Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will thank the member for Wills for the compliment. I'll take that. I was actually—it's unintended, but it's a good segue—going to start my speech by talking about the importance of education. I've spoken about this from my first speech in this House. When I spoke about education in my first speech, I spoke about the opportunity it created for me. It helped me build the life that I have today and the life that my family have, and with the contribution I'm able to make in this role.

I also spoke about an education system that is focused on delivering outcomes for students—delivering outcomes to set them up for success into the future. The debate and the discussion we are having, and the vote we are having, are not about whether we support education; everyone in this House supports a strong education system. The debate and the discussion that we need to have are around the detail, around whether this bill—this policy—is the best use of taxpayer money to deliver educational outcomes for students.

TAFE is an important part of our education system. I was just on the phone about 15 minutes ago to my best friend, Glen, who's an electrician. He runs his own business now. He went through the TAFE system 20-plus years ago; he's getting old, like we all are. He wouldn't be able to run the business he has today and he wouldn't be able to employ people or help apprentices without TAFE. So we're not disputing the importance of TAFE and the role it plays.

But, as he said to me—and he made a really good point—everyone that wants to be in a trade, be it electrical or plumbing, needs to go. They're required to do it, absolutely, but also, if they don't have the means, there are systems in place for them to get access to that TAFE, so money isn't an impact if they have that desire.

It does feel a little bit like Groundhog Day 2½ years into this. It was one of my favourite movies growing up back in the day, with Bill Murray as Phil Connors living that same day over and over again. Sometimes when we're in this House, when we listen to the speeches from those opposite and the bills that come in, it feels like Groundhog Day because it follows that same theme of the very catchy title that sounds really good, good spin and good lines for them but then goes to the detail. The detail is always lacking, and the process is lacking. We're at Groundhog Day; I feel like I'm going through that. For Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, by the end of the movie the big outcome for him was that he'd grown, he'd learned, he'd developed, he'd become a better person. Unfortunately, 2½ years into the first term of the Albanese Labor government, they're still at day one. They're still at day one of the spin and the big headlines but no detail and no process. I'm going to go through and explain some of the concerns.

Take the headline, for example. Let's be really clear. It's not free TAFE. It is funded by taxpayers. For every decision we make in this House, it's not the government's money. It's not the opposition's money. It's taxpayer money. So we are asking Australians to invest in something and use their money. Someone has to pay for it. What that means is that, when we spend taxpayer money, we have to make sure it's the best use of that money. There is a great economic term called 'opportunity cost'. Every business, every family, every community organisation and every government has to recognise the opportunity cost of how they spend their money.

Now, this government spends like it's not going to run out. We saw that today. When you get desperate, you have to make decisions like removing the independence of the Future Fund. You need to start using that independent organisation's money on your own priorities, and that is an economic decision that will haunt this nation and this government for years to come. The Future Fund was an important independent organisation. But it shows that money doesn't grow on trees and you have to spend it wisely. We saw the Treasurer finally yesterday have to admit that the two surpluses that he delivered were not about making choices or tough decisions. They were all on the revenue upgrades that had come over the last two years. As he said in his own words yesterday:

In each of our 4 budget updates there were $80 billion in revenue upgrades, on average.

But with the labour market softening around the edges, this trend is diminishing.

He also said:

This has been compounded by structural challenges in the Chinese economy weighing on key commodity prices – iron ore prices are down 30 per cent since the start of the year.

As a result of these factors, I can inform the House that Treasury expects any revenue upgrades in the mid-year outlook will be much smaller.

The Treasurer himself has confirmed that his two surpluses that he likes to talk about were not because of the tough choices that he made but the revenue upgrades driven by iron ore and minerals. The unemployment rate that he inherited from the former Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg—he was very happy at the start of the pandemic to say the success of the former Treasurer was unemployment. He didn't talk about unemployment when he inherited such a low rate. He also doesn't talk about how inflation, while it hurts the family budget, actually helps the government budget.

This is crucial when we have this discussion, because we need to make choices. We need to understand whether this money is the best money, and so we look at the policy process that this government has gone through. There has been no performance review on the first round of the fee-free TAFE policy that this government has put forward. The first review will not be complete until June of 2025.

So the government are prepared to use scarce resources from the taxpayer to double-down on a policy without even reviewing whether it is the best use of that money.

I'm just going to give a comparison because, as I said, opportunity cost is important. We can talk about the supposed fee-free TAFE, which is actually taxpayer funded TAFE, but these are the other policies that currently aren't being funded by the government. On Monday night this week, as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Youth Mental Health, I was proud to host Raise. Raise is an organisation that mentors young people in schools, and its funding from the department of health runs out in December this year. But Raise has done the right thing. Raise has undertaken an independent evaluation through the University of Melbourne and the Social Outcomes Lab. That independent evaluation has shown that their mentoring service delivers $4.37 in social benefits for every dollar invested. As I said, Raise is still unfunded beyond December this year. But they've got a proposal with the department of health.

