Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

This particular bill is an important nation-building initiative. It has been enthusiastically embraced by the community, by industry and by employers. It is offering education and training that has not been previously available to students.

The initiative is one of many, which demonstrates the government’s commitment to addressing skills and the skills needs of this nation. It is also raising the profile of vocational technical education. It is part of a record expenditure by this government. In fact, no other government in Australia’s history has spent as much money on vocational and technical education as this government has—over $2½ billion in this calendar year and some $10.8 billion in the current quadrennium, and rising.

This government is now giving more money to state governments than ever before. A lot of the distribution issues about how much money goes to TAFE are in the hands of state governments, and a lot of well-founded complaints by some on the other side are about funding for state government owned TAFE institutes in the hands of state governments, who show a preference for building large supportive bureaucracies rather than actually providing education and training opportunities. State governments are the ones who decide that at their local TAFE, if they do not have sufficient numbers, they will not start a course. If a TAFE needs, say, 15 to start a course but only 12 sign up, the 12 are turned away. It is called unmet demand. That is what state governments do day in and day out in their ongoing management of TAFE.

Another thing is forgotten in this discussion. I refer back to the principal act that we are amending here tonight. The bill is about bringing the funding forward to provide greater flexibility in the execution of the Australian technical college program. The key thing that those opposite forget is that the Australian technical college program is a ‘before you leave school’ experience; it is for year 11 and year 12 students.

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