Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to be here on TAFE Day to speak about Labor's commitment to TAFE in this country—100,000 new places. We will rebuild the TAFE sector that you members opposite—you Liberal-National parties—have destroyed over successive governments. It's a crying shame. Those opposite should be ashamed of themselves. What they have done to the TAFE sector is reprehensible. We on this side of parliament, Labor, will rebuild it.

I'd like to take this opportunity on TAFE Day to say thank you to the TAFE teachers around the country who put their commitment into this all-important sector. They work very hard; they train our young people and our older people. Everyone who wants to go to TAFE depends on the work and commitment of those people in administration in TAFE and those who teach in TAFE.

I also applaud the commitment of those who undertake further studies in TAFE post their secondary education, who take up the opportunity. It is an opportunity that is at very grave risk from the neglect of this Turnbull government and its failure to defend TAFE places and post-secondary education in this country.

Let's not even get started on universities. We know what the government has done to them—ripping funding out of them left, right and centre. The government makes up this 'rivers of gold' rubbish. It cannot help itself because it does not believe in the future of higher education, of post-secondary education, for the young people of this nation. Those opposite should be ashamed of themselves. (Time expired)

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