Beaumont Carol: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):I rise to speak on clauses 1 2 and 3 of the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill as well. I think that the title is important. I do want to acknowledge the point that Grant Robertson said which was that including the words “and Apprenticeships” in the title is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that another irony about this bill is that on the back of reviewing industry training on the back of some really hard yards that have been undertaken by industry training organisations to look at how they need to function to go forward and provide industry training and apprenticeships that we need as a country—that we desperately need as a country—what is happening with this particular bill will undermine their ability to do that. It will undermine the “industry” bit of industry training. That is the irony here because instead of industry training organisations providing industry training we will now have corporate training. We will fund as Dr Woods has said and we will put public moneys into organisations other than industry training organisations to provide industry training.The fact of that is what that will lead to is not industry training but training that will be relevant to the particular business that is undertaking it. We know what that looks like. That will be training that is specific to the particular ways that that business operates and the particular needs machinery and technology that it uses and not to what is needed across the whole industry. The real risk for the people undertaking the training is that they will not end up with qualifications that they will be able to take with them in the industry. They will end up with qualifications that are narrowly focused on particular businesses.I do think it is absolutely vital that people understand what is being suggested here because we know and we would all agree that there are real skills shortages in this country. Labour has long been a party that stands for skills training and that stands for apprenticeships because we understand and know as do most New Zealanders just how vital those trades and technical skills are. How important are they for our manufacturing industry? How important are they for us in terms of building and construction or infrastructure development for example? Those are some of the areas where we have got massive skills shortages. We need industry training and apprenticeships to fill those skills shortages. That is supposedly what this bill is about. There was a real opportunity and it has been missed. I think that is a crying shame.In 2008 when this Government came in there was a skills strategy in place. There had been work undertaken. It had involved industry. It had involved Business New Zealand. It had involved the Council of Trade Unions. It had involved various Government agencies—the Tertiary Education Commission the Ministry of Social Development—and a whole number of people looking at what was needed for skills across all of our industries. What was the first thing that the Government did with that? Well it chucked it out. Then it said: “Let’s not bother meeting any more to talk about these things. Let’s not talk about a skills strategy for this country.”This bill could have provided an opportunity to strengthen industry training and apprenticeships. We could have had some consensus on that. I would urge the Minister or any of the members opposite who know about this bill to explain why that opportunity has been deliberately missed. Why is it that instead of strengthening industry training organisations and instead of asking what we need as a skills strategy at an industry level across the whole country we have a bill that undermines industry training organisations that starts a path of privatising industry training and removes the ability of industry training organisations to provide a leadership role in their industry? Why? Nobody across the other side of the Chamber is willing to answer any questions in this. It is just appalling. This is vitally important for our country.