Coulton’s Catch Up 2nd February

 Prior to the Federal Election in 2013 the Coalition made a commitment to hold a review of the Fair Work Laws. The Productivity Commission will undertake this review and has now called for submissions from the public. This independent review will assess the operation of the Fair Work framework and consider options for improvement before…

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Growing stronger regions across the nation

 REGIONAL Development Australia (RDA) will greatly benefit from new appointments to each of its committees. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development Warren Truss said the three-year appointments will provide leadership to RDA organisations to develop a model where all three tiers of government work together. “The RDA committees can play a…

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Coulton’s Catch Up 26th January

 Businesses in the Parkes Electorate are able to apply for support to boost the skills in their workforce with applications now open for the new $476 million Industry Skills Fund. The fund will provide up to 200,000 training places and skills advice for businesses over the next four years. The Industry Skills Fund is a…

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Training Complaints Hotline

 Federal Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton has said that vocational education and training (VET) students now have a complaints hotline to bring rogue training providers to the attention of regulators. “Our Government is taking firm action to crack down on unscrupulous and misleading behaviour by some training providers and brokers, and this one-stop-shop hotline will…

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Coulton’s Catch Up 19th January

 The benefits stemming from Australia’s Free Trade Agreement with Japan will be felt right across regional Australia with local businesses and consumers set to reap the rewards of the deal. The landmark Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement (JAEPA) entered into force last week. This means more than 97 per cent of Australia’s goods exports to Japan…

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Coulton’s Catch Up 12th November

 In December last year, Minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson issued a new direction to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to increase efforts to monitor pricing and profits in the fuel industry over the next three years. These monitoring reports will be useful evidence for identifying where fuel pricing has not responded to…

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Rogue Operators targeted with new regulations

 Federal Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, has said that new regulations introduced by the Federal Government and effective from 1 January 2015 are targeted at rogue operators within the training sector. Mr Coulton said that there had been cases within the Electorate where training brokers had employed unscrupulous practices to sign prospective students up. “Most…

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MUSIC AND THEATRE TAKE TO REGIONAL STAGES

 Minister for the Arts, Senator the Hon George Brandis QC, has announced over $2 million in funding to bring music, theatre and other arts experiences to regional and remote Australians. Federal Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, welcomed the Australian Government’s funding for performance arts to tour in regional Australia. “$340,783 will be provided to Circus…

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