20 August 2014
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Commonwealth industry minister Ian Macfarlane has announced the appointment of a five-member Vocational Education and Training Advisory Board, charged in particular with ensuring that will provide feedback to the Government as it continues reforms to the sector. The chair of the panel heads Restaurant and Catering Australia, whose RTO was initially refused re-registration last year.
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Macfarlane said the Australian Government is focussed on” ensuring industry has a stronger voice in the VET system”, so that it “is efficient and effective in delivering the job-ready workers that industry needs”. The sub-text of that is that industry doesn’t have a strong influence in VET and that it is not efficient and effective in delivering job- ready workers (see Paralysis by analysis).
The Board is made up of:
- John Hart (Chair)– Chief Executive of Restaurant and Catering Australia and a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council;
- Patrick McKendry (Deputy Chair)– CEO Careers Australia Group and former Chairman of the National Quality Council and TVET Australia;
- Tara Diamond– Executive Director, Industry Services at the Australian Mines & Metals Association;
- Dominique Fisher– Executive Chairman and Managing Director of CareerLounge; and
- Jodie Hughson– Manager for Quality, Learning and Workplace Development for Anglicare, Southern Queensland.
The Australian now reports that a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) run by Restaurant and Catering Australia was refused re-registration last year.
That decision was reversed nine months later after the training company Restaurant and Catering NSW came to an agreement following an appeals process with the national regulator in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Hart dismissed suggestions that Restaurant and Catering NSW had been refused registration.
This rejection by ASQA (Australian Skills Quality Authority) was overturned on appeal and registration granted for five years. This being the case, there was no rejection
The obvious question is, if there was no rejection, why did it end up in the AAT, which reviews “administrative decisions”?
A spokesman for ASQA said it is quite common for training organisations to use time bought by the appeals process to become compliant, but did not say whether this was the case with Restaurant and Catering Australia’s RTO.
Hart is also chairman of the North Sydney Forum, a controversial fund-raising body attached to the Liberal Party federal electoral conference in Joe Hockey’s seat of North Sydney and has been called to give evidence to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into alleged illegal political donations. .
