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

Skills minister Andrew Giles may have misled parliament when he stated that fee-free TAFE completion numbers could not be provided because it takes four years to get useable data. Officials confirmed that he regularly receives a report on fee-free TAFE numbers, the latest one being as current as 30 June 2024. This data is updated every three months, not every four years.

Industry sources suggest free TAFE fail rates could be as high as 50 to 60 per cent across many courses, and the training sector has indicated that some courses have failure rates as high as 70 to 90 per cent.

There is a pattern of behaviour with the skills minister, Andrew Giles. His performance in the parliament as the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs led to his sacking. As skills minister, he then told the parliament that fee-free TAFE would have no financial impact, even whilst he had the costing sitting on his desk. He told the parliament he would not know how many fee-free students are graduating until 2028, while his own question time brief told him he had the answer. It was just 13 per cent. Minister Giles is not across his brief, and he is signing up the taxpayer to an ongoing financial commitment he has not found funding for.

Prime Minister Albanese and skills minister Andrew Giles must now come clean about why they had deliberately withheld the true ongoing cost of their fee-free TAFE bill for all parliament to see, for all of parliament's consideration. When will they fund their pledge to permanently fund their fee-free TAFE? And how are they going to pay for it? Labor's approach to the Free TAFE Bill is disrespectful to the Australian taxpayers and another example of the Labor loose economic approach. There is no such thing as free. Someone always has to pay, and it's the taxpayers.

Those on social benefits who are required to go to TAFE to get a Centrelink payment are enrolling in courses and then dropping out. This is a huge waste of vital resources, and this is at the taxpayers' expense. And how is this dealing with workforce shortages? Since Labor took office, Australia has 85,000 fewer apprentices and trainees. This means we have lost more apprentices and trainees than fee-free TAFE has graduated. That doesn't seem to be going in the right direction to me. If you have a look at the number line and you look at the numbers, that certainly is not going in the right direction.

TAFE has been vital in our lives for 141 years, helping train the next generation of Queenslanders or older generations looking for a career change. In my electorate of Dawson, our economy supports many jobs and more than 87,000 workers in Mackay alone, and many of these jobs are tradies. They've had to have some vocational training. The plumbers, who fix our toilets and make sure our leaks are right; the electricians, who keep everything going around the house, who keep the lights on; and the beauty attendants, who keep our wives and girlfriends happy, are certainly worth the money. But we really, really need to keep all the vocational service providers going, not just pick one, not just pick TAFE.

With major job shortages, we are seeing a large focus on bringing overseas workers in to fill the gaps. What we would like to see is more vocational service providers training our Australian citizens to undertake these jobs, but not just TAFE. Why is the government always focused on just TAFE? Maybe that will come out as this debate goes on. Across the country we're seeing massive shortages in the aged-care and disability sectors and with our frontline paramedics. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to address this crisis?

Even with free courses, those who are registered dropout. In Victoria, for example, just one per cent of those who were registered for a free Certificate II in Plumbing successfully completed their training.

Again, this is wasting more money and resources that could have been utilised by someone who is serious about finishing a course or a diploma.

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