Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this bill, the Free TAFE Bill 2024—legislation that makes free TAFE permanent. It's semester 1 of TAFE in New South Wales, when new TAFE students are starting and returning students are coming back. This legislation will cement 100,000 free TAFE courses every year to give Australians skills and qualifications in aged care, early childhood education, construction and much, much more. When we came to government, Labor introduced free TAFE, given the clear need to rapidly grow our skilled workforce and the challenges facing our economy. This is a new opportunity that Australians have embraced across the country. We have seen a record uptake, with nearly 600,000 enrolments in less than two years, demonstrating the genuine desire of Australians to upskill or reskill, to train and retrain. Free TAFE has opened up new opportunities and pathways for people in my community on the Central Coast of New South Wales who wouldn't have been able to study or train.

Locals have spoken to me at my mobile offices and when I'm out and about in the community about what a difference free TAFE is making to them, to their families and friends and to our community. Tahisha from Blue Haven said:

As a mum of 4, I want to get back to work, but I couldn't afford to pay for a course. Free TAFE has made it possible for me to study a Certificate 4 in Project Management and better myself to return to work.

Lori-Anne from Wongarrah said:

Without Free TAFE I would never have signed up to complete the Certificate 4 in Training & Assessment. I found myself wondering what I could do next and now find myself on a journey I never could have imagined.

These real stories of people like Tahisha and Lori-Anne are what this legislation is about. It's about opening up the doors to opportunity and creating new opportunities and pathways to skills and training and reliable jobs. That's what Labor governments do.

In my electorate, one-third of people hold a TAFE qualification. That is significantly higher than the national average. For people in my community, TAFE has long been a trusted, reliable pathway to gain the skills that they need for a steady job and a good career. My late father, Grant, was a licensed builder and civil structural engineer, and something that he was most proud of was being a TAFE teacher. He dedicated much of his working life to TAFE, to his students and to giving them the skills and opportunities that they needed. He believed that all Australians, especially those in the outer suburbs and the regions, deserved quality skills and affordable training. TAFE offers flexibility—flexibility for parents, young people, working people and carers seeking to start a career, to change career, to upskill, to retrain or to gain qualifications—with four out of five enrolments being part time, offering that flexibility that so many people need to be able to gain the skills they need and the qualifications they need.

Of the 500,000 enrolments since we created free TAFE, almost half of them have been in New South Wales. Over 50,000 enrolments have been in the care sector. My colleague Assistant Minister Ged Kearney has really championed the care economy. Through these free TAFE courses, we've seen a big uptake in people being able to gain the skills they need to work in our care economy and more than 17,000 in the technology and digital sector and 13,000 in early childhood education, upskilling our workforce and providing skills that are really needed in communities like mine and providing essential services that people need, like aged care and early childhood education.

Free TAFE is saving each participant thousands of dollars. That is money that stays in their bank balance. That is money that means that they can afford to be able to study and train, removing cost barriers which have prevented too many people from studying, particularly in my community. I spoke to a woman who is about my age. She was at the TAFE campus at Ourimbah. She was now studying. She wanted to be a travel agent. Her kids are grown, and now, through these free opportunities, it meant that she could back herself. She said, 'If there were a cost involved, I don't know that I could take that sort of risk in exploring a new career or trying over.' The confidence that it gave her because she had that financial support to do it meant that she could now have that career that she always wanted. And she's providing. She's supporting the local economy and jobs in our community.

On the Central Coast of New South Wales, we have three TAFE campuses: one in Gosford in Robertson, one in Ourimbah and a third one in Wyong in my electorate. My brother Eddie is a plumber and a gas fitter, and when he finished school he was able to go to Wyong TAFE to be able to gain his plumbing certification. He's had a really good career as a local business owner, and he's now completing his MBA. These are the kind of pathways that are available to people particularly in the outer suburbs and regions that we are going to really open up and make those opportunities available to so many people in our community.

I want to also acknowledge the work of my state colleague, my good friend David Harris, the member for Wyong and the Minister for the Central Coast. David has been able to secure some additional funding for an expansion of the Wyong TAFE campus because the New South Wales government believes in the value of TAFE. In fact, today, the New South Wales Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education launched the new TAFE NSW Charter, reaffirming its commitment to equip the state with the skilled workforce it urgently needs.

I know that this commitment from New South Wales will make such a difference, because we saw, under the former Liberal government in New South Wales such a neglect of vocational education, and such a neglect of regional campuses. I'm so pleased; this is a complete turnaround. The New South Wales government, the Minns Labor government, is investing strongly in TAFE.

I remember my father, a former TAFE teacher, railing against—I think it was then the Greiner government in the early 1990s—John Kaye introducing fees for TAFE in New South Wales. It's something that the Liberals have always done. They did it in New South Wales in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and they've done it at different times.

As members of the Labor Party, something that we're really proud of is that Labor will always support TAFE. It really concerned me, when we heard the deputy leader of the Liberal Party late last year say, 'If you don't pay for something, you don't value it.' That's what they believe.

I invite the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to come to Bateau Bay and tell a sole parent raising two school-aged children, working full-time and upskilling through a part-time free TAFE course that they don't value that opportunity, and that they don't realise the opportunity that it will create for them and their children, and the contribution that they can make to our local economy. Or I invite her to come Gorokan and tell the school leaver, who has just moved out of home and is trying to make ends meet while undertaking a free TAFE course, that he doesn't value it. Of course he does. A young person in the outer suburbs in regions absolutely knows the value of having skills and qualifications, and of being able to have a quality job, a good career and one that is close to home.

Free TAFE matters, because for people in communities like mine on the Central Coast of New South Wales, without free TAFE they just miss out. They wouldn't have a crack. They wouldn't have that shot at an education that our education minister has worked so hard to create for them and that our minister for TAFE and skills has worked for as well. People would miss out. This is something that, coming into the election this year, is something that is at risk.

The opposition don't value TAFE; they never have. I'm really concerned for people in my community who won't have those opportunities in the future. We saw that, as I mentioned earlier, with the gutting of TAFE in New South Wales, under the former Liberal government, and the lack of investment of the former coalition government at the federal level.

Our Labor government established free TAFE. This legislation makes it permanent, with a hundred thousand places each year. I will always fight for people in my community, I will always stand up for their opportunities, and I will always support free TAFE. I commend bill to the House.

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