Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, the way you promote the ABCC sounds like the Liberal-National version of 'alternative facts'. Encouraging apprenticeships is not the same as requiring apprenticeships. You have attempted to hose down concerns that apprentices will not lose out under the Building Code. But that is the reality here.

Minister, you quoted clause 11(3)(a) and you said to us that it states 'encourage the employment of apprentices'. There is nothing about certainty in terms of numbers. We know that numbers of apprenticeship are crashing around the country. That is what you emphasised, Minister: encouraging apprenticeships. What is prohibited from the code is any clause which requires the employment of a certain number of apprentices. That is what we are losing, and that is why I called it 'alternative facts'. That is the scam you are running. You know that there is concern about apprentices and you know that that is a concern shared by many of the crossbenchers. You are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by saying, 'We're encouraging it.' It is absolutely meaningless. It is your version of alternative facts.

We know how serious this can be because there has actually been—