Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to indicate that the government does not support this amendment. It might be fantastic if we did, but that is not the view that we would share, as Senator Allison, I have no doubt, would have been able to predict. There are a number of issues with the amendment, not least of which is that it is not normal practice that a statutory body providing advice to the Australian government would receive this level of intervention from the parliament. I recall similar propositions were advanced in the previous parliament and the then opposition, the Labor Party, did not support those propositions on that occasion.

This amendment undermines the capacity of the government to respond to the skills crisis which has been left to us by the Howard government. It actually limits the capacity of the government to deal with a profoundly serious situation. The amendment is therefore counterproductive to the operational needs of Skills Australia. Skills Australia will be an advisory body which will provide independent advice to the Australian government, and I have absolute confidence that the proper procedures will be put in place to ensure that there is an appropriately qualified board to support such a measure. Not only will the members of Skills Australia not have any significant financial functions; they will not have the capacity to allocate public moneys. There are already provisions in terms of accountability in the process of appointing members, and these provisions will apply.

The government will go through a standard process of appointing members to Skills Australia via instruments of appointment processes. These are not legal instruments, primarily because Skills Australia does not operate under the Financial Management and Accountability Act. If adopted, this amendment would have quite serious implications for all statutory bodies and would lead, in our view, to a number of consequences which I do not believe the parliament would necessarily support. Skills Australia’s establishment is an important initiative and unfortunately, Senator Allison, your proposal does not meet the support of the government because it actually undermines the fundamental principles that Skills Australia is designed to provide.