bit of a rush job getting the deliberations done and it was a fairly hefty report, over 100 pages plus. As I said, we included the department's report, which adds another 80-odd pages. Getting a head around the acronyms that apply within the VET sector is sometimes a bit overwhelming, but the committee members did admirably in that regard.

My very huge amount of thanks goes to David Skinner, the committee secretary throughout the majority of this report, who I think now probably knows more about vocational education and training in the ACT and Australia than anybody else, other than those people who already work within the area. I know he's not interested in looking at a job in the area, but I told him he could probably get one if he wanted to. I know he's not interested and he has moved on. My sincere thanks to David Skinner; also to Kerry McGlinn who's just started as the committee secretary. She got the final report off for publication and managed to calm me down with: "Yes, it will be here in time, Karin, don't worry, it will be here in time."She has also, I think, just started to get used to the processes of tabling a report and getting it all under way.

Finally, my biggest thanks go to those people who contributed to this report. As I said before, we would not have been able to get the quality of report that we have without those people who made the contributions. Some areas were left untouched, as is always the way. I'm a bit sad that we didn't hear from a few more people in adult and community education, but this is something I think that the government might like to look at taking up in the future. I commend the report.

MR PRATT (11.56): I echo the comments made by Ms MacDonald-particularly the theme that this report is quite correctly titled Pathways to the future. As Ms MacDonald quite clearly pointed out, it is a very, apt title. I would like to start by commending Ms MacDonald for her stewardship of this inquiry. She's got a lot of experience in this area and that experience certainly came to the surface. I'd like to commend my colleague Ms Dundas for her passion in youth and also VET issues. It was a particularly good inquiry and a lot of ground was covered.

I'd like to commend the people who made submissions to the inquiry, who came and spoke to us and who also invited us to come and visit their institutions. This was a necessarily lengthy inquiry and I believe it covered a lot of ground. Of course it covered that ground in great detail.

The importance of VET has waxed and waned in time. It's fair to say I think that most governments around the country over the years have neglected VET. Perhaps political parties of all colours have, understandably but with oversight, focused on year 12 to tertiary studies pathways at the expense of vocational educational training and related preliminary subjects in school curriculum. In the past decade though the focus has begun to shift back to rebuilding VET. This was a major finding of our inquiry.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .