Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bernardi. I have to say: red tape reduction and simplification is a passion of this side of politics. The educative role, though, of ASQA is incredibly important. That's certainly based on the feedback that you have received from your constituents and certainly the feedback that I have received, but also the feedback that state and territory skills ministers have received. We discussed this at our recent skills ministers meeting. The educative role that ASQA is adopting will ensure, and it's deliberately designed to ensure, that small business owners are better supported to understand their compliance obligations, because often it is just a misunderstanding of what they need to do that causes their breach of the legislation. At a recent meeting, as I said, of Commonwealth and state skills ministers—and this included both Labor and coalition ministers—it was unanimously agreed that it was important for ASQA to adopt an educative role. This will be a significant step— (Time expired)