But it gets even better; the offer from Raise to the Australian government is even better than that. Not only does Raise's mentoring deliver $4.37 per dollar invested; Raise have committed publicly to gaining, for every dollar of federal government funding, another $2 from their own corporate partnerships and private donors. This is the comparison we have with a government that is happy to commit significant taxpayer money with no savings offered to offset it. We're going to see the Treasurer bring down a budget next year—we'll see; that's in debate—and we're going to see four years of deficits, because the revenues have dropped. But he and the government are prepared to commit this money today without offering any savings to the budget. Unfortunately, as the Treasurer said, his luck has run out—the revenues aren't there. I'll be watching whether the Minister for Health and Aged Care commits to this funding, because if the government have so much money to commit to taxpayer funded TAFE then I'm sure there should be no problem finding the $2 million to $3 million that Raise wants, given the opportunities that are there and the evaluations this process has undergone, which this bill and this policy haven't.

When we look at the evaluation, we see these are the questions the government should be talking about. They're going to talk a lot about enrolments. They will all talk about enrolments—the member for Wills talked about enrolments. Obviously, it's important that people are enrolling, but, again, if you're going to spend taxpayer money you should be asking yourself other questions. What's the targeted graduation rate—that is, what graduation rate is the government trying to achieve based on the number of enrolments? If you don't have a target, you're never going to hit it. Enrolling is great, but do you know what's even better, Deputy Speaker? Graduating and getting a job. That should be the focus—on the outcome.

The other thing we need to look at is not the top-line number of how many people have enrolled based on this taxpayer funded subsidy but how many new students are enrolling because of this new policy. There will be situations where people were already going to enrol in TAFE. They might want to be an electrician—let's use electricians as an example. Their parents could be earning half a million dollars each. They could be really well off in the corporate sector and happy to pay for their child's TAFE. But now we're asking taxpayers on $60,000 a year to fund that. We need to understand the incremental gains, particularly in the areas of skills shortage, and then look at how many people have completed the course and what the outcome is. As I said—and this is an important one—it should be enrolments, completions and employment: how many people are actually employed in their field of study and whether it is making a tangible difference.

As I said at the start of my speech, I believe in education as an opportunity for all—but an opportunity and a system that is focused on delivering educational, employment and social outcomes for the community and for students. But if we actually look at the economics behind this policy that those opposite talk about, there are a few awkward details here, or rather a lack of details. As the member for Wills said, the detail still apparently needs to be worked out. I have spoken about the opportunity costs. But the government have found an amazing way to get around that. They've simply just not funded the project. They've decided not to fund it. As page 3 of the explanatory memorandum states:

There is no financial impact resulting from the Free TAFE Bill 2024.

The bill also says 'may not be free'. So the course may actually not be free. I must admit that I'm very confused about those opposite standing up, talking about how the government and the taxpayer are going to subsidise these TAFE places when their own explanatory memorandum says that the bill has actually got no financial impact. So I'm looking forward to those opposite explaining how you can provide a taxpayer subsidised education course to students when it's actually going to have no financial impact.

I know my good friend the member for Parramatta, who's an economist, is in the chamber. I don't think he's up next; I think he's on chamber duty. But, if he hasn't spoken, I would love the member for Parramatta, as an economist, to explain how taxpayers can subsidise a program that will have no financial impact. Even the bill says that it 'may not be free'. So it's about the headline again—groundhog day—the spin and the optics of having the Free TAFE Bill 2024. It sounds very impressive, because the government know students and they know when they put the clips out on social media that no-one's actually going to go to the bill and read, in its own words, 'may not be free'. But the headline is: 'Free TAFE Bill 2024'! I'm looking forward to seeing all the social media clips coming out about the coalition—rah-rah-rah. But look at the detail. We're at groundhog day. It may not be free!

That is the problem for the Albanese Labor government. As with many other bills that we debate in this House, 2½ years into this government, the Prime Minister talks a big game. The Treasurer, with his PhD in political science, can spin numbers. He can spin the revenue upgrades; although he's run out now, because this is the reality: you can talk a good game, but if you don't deliver it, the Australian people notice. The Australian people understand that saying something is one thing, but actually doing it and delivering outcomes for the Australian people is the most important thing. As you go through this bill, when you look at the detail, it's not going to deliver to the Australian people. (Time expired)

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