Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 May 2024.)

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (19:49): As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted about 2½ months ago—in fact, I might even go back to the start of where my remarks would have been. I will not retrace my steps through all my previous remarks but let's take it afresh as if this is a new contribution.

The Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill that we are dealing with today is a bill to amend the Construction Industry Training Fund Act, an act where the former Liberal government under the stewardship of former Minister for Innovation and Skills, the Hon. David Pisoni, did some important work in improving the operations of this bill some years ago and, indeed, ensuring that the Construction Industry Training Fund and the board were operating to an improved regime.

On coming to government, the new government undertook an independent review of the act. PEG Consulting, led by Tahnya Donaghy and Ingrid Haythorpe, are well known to the parliament. They did this review and they released their report, the issues paper, in December 2022. There were 45 submissions from stakeholders indicating that the opposition has considered and taken the opportunity to consult with stakeholders in the several months since we were last here talking about it. We did also have a look at some of the submissions from stakeholders. Minister Boyer has indicated that 30 of the review's 31 recommendations will be implemented if this bill is implemented in full.

The minister also advised the remaining recommendation to investigate an alternative, more robust collection mechanism for the levy will be delayed for three years pending evaluation of other reforms that this bill introduces. As I said, the former Liberal government was successful in implementing significant reforms to bring this act into line with equivalent legislation in other states and territories and also legislation governing the appointment of boards in the state's education and training sector.

The Construction Industry Training Fund (Board) Amendment Bill 2018 supported training growth across industry and modernised the process for appointments to the Construction Industry Training Board. Indeed, this bill is seeking to reverse some of those reforms to lock in the appointment of a higher number of union representatives than is currently the state of affairs.

For members who are not aware, the board is responsible for managing and expending funds raised through the Construction Industry Training Fund levy to improve the quality of training in the industry and to coordinate industry-based training. In my last speech, I did particularly identify some of the members of the board and thanked them for their service, and I reiterate that thanks. The work that the board has done over a number of years has been tremendously important in serving both the sector and also the young people considering a future employment pathway and a career in the sector. It is tremendously important work.

In the CITB's annual training plan, the projected revenue collection across industry sectors (housing, commercial and civil) for the financial year 2023 is $29.8 million. Indeed, it is not a bad read. I encourage members to have a look. It is fairly well summarised. So I thank the minister's office for the briefing and also the office of the Hon. David Pisoni, which includes some strong expertise in this area from our time in government, and particular thanks to Kim Meier for advice along the way.

I also want to express thanks to some of the industry stakeholders who have had input into the opposition's point of view on this, particularly Matt Lowe, Group Training Australia and the Apprentice Employment Network. I thank Greg Bassani and ATEC. I thank Amanda Grocock from the Master Landscapers Association, Daniel Palumbo from the Urban Development Institute, Will Frogley from Master Builders and Stephen Knight from the Housing Industry Association. All of those stakeholders have either provided new submissions or identified that their points of view contained in their public submissions were still accurate and, indeed, assisted the opposition. I thank also all of those who have taken the time to have a chat with me about this matter.

The objectives of the bill we are dealing with include, as I mentioned, changing the composition of the board, mandating the appointment of four employee representatives and four employer representatives, following consultation with key organisations. Just to put that into context, the current act at section 5, from memory, talks about appointments:

…by the Governor on the nomination of the Minister:

(a) 1 person to be the presiding member of the Board;

(b) at least 4 (but not more than 8) persons who have knowledge of, and experience or expertise in, the building and construction industry;

(c) 2 persons who are, in the opinion of the Minister, independent of the building…industry.

(1a) The Minister must, in nominating [people]…seek to ensure that—

(a) at least 1 person is nominated to represent the interests of employers in the building and construction industry; and

(b) at least 1 person is nominated to represent the interests of employees in the building and construction industry.

Then there is a range of other factors, but basically that is the composition of the board. There is a flexibility to enable a skills base to be developed that serves the industry, serves the needs of employees well without having it devolve into a series of appointments for unions, and indeed employer organisations for that matter, just to have their professional board attenders being part of the arrangement.

I foreshadow that the opposition will be moving amendments to this aspect. We have two amendments that we will be moving during the committee stage of debate. The first is to oppose the clause. We do believe that the clause that changes the composition of the board does not add value to the bill, does not assist in ensuring that there is good governance for the Construction Industry Training Fund and does not enable South Australia's construction sector to be best supported in this manner going forward. I think if we are seeking to get outcomes, we want to provide more flexibility to the minister to get great representation rather than just finding an opportunity to bulk up by 400 per cent the union membership on the board.

If that amendment is not going to get the government's support, we also have a second amendment that we will be seeking to move highlighting the particularly damaging impact that the CFMEU has had on this sector. We discussed in parliament today the damaging impact that the CFMEU has on relations between Labor and capital in this state. We heard today from the Premier his case that he does not support in any sense the way that John Setka and those sorts of operatives in the CFMEU go about their business.

We heard from the Minister for Energy and Mining in his response in question time today the horror that he identifies upon seeing revelations of connections between CFMEU figures and bikie gangs, and the idea that organised crime and people involved in it for their own purposes are able to take union members' funds and use the power that comes with their position for their own personal benefit is appalling.

I think it is only reasonable for the government to back up their rhetoric with support for that amendment. Even if they wish to still have the four union representatives on the board, I trust that the government will take seriously the rhetoric that their Premier said in the house today and will support this opposition amendment to remove any possibility of an appointment of a CFMEU representative on the board. I think this is a very simple ask frankly and I look forward to the government's support when we get to that committee stage. And, of course, they also have the option of retaining the existing board structure as well.

That said, we also heard feedback from a range of those people I have spoken about that they indeed liked a number of the pieces of reform in the bill. Certainly, my comments on a number of the other reforms are in the positive. I think there are some reforms here that are the natural successors to the work done by the member for Unley in 2018, and we are very supportive of those other reforms.

We will move our amendments when we get to the board composition, but I highlight that some of the other changes appear to be things that have been sought by industry, by businesses, by representatives of staff and, indeed, of industry groups. Some of those include increasing the project value threshold at which the levy is payable from $40,000 to $100,000 through regulations, allowing the minister to present the board with an annual statement of the government's priorities and establishing a cross-sector planning committee to advise the board on issues that impact the industry as a whole.

The bill also enables members on this new committee to make claims and seek financial reimbursements, so potentially there are some increased payments there, but hopefully these people do good work. The bill reduces the minister's oversight and approval of payments to board members and committee members, but one hopes the administrative efficiencies will outweigh any risk there. It enables the allocation of moneys from the fund for the purposes of workforce attraction and retention activities.

The bill changes the board's financial and operating reporting from a financial to a calendar year, streamlines the reimbursement of expenses incurred by board members and formalises the ability of the board to engage staff or services of the Public Service under an arrangement agreed with the relevant minister. There is a mandate for a review of the operation of the act following its fifth anniversary. The bill does not change the current 0.25 per cent levy rate, consistent with the review's recommendations. We heard from stakeholders who view the application of the GST to the calculation of a project's value as a tax on tax. Accordingly, the bill removes GST from the calculation of a project's cost, resulting in a reduction in the amount of levy payable for all project owners.

Under the current act, the levy is not payable on certain projects. Exemptions and exclusions are contained in the act, including on main or core turbines or generators to be installed at power stations involved in the generation of electricity for the state's power systems and works associated with any operation under the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act, the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act, the Mining Act and the Opal Mining Act.

The review considered the exemptions in the act and whether they remain relevant and appropriate. It is suggested that exemptions for power generation and works performed by self-employed people in industries outside of building and construction do not meet the test of relevance or appropriateness and should be removed. It is my understanding that the government has accepted this approach and will proceed with these reforms. The review also recommended the exemption for mining and petroleum works be reviewed, and we understand the government has decided not to proceed with that course of action at this stage.

We have discussed the board composition already, so I will not repeat myself there, however I do remind people in relation to the legislation that was approved in 2019 that that also included the presiding member being entitled to vote, including always having a casting vote in board proceedings; the board comprising up to eight industry representatives who are nominated by the minister following a public expression of interest process, as well as two independent members; and a removal of the veto voting provisions to enable decisions of the board to reflect a majority position, not the majority position of prescribed sectional interests.

The point I would make is that, while most of the measures in the bill were broadly supported by stakeholders who responded, some of them did take objection to the measures relating to the composition of the board. The Liberal Party has listened to those stakeholders. The Liberal Party has also identified that the particular sectional interests being sought to be expanded under the changes in the board composition are not in the interests of the South Australian people.

