O’Byrne must come clean over NBN spending and discrepancies

Written by on May 10, 2012 · Leave a Comment

David O’Byrne has some serious explaining to do over how five failed NBN4Business workshops and a non-functioning website could possibly have cost tax payers $140,000.*

The five workshops, of which there were originally to be 17, were stage one of the government’s much heralded but highly disappointing NBN4Business program.  According to reports today, the TCCI spent $140,000 of $250,000 in NBN4Business funds provided by the Minister, on these workshops.  This equates to on average $28,000 per workshop. Read more »

Time to put away begging bowl and grow Tasmania’s economy

Written by on May 9, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Tasmania’s kick in the guts from the Federal Budget is final confirmation that we need to throw away the begging bowl and instead focus on strengthening our economy and making Tasmania more self-reliant.

We’ll never get our fair share of Federal funding unless we actually do more to help ourselves – grow our economy, grow jobs, and stop shutting down pillar industries like forestry, as Labor and the Greens are doing. Read more »

Federal budget: Tasmania cut adrift by Gillard and Giddings

Written by on May 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Tasmania has been cut adrift by the Federal and State Labor Governments in tonight’s budget.

Ms Giddings should be embarrassed by the fact that Tasmania has gotten nothing out of this budget other than a $440 million slap in the face with a cut to the GST.  And that’s after all her bleating about the Liberal Party’s policy on fair funding for Tasmania – which was confirmed by Tony Abbott this week. Read more »

McKim must release VET review findings

Written by on May 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Mr McKim should immediately release the findings of the recent VET review.  He released the Fairbrother report into school closures immediately upon receiving it; and should do the same with this report.

It is clear the Minister is trying to avoid accountability by delaying the report’s release past the budget and estimates scrutiny processes.  What has Mr McKim got to hide? He talks about transparency but runs a mile when scrutiny doesn’t suit him.

Tasmania’s vocational education and training system is in urgent need of repair. Duplication and inefficiencies mean it is bleeding money and courses and jobs are being cut to compensate, when it is actually the structure that needs to be changed.

We cannot afford any more delays. Everyone knows the Tasmania Tomorrow experiment has failed and Mr McKim has made things worse by sitting on his hands since becoming Minister, despite his election promise to bring back TAFE.

The Liberals support a single, more efficient government training provider, a modern day TAFE that is responsive to industry. Removing the current duplication and inefficiencies would save around $7 million per annum, this is funding that could be utilized to invest more in skills and education, instead of the government approach which is to cut courses and close schools.

International student growth welcome

Written by on May 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment

We welcome the significant growth in international enrolments at UTAS campuses.  The Liberals see education as one of the five key pillars of Tasmania’s future economy. Read more »