Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

that gives every Australian the opportunity to get ahead. I'm pleased to inform the House that more than 500,000 Australians have now enrolled in fee-free TAFE. That is half a million people learning in-demand skills to work in the care sector, in cybersecurity, in construction and in so many other fields in which we need those skills, easing cost-of-living pressures while helping businesses across Australia get the skilled workers they need.

On my third day as minister, I met Zoe, a young woman on her third day studying to become an early childhood educator at TAFE. Fee-free TAFE has given her the opportunity to study to do such an important job: caring for and educating our youngest children. And now, when she begins her career, she will get to earn more and keep more of what she earns thanks to the Albanese Labor government—the government which has backed a 15 per cent wage increase for our early childhood education and care workers. This pay rise, combined with fee-free TAFE courses, means that there has never been a better time to become an early childhood educator.

Working with the states and territories—a foreign concept to those opposite—the Albanese government is seeing more than 10,000 people enrol in fee-free TAFE courses for child care. Unfortunately, those opposite, like the member for Farrer, believe fee-free TAFE is wasteful spending. They are wrong. There is nothing wasteful about training childhood educators. There is nothing wasteful about delivering cost-of-living relief to those who need it the most. There is nothing wasteful about investing in Australia's future—in a future made in Australia.

The member for Farrer has not asked one question in question time about this portfolio in the two years that she has been the shadow minister. More than that, her leader, the Leader of the Opposition, hasn't used the word 'TAFE' in this place since 2004—not since Facebook came into existence! It's as though they are allergic to seeing Australians getting cost-of-living relief and the skills they need while earning higher wages. But as we approach National Skills Week, the Albanese government is getting on with the job, investing in our workforce of the future to tackle the things that matter: getting to net zero, a Future Made in Australia, building homes, and of course making child care work for our families and for early childhood educators, who work for our children's future.

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