Noting the particular changes made in the federal parliament recently related to the CFMEU, noting the strong rhetoric from the Labor government in relation to the damage caused to public confidence in the union movement by the CFMEU and their behaviour, and noting the strong language used by the Premier and the Minister for Energy in relation to their disapproval of the actions of operatives of the CFMEU, we look forward to the government's support for that amendment at least. I commend the bill to the house otherwise.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (20:03): I will make a contribution on this bill as well. There is a bit of deja vu. What is interesting is that when I brought changes into this place to modernise the Construction Industry Training Board, every single element was rejected by the Labor Party and the Greens. I will take this opportunity to thank SA-Best and, at that time, Family First for supporting what the industry wanted, and that was a board that was less prescriptive, a board that was appointed with the skill set that was needed for the industry.

I remember the debate at the time and it was very obvious that even the Labor Party's reluctance to remove the union veto—in other words, a minority group sitting on the board would veto the majority decision that the CITB had made if it suited their interest or if they wanted to do a deal. We saw those sort of deals just prior to me taking on the portfolio as minister. The union element of the board had arranged to spend $100,000 celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the CITB. I remember they chose a venue where there were not even tables and chairs, so they had to hire them separately at a cost of $10,000, was the figure that comes to mind. It was spending money like drunken sailors.

There is some concern that there is less ministerial oversight of the spending of the CITB. When I was the minister the key focus was on the department and my office working with the CITB, so doubling up was not happening and the precious money that was being raised through the levy on construction, which has an impact on housing costs of course, was spent for the betterment of the industry.

I was pleased to see a stronger focus on funding of apprentice and trainee training as opposed to training of those who were already in the industry. The board at that time felt that there was an opportunity for those who had been in the industry to consider their own training, whereas the main focus was to make those entry points as easy and as attractive as possible. We saw a massive increase in commencements in the construction industry.

It is disappointing that the government has rejected expanding industries that use the same trades or that actually poach tradespeople from the industry for their industry: for example, those building wind turbines and other energy producers and the mining industry. There were many times I had the building industry complain to me that they were sick of the mining industry or the energy industry poaching their staff that they had trained, in which they had invested in training. They do not take on apprentices themselves but wait until people come through the MBA or HIA training programs, for example, paid for by employers through the apprenticeship system, and then they are lured with the very large offerings available in those industries, because they simply do not have those training costs. They simply do not have them—they just poach them from elsewhere.

It is disappointing that there is no contribution from those industries that use the same trades that the construction industry uses. It has put a bigger burden on mum and dad homeowners who are paying this tax when they buy a home or an apartment or renovate. They are paying this tax to train people with the expectation that they will have quality work done in their home and will not have to wait for months for an electrician or a painter to turn up, because there is a supply of tradespeople.

There are no surprises here in what the government is achieving. We know that the Labor Party is the political arm of the union movement. It is not enough for the minister, when in government, to be in a position to appoint union mates to the board; they want to actually change the act to make it compulsory for any minister to be forced to appoint union people to the board, regardless of their qualifications or skills in the area.

I hope that we see a growing attraction to school leavers—those at school, wanting to get out of school into the workforce and into the building industry—doing a paid apprenticeship. The apprenticeship system, where you are paid to learn, really is by far the most efficient and most attractive way for people to learn skills. There is no HECS debt that they are paying. Yes, they get a discount on their salary, but that is their contribution, if you like, for getting that on-the-job training from the employer, getting that mentorship and being paid to attend trade school or, if you like, their vocational education college that is associated with that trade, rather than doing that in their own time. It is a much better model to support employers in employing apprentices and expanding those apprenticeship processes.

We brought in new apprenticeships in the civil industry—apprenticeships and traineeships in civil engineering and civil construction. These became accredited apprenticeships and traineeships under the previous government. There is the ability to do a five-year apprenticeship to be an electrician and a refrigeration mechanic together. It is, if you like, a vocational education version of a double degree. That happened with the changes that were made with the skill sets that we achieved with changes to the Skills Commission.

What we were able to demonstrate was, when you have the right skills, you get the right outcome. People are there for the right reasons. I am shocked, I have to say—because I understand—how philanthropic people become who are successful. For people who have their own businesses, people who are working in a professional field, as they get older, after they have established themselves, a monetary value for giving that time is secondary to giving that time.

