Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

But the employees and employers who went through the—if I can use the term—Dr Culvenor process got exceptionally good results. You did not need a survey because the agencies and departments wrote in saying how exceptionally good the training was. So why would you discount it? I would have thought that, in this age, even if 80 per cent of employees were to say in a survey, 'We prefer five days face to face so we can be out of the workplace for five days straight because that might actually suit our personal purposes somewhat better than other arrangements'—I do not know what the motives may have been—you would look beyond that. If 20 per cent or even 10 per cent of employees can, or prefer to, achieve the required results through other methods—and I understand that 26 per cent of the accredited courses are different but achieve the outcomes—why would you rule them out? That surely should be the test—the outcomes. If the outcomes are good, why would you say, just because some employees want something else—although, nevertheless, the outcome is good—that we are going to legislate to ensure that this particular type of delivery of training will, in effect, be outlawed? Yet again, no rational explanation has been provided.