Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I think about the future of education in Australia, I don't have to look too far to see it. In Bennelong, we are very fortunate to have a great university in Macquarie University, but importantly we also have not one but two outstanding TAFE campuses: the mighty Meadowbank Campus and the extraordinary Ryde TAFE, right in the middle of the electorate. Both of these campuses are hubs of opportunity, growth and innovation, and have been so for decades.

Every day Meadowbank TAFE and Ryde TAFE help people to change their lives. They are where students from all walks of life—school leavers, career changers, parents returning to the workforce and lifelong learners—come to gain skills they need for better jobs, better pay and better careers. On these campuses, students are learning to build, create, care and innovate. They're training to become nurses, chefs, electricians, IT specialists, tech workers and, importantly, early childhood educators. These are the skills that we'll need to keep our economy running and growing. These are the workers who'll help us transition to a renewable future, who'll build our homes, who'll staff our tech industry and who'll build the infrastructure that Bennelong and Australia need to thrive.

TAFEs, like Meadowbank and Ryde, are pillars of our community. They embody the values that we hold dear in Bennelong: opportunity, fairness and the belief that education is a pathway to a brighter future, and they give us real examples of the profound impact that occurs when we invest in people not just for their benefit but for the benefit of our whole society. Since we've come to office, fee-free TAFE has been a game changer. In just 18 months, fee-free TAFE has changed the lives of more than half a million Aussies; 508,000 people have accessed this extraordinary policy in training and education, setting them on a path to well-paid and secure jobs. They're real people with real stories—a single mum retraining to be an aged care nurse, a young tradie who we need to build more homes and people like Clare from Ryde, who has retrained to become an accountant with the ambition to start her own small business.

The Free Tafe Bill 2024 that we're debating today locks in that great Labor TAFE policy and seeks to make it permanent. It'll mean that more people, regardless of their background, will have the chance to gain the skills they need for better pay and a better life. Permanent free TAFE is our answer to the skills crisis that has plagued Australia for too long. Industries across the board are crying out for skilled workers. Childcare centres need early educators, aged care homes need carers, construction sites need tradies and tech businesses, many of which are in my electorate, need tech workers. By providing free training we're not just providing cost-of-living relief; we're helping address skills shortages in industries that we know need support. We're bringing everyone to the table to build a TAFE system that works for Australia—its students, educators, industry and employers—because we don't want to go through another skills crisis in our modern and changing economy. Nine in 10 new jobs over the next decade will require post-school study, and half of these will need vocational education and training. Fee-free TAFE ensures that we will be ready to meet this demand.

But, while this government is driving forward, the opposition wants to drag us back. Let's be real about what's at stake here. Under the Liberals and Nationals, they have made their stance clear. They don't believe in this bill. They don't believe in TAFE. Their actions—and their lack of action when they were in government—speak volumes about their priorities. When in government, we're committed to removing barriers to education. The coalition record was the opposite. They slashed $3 billion from the VET system, and they left us with one of the largest skills shortages in the OECD. Under their watch, housing projects stalled because there weren't enough workers to lay the foundations, and today we all know we're still catching up. Hospitality businesses were struggling to get the baristas, chefs and staff they needed to grow post-pandemic, and many businesses were forced to look overseas to fill skills gaps that should have been filled by trained Aussies. This wasn't an accident. This was a direct result of the short-sighted policies under the former government.

When the Leader of the Opposition and the Liberals talk about vocational education today, it's not to support it; it's to dismantle it. The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party called fee-free TAFE wasteful spending. Tell that to the aged-care nurse who's retraining to provide really important care. Tell that to the early childhood educator shaping young minds. Tell that to the tech worker building the digital economy that we need for the future. The fact that they find TAFE wasteful spending tells me that they don't value the vital role that TAFE plays in our communities nor do they understand the economic and social benefits that a TAFE education brings. The Liberals' approach to vocational education reflects a broader problem that they have. They don't believe in investing in young people. They don't trust in Australians' aspirations, and they certainly don't see TAFE as a way to change people's lives and increase people's wages. Under their vision, or lack thereof, older workers looking to retrain will be left behind. Their decades of experience will be wasted because they might not be able to afford access to the education they need to re-enter the workforce. Young people eager to step into that tradie job will be locked out because they might not have the $5,000 or $10,000 they need to train in TAFE.

This isn't just a hypothetical; we saw this happen under their watch. They devalued TAFE. They cut funding to the VET sector. The coalition continues to send a clear message that they do not believe in TAFE. That's not the Australia I believe in. It's not the Australia that the Labor Party believes in. Their approach is one of destruction. They view public TAFEs as a liability, not an asset, and they treat Australians' aspirations as an inconvenience and not an opportunity.

So the choice before us couldn't be clearer. On this side, we have a government committed to public education, committed to fee-free TAFE, opportunity, fairness and progress. On the other side, we have an opposition that has consistently demonstrated its disdain for TAFE and the VET sector and its disregard for the aspirations of young Australians. It's not just about this policy; it's about values. It's about whether we see TAFE as the cornerstone of our skills policy and as a cornerstone of a way for people to get better jobs and better pay. It's about whether we invest in these people who want to retrain or whether we abandon them. This fee-free TAFE bill is more than just a response to immediate challenges. It's a vision for the future. It ensures that our workforce will be prepared to meet the demand from emerging industries, from renewable energy to tech jobs, advanced manufacturing, construction work and hospitality. It will provide ongoing cost-of-living relief, not through short-term handouts but through a permanent policy to provide at least 100,000 fee-free TAFE opportunities every year. It's part of our broader commitment for a future—that we want a government to tackle the big challenges that face our nation, whether it's to ease cost-of-living relief pressures, to address climate change or to strengthen our care systems or our health system. We're focused everyday on delivering for Aussies, particularly in Bennelong. Fee-free TAFE is just one example of how we're doing that.

It's a policy that will create jobs, build industries and ensure that industries where there is a skills shortage it will be addressed. And it will ensure that, if you want to earn more money, you can go and do that through TAFE. It reflects our belief in the power of public education to change lives and our commitment to build a fairer and more inclusive Australia.

Debate interrupted.

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