Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Free TAFE Bill 2024. Well, folks, you can see it's election time. The Albanese Labor government try and come up with big announcements but, when it comes down to the finer details, you uncover just how dodgy their ideas really are. You know education is the most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage, and it is the best investment we can make in Australia's future.

In government, the coalition invested more than $13 billion in skills over the final two years alone, representing the most significant reforms to Aussie skills in more than a decade. The coalition will oppose Labor's fee-free TAFE, because it is unfunded and could permanently increase Commonwealth spending by up to $500 million a year. So, the question is: what will Labor cut to fund this permanent commitment? Will Prime Minister Albanese make good on his commitment? Or will it be like his power price promise? Remember that, everybody? Prime Minister Albanese promised that, if he was elected, power bills would be $275 cheaper—a promise he repeated 97 times. However, since he's been elected, he cannot even say the number, and power prices have risen substantially. Remember the Prime Minister's great line, 'My word is my bond'? And, less than 48 hours later, he broke his promise and didn't even blink an eye.

So for all the people who are looking at this policy and hoping to obtain fee-free TAFE in the future, please be careful—be very, very careful—because this current Prime Minister has all the credibility of a vegetarian shark. The Albanese Labor government has failed to outline how it plans to fund this unfunded election promise. Is this the right way to use our hardworking taxpayers' money?

We on this side of the House are not anti-TAFE. But we are concerned about the Commonwealth funding places only at TAFEs, through fee-free TAFE policies. What about the other vocational training providers? What about Vocational Skills Australia, the National College of Vocational Education, the Vocational Language and Learning Centre, Vocational Training Institute, and many other organisations? Why single out TAFE?

Prime Minister Albanese and skills minister Andrew Giles have repeatedly dodged questions about how many Australians have completed or dropped out of the $500,000 fee-free TAFE courses. This is despite the government's own talking points stating that just 13 per cent of fee-free TAFE enrolments have resulted in a qualification being completed, at an eye-watering cost of $1.5 billion. Minister Giles may have misled the parliament when he stated that fee-free TAFE completion numbers—

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