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

The completion data from 2023 or 2024 will be reported by the custodian in 2027, so drawing conclusions on this year's data and last year's data simply doesn't make sense—like pretty much everything the shadow minister says. Students are still completing their studies. Students are starting their studies.

Fee-free TAFE has been operating in Victoria since 2019, so there is four years of data there, and the shadow minister and members opposite might want to have regard to that. The NCVER there shows that fee-free TAFE completions are higher than university completions. They are also higher than those of the VET system more generally. The evidence from Victoria and the data custodian is that free TAFE is doing its job. If 508,000 Australians agree, why doesn't the opposition?

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