Martin Tracey: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMartin Tracey: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16796. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First):For a moment I thought the whole conversation about this very important Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill was going to draw to a very rapid close so I appreciate the call. New Zealand First did support the bill with the amendments from the Education and Science Committee. The select committee is a very collegial select committee. It is well chaired by Dr Cam Calder. The members try very hard to work together to create legislation to have things that come out of the select committee that are to the benefit of all New Zealanders. So it was very unfortunate that at the end of the day there were two main pieces inside the bill that we could not support.We are happy to see the amendments made around the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Of the submitters who provided verbal submissions to us as well as their written submissions there were several who had major concerns about the New Zealand Qualifications Authority because the way that the bill was written in the first instance meant that the authority could possibly start making some dictatorial comments or have influence over the people inside the governance structure of the industry training organisations.It was made very very clear to the select committee that the industry training organisations must be governed by people who come out of their industries. They must be directed by and have that continual link back to the industries that they are providing the training for. So the amendment was made to make sure. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority was I believe very supportive of the amendment. It was not the authority’s intention to get into the area of trying to hand-pick people who should govern but merely to make sure that the structure of that governance is solid so that the qualifications and the service delivered by the industry training organisations can be relied upon and can be a high-trust model for parents for apprentices and for the businesses for which they are training the future workforce.It was very interesting. For a moment there when I was listening to the new Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Sam Lotu-Iiga read from his prepared notes I thought I was losing my mind but I am pleased to have been supported by Grant Robertson in the fact that actually that was a very clever spin. There was a very clever spin inside the Minister’s speech there—I give him many many points for that—around the skills provision. It was around the industry training organisations retaining the other area that we have been unable to support the skills leadership function being stripped away. I say “stripped away” because of course the industry training organisations can still do skills leadership if they want to but nobody’s name is on it as a responsibility under this legislation. The argument on the Opposition side is that if nobody’s name is on it whom are you going to hold accountable? The only thing we could find out during the conversation at the select committee was that there was some form of cost saving there. We cannot find any other reason.Colin King: That’s a negative thought to have.TRACEY MARTIN: Perhaps Mr King when he stands to take a call—Colin King: I most certainly will.TRACEY MARTIN: That would be really constructive for the rest of the House. Why have we decided to make nobody responsible for skills leadership now? It was never forbidden for anybody else to do skills leadership but the role was deliberately given to the industry training organisations that they must do some skills leadership work inside those industries.The other area where we have been unable to support the bill is around the direct funding for industry training. It is actually another situation and another solution that nobody wanted. Nobody came to the select committee to submit that that was something they wanted. It was one of the recommendations out of the 2012 review. Many of the recommendations out of the 2012 review have been implemented and the select committee recognises that. The industry training organisations recognise that there has been some substantial improvement in the whole area of industry training provision and again I believe in the trust model being developed through more cohesive industry training delivery by organisations private training establishments and the industry itself. But not a single submitter actually came to ask for direct funding. Even the officials mentioned a trial that had been put in place with some businesses where not one of those businesses at the end of that trial had put their hand up to continue because it is so complex and because it is not actually something they wanted to get into.So again if nobody wanted it why does the National Government believe it needs to be put inside this piece of legislation? Dr Calder actually alluded in his short comments on this bill to the reasons we see it in there. No. 1 is that yes it did come out of the review. But just because something comes out of a review where you have got 13 recommendations and you have implemented 12 of them that does not mean you have to implement the last one just for the hell of it. Dr Calder said it would provide a “threat”—and I actually think that is the only word to use—to industry training organisations to keep them in line. This is a provision that could be used by a business if an industry training organisation does not pull its socks up and make sure that it stays on the mark.The fact is that those businesses can already complain to the Minister responsible and that those businesses can actually already change providers if they are unhappy with them. There are mechanisms that are currently in place. It is a little bit like charter schools. We are having the same conversations we had around charter schools. All that flexibility is still there inside the existing legislation. We do not need another piece of flexibility there—there are already solutions to this particular problem. It was the view of New Zealand First that these particular changes needed to be held out of legislation. Let the massive changes that have taken place to industry training organisations around this provision of delivery bed in. If we need to there is nothing to stop the House 2 or 3 years after a review of the current changes to industry training organisations from actually going back and saying: “OK that didn’t work. Let’s add something else.” But there has already been a massive restructure.There is not much else to say really about the bill. We are very very pleased to see the removal of ageism in the bill. We commend the Government for that stand. But we are disappointed that there is no recognition in this legislation or in any legislation coming into the House that there is actually still a major barrier to taking on apprentices for small and medium sized businesses. Small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of the New Zealand economy particularly in rural areas. I am referring to the fact that a hairdresser for example has a $500 fee per year per apprentice that they must pay for the privilege of actually taking on a young person—or a person of any age now—and training them into that industry.New Zealand First would have liked to see some more conversation some more incentives and some more discussion around how—if we are asking for more and more of our student body and more and more of our community to be able to go out and be educated inside the workforce thereby gaining less debt at the other end—we can just through small provisions that remove barriers like that fee incentivise small and medium sized businesses particularly to take on more apprentices. It is our view that those businesses in those communities particularly rural communities very much want to participate in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme particularly in hard times—as the Government keeps pointing out they have been hard times—but this $500 fee per year per apprentice is a continual barrier. That is just one of the industry training organisations and one of the apprenticeships that this barrier applies to and there are a variety of fees across the board. So unfortunately no matter how collegial the select committee was those two things make it impossible for New Zealand First to support this bill.