Dr LIM - 2004-10-14
While your government engages in the systematic abuse of the taxpayers’ purse to fund Labor’s …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you cannot accuse the government of a systematic abuse of taxpayers.
Dr LIM: Well, while the government is using taxpayers’ money to fund Labor’s re-election campaign, real issues are being ignored. Fifteen bakery and pastry cooking apprentices …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I still do not understand the inference being made here that we are using taxpayers’ funds to re-elect this government. He needs to put up or withdraw.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, reword your question. Just say what you want to say.
Dr LIM: Let me ask the question, Madam Speaker.
Fifteen bakery and pastry cooking apprentices at the Palmerston Campus of the Charles Darwin University have been told that their instructor had to leave Darwin urgently, and that their course will not continue for the remainder of the year. Some of these apprentices have only six months of their course left to complete. They now find that they have to defer their course for another year. One has lost a job that he had lined up in France. How will you reassure these 15 apprentices that they can continue their course uninterrupted?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I am happy to give an absolutely unequivocal assurance that this will continue. The students in question are currently doing their block at Palmerston. That block will finish on Friday, 15 October. No trainer has left - let us get this straight. The trainer is currently teaching the block. No swot break, exam breaks or holiday breaks are scheduled by the university between these blocks. The apprentices will be returning to work, as normal, on completion of the current block, and then returning for the next block, which is deferred for one month. The next block has been moved back a month, from 25 October to 5 November, and is now taking place on 22 November, due to the fact that the trainer has to take a brief period off for important, but unforeseen, personal business.
No one’s training is, has been, or will be at stake on this issue. Apprentices are to be advised during this block about the changes that will occur, and a letter has been sent to all employers in relation to the deferred block.
Regarding any issue here - and there is not one - the fact is that CDU and DEET have responded properly, immediately and appropriately to an unforeseen circumstance where the instructor, for reasons unforeseen, has to have this time out. Therefore, we have seen a slippage of one month - a very limited impact in the effect on apprentices and employees. There has been no impact at all on final completion date of apprentices.
Therefore, when he talks about the apprentice having lost the opportunity for employment in France, I do not think he is being told the full story from the particular individual. That is the advice I have. I trust that advice implicitly. DEET and CDU have done everything they possibly can here. The unforeseen is that block training has slipped one month. How that could possibly have affected the employment prospects, when I do not believe the apprentice was going to be completing in November anyway, is beyond me.
If the member has other information of a personal nature - and I do not go into individual cases on the floor of this parliament, for good reasons – or more pertinent, or something that I am not aware of, I would ask him to bring it to me, because I certainly do not want to see anyone disadvantaged. However, my advice is that no one is being disadvantaged.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you cannot accuse the government of a systematic abuse of taxpayers.
Dr LIM: Well, while the government is using taxpayers’ money to fund Labor’s re-election campaign, real issues are being ignored. Fifteen bakery and pastry cooking apprentices …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I still do not understand the inference being made here that we are using taxpayers’ funds to re-elect this government. He needs to put up or withdraw.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, reword your question. Just say what you want to say.
Dr LIM: Let me ask the question, Madam Speaker.
Fifteen bakery and pastry cooking apprentices at the Palmerston Campus of the Charles Darwin University have been told that their instructor had to leave Darwin urgently, and that their course will not continue for the remainder of the year. Some of these apprentices have only six months of their course left to complete. They now find that they have to defer their course for another year. One has lost a job that he had lined up in France. How will you reassure these 15 apprentices that they can continue their course uninterrupted?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I am happy to give an absolutely unequivocal assurance that this will continue. The students in question are currently doing their block at Palmerston. That block will finish on Friday, 15 October. No trainer has left - let us get this straight. The trainer is currently teaching the block. No swot break, exam breaks or holiday breaks are scheduled by the university between these blocks. The apprentices will be returning to work, as normal, on completion of the current block, and then returning for the next block, which is deferred for one month. The next block has been moved back a month, from 25 October to 5 November, and is now taking place on 22 November, due to the fact that the trainer has to take a brief period off for important, but unforeseen, personal business.
No one’s training is, has been, or will be at stake on this issue. Apprentices are to be advised during this block about the changes that will occur, and a letter has been sent to all employers in relation to the deferred block.
Regarding any issue here - and there is not one - the fact is that CDU and DEET have responded properly, immediately and appropriately to an unforeseen circumstance where the instructor, for reasons unforeseen, has to have this time out. Therefore, we have seen a slippage of one month - a very limited impact in the effect on apprentices and employees. There has been no impact at all on final completion date of apprentices.
Therefore, when he talks about the apprentice having lost the opportunity for employment in France, I do not think he is being told the full story from the particular individual. That is the advice I have. I trust that advice implicitly. DEET and CDU have done everything they possibly can here. The unforeseen is that block training has slipped one month. How that could possibly have affected the employment prospects, when I do not believe the apprentice was going to be completing in November anyway, is beyond me.
If the member has other information of a personal nature - and I do not go into individual cases on the floor of this parliament, for good reasons – or more pertinent, or something that I am not aware of, I would ask him to bring it to me, because I certainly do not want to see anyone disadvantaged. However, my advice is that no one is being disadvantaged.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016