Senator CROWLEY —My question is directed to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Can you confirm that NETTFORCE has been a highly successful initiative in terms of providing opportunities for traineeships? If this is the case, why is it your intention to close down NETTFORCE?

Senator VANSTONE —The answer to your question, Senator, depends on what your definition of successful is. There has been a very genuine effort on the part of the NETTFORCE board, which, as you will know, includes the former Premier of Victoria Joan Kirner, Lindsay Fox, Bill Kelty and a number of other people who have made a very determined and conscientious effort to fulfil the task that they were given. As a consequence of their efforts and those of others, some training companies have been set up to develop programs, traineeships. Some of them have been very substantially more successful than others.

Senator Bob Collins —What were the results?

Senator VANSTONE —That experiment has had its chance to run and we can now see—

Senator Carr —What is the evidence?

Senator VANSTONE —The evidence is the number of traineeships.

Senator Crowley —Will you answer the question?

Senator VANSTONE —Senator Crowley, you can get an answer for this—or do you want me to answer all the interjections from everyone else? You make the choice. You ought to bring your colleagues into line here. If you are interested in the answer to your question, which it appears that you are, you might ask your colleagues to button up and stop trying to jump the queue and ask other questions. I will stay focused on you and just give you the answer.

The performance of the training companies is fairly obvious. Some will obviously survive and flourish; others will disappear because they have not been as successful. I cannot imagine that you, Senator Crowley, would disagree with that. Where a company has been successful and is working well, we would obviously want to use the expertise that has been created and the opportunities that have been generated. Companies that have not been successful can drift into the sunset. This is the business—as you well know; you have had some experience of it—of governments. You try something. When it works you keep it going. If it doesn't, you don't. It is as simple as that. That is the answer with respect to the board and the arrangements, without, for example, looking at what our policies might be.

You might well be aware that we want to modernise the apprenticeship and traineeship scheme, and that will require some different arrangements. It is a sad story for you that you lost government and that we are now going to implement our policies. That means some changes will have to be made. We are not scuttling the traineeships—not at all. We want there to be more opportunities for apprenticeships and traineeships for young Australians. But we are entitled in the development and implementation of our policy to say that there will be other arrangements for promoting these things.

NETTFORCE was suitable at the time for your arrangements. But we have new arrangements which we think will create many more opportunities for young Australians. I think you will see some legislation outlining at least partly the basis of the modernised apprenticeship and traineeship scheme very soon in the other place. You will then be able to see what the benefits will be for young Australians.

The short answer is that NETTFORCE was set up by your government. Those people did some very good work. They were very conscientious; I have no doubt about that. But across party lines there is an agreement that we all have to do everything we can to create real opportunities and provide decent traineeships for young Australians. The sad fact that you need to remember is that your lot lost the election. Our policies are now going to be introduced and the modernised apprenticeship and traineeship scheme is the central plank of the vocational education and training opportunities that we are going to create for young Australians, and we believe that that will require different arrangements. We are working on what those arrangements will be—but we are satisfied that the NETTFORCE board will not be a part of those arrangements.

Senator CROWLEY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, you referred to your answer as depending on what the definition of success is. Is it not true that NETTFORCE figures show that even in the last nine months traineeship vacancies have trebled on the previous year to 28,931? Did you not say in your letter to Lindsay Fox that NETTFORCE had `contributed to the considerable growth in traineeship numbers which we are now experiencing in 1996'. Why then are you closing it down? What formal evaluation have you had done, particularly by the department—

The PRESIDENT —The honourable senator's time has expired.

Senator Robert Ray —On a point of order, Mr President: the clock was never set, so the time did not expire. I think there is a difficulty there.

The PRESIDENT —I think you had finished your question, had you not, Senator Crowley?

Senator CROWLEY —I just want to make clear the last sentence. Why then are you closing it down? What formal evaluation have you done, particularly by the department, and will you publish that evaluation?

Senator VANSTONE —I will try to spell it out a bit more clearly for you. I want to say two things to you. Let me see if I can get you to understand them, because they are fairly simple. The first thing is that in my original answer to you I acknowledged the good work and dedication of NETTFORCE board members. In your supplementary question you queried why I had said that they had made a significant contribution. It was simply because they had. I would have thought that was obvious from my first answer. You can go back and have a look at it.

The second point is that you seem to think, Senator, that in order to make a change we have to have an evaluation done and come and ask for your approval.

Senator Schacht —But in your first answer you said you were having one. That was your answer.

Senator VANSTONE —Let me tell you what the evaluation of the community was of your government. It was that you were not doing well enough. You got evaluated. Once every few years we go to the electorate and we ask them what they think—and they thought your time was up. And it is now time for us to introduce our policies. (Time expired)