Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bernardi again, and he who squeaks the loudest over there did absolutely nothing when he had the opportunity to do so.

This government is deeply concerned about reports of unscrupulous behaviour by brokers, such as students being lured into expensive, unsuitable training courses. That is why we are beefing up the ability of ASQA to maintain the highest standards in the skills and training sector.

ASQA will ensure that new national provider standards, recently signed into law, will be upheld. We have committed more than $68 million to bolster ASQA's capacity to implement the new standards and provide a risk based approach to regulation—the ability to crack down on serious breaches and to ensure that high-quality training providers have the autonomy to spend more time skilling the workers of the future. This is in absolutely stark contrast to the previous government, which bequeathed to ASQA a so-called cost-recovery model but which, in effect, left it without the funding required to carry out its functions—another failure. (Time expired)