It does cause me concern that the government thinks that the trigger for getting people onto this board is the monetary value. It does change the motivation for wanting to be involved. I have seen it time and time again, when a person's motivation for being in a board position is for the board fees rather than the outcomes they can help to achieve by working with those other board members. That is what we need to focus on. That is why it is so important that it is industry connected, that the board has the skills it needs to function, to be fiscally responsible, to focus on its key core areas and not drift into other areas that are thought to be sweet and cuddly at the time, focusing and staying focused on the job that is required, and that is supporting training for the building and the construction industry.

With the housing shortage that we have, it is very important that we actually increase construction. We have seen levels of home starts in Australia back to 2007 levels. The last time federal Labor was in office, I think it was 2013 or 2014 before we started to see a lift in those figures. We have a long way to go because we have also had significant population growth with people returning to Australia during the COVID period and staying, a big influx from the Albanese government of migrants coming to Australia and not necessarily targeted skill sets either, so we still have skills shortages. It is quite extraordinary when you have so many migrants coming into Australia and South Australia on what you would expect would be skilled migration pathways, and you still have massive skills shortages.

I was having a think about this just earlier in the year as the commentary started to increase about the migration pushing up the cost of housing and the need for expanding the production of homes and of course increasing those with the skill sets you need to build those homes. I look back at my father's experience arriving here in 1952, along with so many of his countrymen from Italy and others from Greece and other parts of Europe—the ten-pound Poms. The vast majority of those migrants who came to Australia and South Australia particularly at that time were tradespeople.

Many of them worked in the building industry. As a matter of fact, you would never be able to go to an Italian or Greek event without bumping into someone in the building industry—someone who had a concrete business or a bricklaying business or a carpentry business. That was the nature of it. So we were actually importing or, if you like, people were migrating to Australia who had the skills to build the houses they needed to live in, and we had these new suburbs being built right around South Australia.

I can remember Barnett Street, Salisbury, where my parents bought their home. They were about the third house in the street, and it took another 10 years or so before the council got around to laying asphalt on that street. My parents-in-law, when they lived at Marino—theirs was the first house in the street in the 1960s. Over a very short period of time that suburb of Marino became very, very popular, and Salisbury, which was a country town prior to the Playford push for industrialisation here in South Australia, became a suburb of Adelaide, with many quarter acre blocks.

They were just about quarter acre blocks. I can remember how big the block of land was in the house I grew up in in Salisbury. I do not think the house was very big, but the block of land certainly had plenty of room for fruit trees and grapevines and a lawn to play on and my mother's flowers.

I cannot emphasise any more how important it is that we have a focus on skills. This state had a terrible reputation until there was a turnaround in the attitude to vocational education. For 16 years the previous Labor government would either put brand new ministers or ministers that had been demoted into the skills portfolio rather than seeing it as a focus for a competent person to make some real change. I can remember as the shadow minister for seven years in that space that at every single event I went to there was never a government member—a government minister, even a backbencher representing the government—at those vocational education events.

I am glad that has changed. I am glad that this government is showing an interest and continuing the work that the Marshall government did in lifting the status of the apprenticeship and the traineeship, but I am disappointed that we have seen the disappearance of the support for employers for taking on apprentices. Regarding the subsidy—the Skilling South Australia subsidy—I am led to believe that there have only been about nine of those packages signed in the last 2½ years of this government, which means we are not seeing the apprenticeship numbers. We are not seeing the support for employers.

In relation to the vocational education system it is interesting how the apprenticeship system in particular is focused on the wealth-generating industries that we have in the country—construction and manufacturing—and it is the employer who is expected to pay for the training of the skills that that business needs. Yet, if you walk into a doctor's surgery, if you walk into a school, if you walk into an accounting firm or if you walk into an architects' firm, all those skill sets were paid for by the very people who are sitting there, providing their labour or their skill sets. It was not paid for by the business; the business is benefiting from those skill sets.

But in the manufacturing and construction industry—two things that hit consumers every day, basically—there is an additional cost. Until the Marshall Liberal government, it was unsupported by government, outside of off-the-job training. Unfortunately, we saw that finish with the change of government and a focus back on off-the-job training for subsidies. We have seen, in the first 12 months of that change in policy, a massive decline in commencements of apprenticeships and traineeships in South Australia.

No employer is telling me they are having trouble getting a kid to do an apprenticeship. What they are telling me is that it is harder now to train an apprentice or a trainee, and that is what is putting them off participating in the process. It is a partnership. It is a partnership between the apprentice, the employer and the government, and whether that partnership extends to a third-party provider, whether that partnership extends to a big employer or a small employer, that three-way partnership is what gets the best outcomes.

