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The contribution of the Queensland Centre to the national research project of ALNARC was designed to be conducted in two phases. Phase 1 involved a general survey of the uptake of training packages in Queensland. The purpose of this phase was to provide some general background data which would assist in building a national picture of some of the issues, processes and timing related to the application of training packages. Secondly, the survey allowed for a familiarisation with issues and key players in the state. Phase 2 was a case study of one or more sites within a selected industry. There are a number of reasons why the civil construction industry was selected as an appropriate industry to investigate the effects of inclusion of literacy and numeracy within one industry's training package on the quality of learning and work outcomes. Firstly, civil construction competencies had been in development since the early nineteen nineties; secondly, literacy and numeracy competencies were integrated into the standards; thirdly, the civil construction package had been implemented by the Vocational, Education, Training and Employment Commission (VETEC), the Queensland state training authority; and finally, there was a commitment at a number of levels within the industry to base training programs on the civil construction training package. The two sites selected for examination in Phase 2 were both part of the Pacific Motorway project which was in its final stage of completion. This project involved five companies, each of which operated its own training site. Overall, 1760 workers have been employed on the Pacific Motorway project and two companies selected for this study were major employers of these workers. A feature of the contract provisions agreed upon by the signatory parties was a commitment to training workers using the civil construction training package.