Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We know that free TAFE is delivering the skills and training we need to grow the Australian economy. Free TAFE is training the carpenters, electricians, plumbers and tilers to build the homes we so desperately need. Free TAFE is training healthcare workers, social workers, aged-care workers and early childhood carers, ensuring that all Australians can get quality care when they need it.

It's not the first time I've stood here singing the praises of TAFE and it won't be the last. As a former TAFE teacher—a career of more than 10 years—the wife of a carpenter and the mum of two apprentice chippies, I know how gaining a TAFE qualification can change lives for the better. I've seen firsthand, both as a teacher and as a mum, how TAFE has opened doorways for young people and people of all ages in regional areas like my electorate of Gilmore on the New South Wales South Coast.

TAFE is awesome. I love it! I will shout it to the rooftops so that everyone knows just how great it is. And free TAFE is just the icing on the cake. By removing financial barriers to education and training, Labor's Free TAFE Bill 2024 will ensure that people, particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, can gain skills and pursue the careers of their dreams. Free TAFE is putting people in regional areas like Gilmore on a pathway to well-paid and secure employment. Free TAFE means no-one is left behind. Whether our kids or grandkids want to become tradies, childcare workers, nurses, computer programmers or even cybersecurity experts, TAFE provides that opportunity. Free TAFE means more people of all ages can train, upskill or retrain to fill the gaps in our workforce.

By making free TAFE permanent, we can deliver a coordinated response to workforce shortages in priority industries, like construction, and ensure a pipeline of skilled workers that Australia needs now and into the future. We need to provide more housing right across Australia. We need to make homes more affordable to rent and buy. To do that we need skilled tradies to build more homes. We need skilled people to build homes, apartment complexes, manufacturing plants, hospitals and community centres. We need skilled people to build and install solar panels, to make buses and roads. We want to make more things here in Australia, and to do that we need to train more people. Where can our young people learn these skills? TAFE. Where can they study for free? TAFE. How do we start building a future made in Australia? Yes, TAFE is the answer.

The Albanese government is committed to investing in the skills Australia needs to drive economic growth. Our Free TAFE Bill offers greater certainty to students, employers and industry, and commits the Commonwealth to ongoing support to the states and territories for free TAFE. In regional areas like Gilmore, so many kids want to finish school.

Debate interrupted.

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