I will take this opportunity to praise group training. We know how important group training has been. South Australia was a pioneer of group training. I think the MTA was the first group training organisation in the country, here in South Australia, and other industries of course followed on. The beauty of doing group training is that it completely removes the risk, for the apprentice and for the employer, of a personality clash or of a change in circumstances. If all of a sudden the business can no longer support that apprentice, the apprentice does not lose their apprenticeship; they simply transfer to another host employer, and so it is a continuous line of employment.

In many instances, if an apprentice can do their apprenticeship over two, three or four employers in different fields of the same trade, they end up being very well skilled, very employable and very valuable members of anybody's staff because of their broad training. It is much better than being employed for the entire time of your apprenticeship—which often used to happen in the furniture industry, where you might spend four years working at feeding three different machines, if you were doing a wood-machining apprenticeship, rather than getting a broad understanding of the full scope of the work that a wood machinist or a cabinet-maker would do in that area.

That is why it is so important that this board focuses on delivering more apprentices and more trainees, not just for opportunities for young people but also for economic health, the quality of living and the quality of life here in South Australia.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (20:23): I just want to make a few comments on the Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill and put on the record where I will be voting and where I sit on this issue.

Before I begin, there has been a lot of talk, certainly today, about the CFMEU, and I want to highlight (to probably the one person who is listening to this) that the forestry sector is a section within the CFMEU. I have only had very positive interactions with our forestry union. Whilst we do not always agree, it is the largest employer in my region. I have only ever seen them fight for, as a representative body, the workers in terms of safety, in terms of pay and in terms of conditions. I just want to be very clear that, again, whilst we do not always see eye to eye—in fact, very rarely do we see eye to eye—I do recognise the efforts that they make on behalf of the largest employment group in our region and the largest number of employers in our region.

In terms of the construction industry and in particular the CITB, I have been privileged over my journey to see the very good that can come out of a Construction Industry Training Board. I firmly believe that pathways start at a school level. The CITB was a very active part of a constructions pathways program that a very good friend of mine Paul Jupe put together in Mount Gambier at Grant High School where they would actually build a transportable house on site with all the trades that go with that and then sell that transportable and the money would be reinvested back into the training program.

The Doorways2Construction program, which is what it was, brought students from all around our region to Grant High School, and different schools one day a week, under Paul Jupe's tutelage and then Mike's tutelage after that, would work on constructing this project. That would not have been possible with education department funding alone. The CITB played a crucial role in providing top-up funding and extra resources to come on board and support that program.

In fact, from that pathways program, many of our employers who started as a student at many schools but did their construction work at Grant High School have gone on to own their own business and now employ apprentices of their own. That is the power of having a pathways program being supported by an industry like the CITB industry. Of course, they get their funding from a charge on the construction activities around the state.

Of course, I also want to talk about Greg Megaw and our local group training, which is GTE (Group Training Employment). Again, I have seen the power of young kids coming through a school system, getting their apprenticeship, and if they do not quite gel with one employer—an employer may go through financial difficulties or have a marriage bust-up or some other external factor that nobody knows about at the time—having that safety net of GTE there, which is the actual employer, being able to move that young person to another employer has been very powerful in keeping that young person in their apprenticeship and providing a suitable outcome.

Those reasons are many and varied, but to have the safety net of GTE, with Greg Megaw—who came after Brenton Lewis, who was a long-time CEO of that organisation—again proves the power of a community working together in the interests of young people. At the end of the day, that is what I think it is all about. We do have a housing shortage. We need more young people coming through the training sector, getting apprenticeships, and I genuinely believe the Construction Industry Training Board plays a major part within that.

Again, my politics may be a little bit different but I just want to see the best outcome for young people. I understand what the opposition is trying to do, and I just want to put on record that I will be supporting the amendments of the opposition because I firmly believe that that is in the best interests of young people coming through a system that should not be politicised with appointments. I think it really should be about how we get more young people into a training pathway and, again, that starts at the school level.

I think the CITB has done a wonderful job over many years in promoting that and doing exactly what I am talking about. Going forward, I obviously want to encourage more young people to look at apprenticeships and trades because there is a serious pipeline there and opportunities where young people can make very good futures for themselves, for their families and the community that they are involved in. With those brief comments, I conclude my remarks.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (20:30): I thank the members for Morialta, Unley and Mount Gambier for their contributions and take this opportunity again to put on the record my thanks to the team at PEG Consulting, particularly for the hard work that they did on the review of the act, which of course was a requirement of the act that this occur. It was a very large piece of work, as has been alluded to by the other people who have spoken on this bill this evening.

There were 45 submissions from stakeholders, and a lot of those stakeholders are absolutely vital cogs in the skills and training machine of our state. I want to thank them for taking the time to put in such considered submissions to make sure that the review that was ultimately presented to me as the minister by PEG Consulting was a very thorough one with, I think, some very sensible recommendations.

I might just quickly touch on one thing that the member for Mount Gambier said, and then I will conclude my remarks. The Doorways2Construction is a fantastic example of a very fine program that has been around for a long time, and it continues to thrive. I have had the joy, as minister, on at least two or perhaps three occasions to go out and see students—I think on those occasions from Salisbury High School—present to the community the work they had done on restoring properties.

On one occasion, I think it might have been the first occasion for me as minister, it was an old Housing SA property that had fallen into disrepair and needed some work done so that it could be used again by some members of the community who needed public housing. These young students at Salisbury High School had done an immense amount of work on restoring it to look incredible. If you are looking for a really heartwarming story around using and teaching young people skills that will lead to a fantastic job in an area where there is a lot of really high demand in the state and, at the same time, making sure that there is an incredible outcome for people who are struggling with housing, I cannot think of a better example than that.

I know that everyone in this chamber supports Doorways2Construction, but I will just thank all those who did all the hard work to bring us to this point here today where we can make some very sensible changes to the Construction Industry Training Fund Act and modernise it in areas that are, I think, welcome and overdue. I will conclude my remarks there.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clauses 1 to 5 passed.

Clause 6.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I move:

Amendment No 1 [Gardner–2]—

Page 4, after line 42—After inserted subsection (1) insert:

(1aaa) However, a person who is an employee or officer of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union must not be appointed as a member or deputy of a member of the Board.

This is an amendment that will ensure that a person who is an employee or an officer of the CFMEU must not be appointed as a member or a deputy of a member of the board. The Construction Industry Training Board is an important government board. It makes important decisions about the expenditure of nearly $30 million—soon to be more than $30 million—of industry funds.

These funds need to be applied for best purpose for the industry, for our construction sector, for employment and for young people seeking to get access to important pathways into work, whether they be VET in schools programs, Doorways2Construction, whether they be the support of apprenticeships or traineeships, or whether they be the other functions of the board that enable our construction sector to be best supported by the CITB.

I have no confidence in a member of the CFMEU in its current composition: their employees, their officers and certainly the people who are associated with that organisation. It has been highlighted in question time today; the Premier and the minister expressed their concerns. Let the government now show that those concerns are backed up with the force of their votes on this amendment. I commend this amendment to the house. This amendment will improve the bill and improve the governance of this board.

The CHAIR: We have just been notified of an amendment by the minister, so we are waiting to see what that is and whether it is actually going to impact on what we do here.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: That strikes me as a different amendment. I would like to deal with ours first, seeing as I tabled it first, and then after that I am happy to deal with the minister's amendment. Can I offer assistance by way of a point of order?

The CHAIR: Just resume your seat; just wait a second. Sorry, are you offering a solution?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: My suggestion, just for the record, is that we resolve the amendment that the opposition has moved already, which has been tabled and circulated in the usual fashion. Should that fail, then the minister's amendment may well be relevant for the house and we can proceed after that.

The CHAIR: Do you wish to add anything to your amendment? We are going to proceed with yours.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I have introduced my amendment and spoken to my amendment. I am urging the house to support my amendment. Obviously, I foreshadow if the house does not support my amendment then we will consider other amendments as well.

The CHAIR: Minister, do you wish to speak at all?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Thank you, Chair. The government will not be supporting the amendment from the opposition. We have an amendment of our own, which I will speak to after this has been considered. I think our own amendment is very strong and deals with the issues that were raised in the second reading contributions by the members for Unley and Morialta. There has been a lot said, as was alluded to by both of those members today and previously, around some of the behaviour that we have seen from the CFMEU and the fact that the organisation has been placed into administration.

As the members for Morialta, Unley and Mount Gambier all said, the Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport both spoke very strongly about not accepting or tolerating that kind of behaviour. We have our own amendment that will deal with that, and I think it is a more appropriate amendment for the house to consider than the one that has been placed here by the member for Morialta.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: After seeing the government's foreshadowed amendment, it is a compromise and it is obviously a political compromise. The opposition's amendment is very clear. We do not know where the CFMEU is going to end up in administration. It may be disbanded. It might not even exist, which makes the proposed amendment from the minister superfluous.

What I learned by attending the rally today is that one of the speakers told the group that members of the CFMEU who have been sacked by the administrator have been banned from participating in any activities for life. Does this amendment of the government stop somebody like that from being appointed to this body? If it does not, then it is inadequate. It is very clear that while the CFMEU is in action and while it is operating as a union and a team of gangsters, it is not appropriate for such an organisation to have a representative on what is effectively a government board.

The committee divided on the amendment:

Ayes 12

Noes 22

Majority 10

AYES

NOES

PAIRS

Amendment thus negatived.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I move:

After inserted subsection (1) insert:

(1aaa) Any employee or officer of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) must not be appointed as a Member or Deputy Member to the board whilst that Union is in administration under the terms of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 of the Commonwealth.

I do not feel the need to explain it too much because we have covered this territory already. The opposition proposed their amendment and that has been defeated. Our amendment is in some ways similar but it is not the same. We are proposing that the term stand for the length that the union that we are naming in this amendment is in administration, as per the terms of the federal act under which they have been placed in administration. I commend the amendment to the house.

The CHAIR: Member for Morialta, do you wish to speak to it?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Yes, and I indicate my appreciation for the opportunity to do so. This amendment, in my view, is inferior to the one offered earlier because, while we were offering a solution to improve the bill for the duration of the bill, this amendment improves the bill only for a shorter period of time potentially unless, of course, the CFMEU was to be in administration in perpetuity. We are confident that ours would have done a better job. The minister has offered a compromise. It improves the bill from what it was. It does not improve the bill as much as we would have liked but, nevertheless, as it does give some improvement to the bill we will support it.

Mr BELL: I also indicate that I will be supporting the amendment to the bill.

The CHAIR: Member for Unley, your wisdom please.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: I have a question for the minister. Does this amendment prohibit the CITB from employing a former employee or a current employee or officer of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: This bill, and indeed the act that it is seeking to amend, does not deal and never has, on my understanding, with arrangements around employees of the actual Construction Industry Training Board.

Amendment carried.

The committee divided on the clause as amended:

Ayes 24

Noes 10

Majority 14

AYES

NOES

PAIRS

Clause as amended thus passed.

Remaining clauses (7 to 29), schedule and title passed.

Bill reported with amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (20:56): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

I have a few final comments. Again, I thank all those who were part of all the work that occurred over a very long period of time to bring us to this point with amendments to what is a really important piece of legislation, particularly given where we are as a state at the moment in terms of both the enormous opportunity that lies before us and also the challenges that are there as well, which almost in every case come back to workforce. I think it is important that we are all pulling in the same direction as a sector and also that we have a modernised piece of legislation, as is the case here with the amendments that we have made, that gives us the best opportunity of growing the workforce particularly in the areas where the economy needs it.

I want to single out again for thanks PEG Consulting who I thought did a really thorough piece of work. The feedback that we had from stakeholders was that they felt heard, which is the most important thing. What is hopefully soon to be passed here today I think is very true to the report that was handed to us by PEG Consulting. We have accepted the vast majority of the recommendations that were made.

I look forward to, I hope, being in this role long enough to see some of the benefits that flow from amending this act and I hope it serves the state and the skills and training demands of our state well now and into the future.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (20:58): I speak on the third reading of the Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill noting that there has been a change to the bill as a result of an amendment passed by this chamber a few minutes ago. It is worth noting that since the change in government, the new government had indeed appointed a delegate, a representative of the CFMEU, to the Construction Industry Training Board. Today, the government has been forced, albeit in an amendment that was a compromise from the government, into a position where that would not be able to happen as a result of that change. That is a good change.

The government has been forced to block the CFMEU from participation on this board for at least the period of time while they are under administration. I reflect on and appreciate that improvement to the bill. We would have liked to see the bill improved further; nevertheless, I am pleased with that improvement. I also reflect that the vast majority of the measures in the bill, other than the change in the composition of the board, which the opposition expressed its view on, are by and large improvements to the act, so the opposition will support the bill.

Bill read a third time and passed.