Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Australia has a significant skills shortage, and it's getting worse. In 2023, Jobs and Skills Australia estimated that 36 per cent of occupations were in shortage, five percentage points higher than in 2022. We desperately need to attract more people to critical services like aged care, health care, child care and construction to ensure the ongoing affordability and quality of the services we rely on. As I mentioned, we desperately need more construction workers, and to be training more construction workers, to alleviate the current housing shortage.

Finding ways to get more people trained is absolutely essential, and I strongly support initiatives that make a real difference to getting people trained up in the services that we really need. Anecdotally, I've also heard, for example, that the ability to access free TAFE is helping students, particularly those from disadvantaged cohorts that may not otherwise be able to skill and train, and I think that is really important. However, the impact appears to be at the margins, as we would expect. We know for the higher education system and poorly designed Job-ready Graduates scheme that fees play a smaller role than we might think in determining what profession people take up.

I acknowledge that the VET and higher education systems are different and that fees really do impact individual courses, but I think there are broader reasons why these industries are in shortage that are not addressed by this bill, and perhaps they should be. Free TAFE might be a good initiative—it might be—but it is expensive and, if it is not addressing the root causes, then perhaps the money could be better deployed. So my question really is: do we need to commit to this policy right now, when the current policy doesn't expire for another two years, and when we don't have the data or the information to consider whether it should be permanently implemented.

I do worry, I'll be honest, that this bill is politics over policy, signing up a future government to a commitment that looks good for an election now. The purpose of this bill is to provide for ongoing financial support to the states and territories for the delivery of free TAFE and vocational education and training places to ensure that people continue and complete their degrees. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations website currently states that the government and the states have partnered to deliver over $1.5 billion worth of funding for 500,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places over 2023 to 2026. The current program expires in 2026, with a new scheme to take effect in January 2027.

While I acknowledge the government wants to provide certainty to the sector, two years notice is not the standard notice in government given to the sector historically over other substantial pieces of legislation. Just a few months ago, the government was arguing for changes to international students, with less than six months notice for the universities to implement that timeframe. Two years notice seems luxurious in comparison, so I don't buy that this is the underlying reason.

The data on the scheme is a point of contention. I know completions is a blunt measure, but I am concerned that we do not yet have the information currently to put it into a permanent scheme. Again, anecdotally, because the data is so poor, I understand that the attrition in the sector is driven by poor quality pay and conditions in jobs and apprenticeships that graduates participate in. I note that there is a review underway on this issue, with apprenticeships covering the topic of attrition and declining completions in apprenticeships. Given that all of these are interconnected, I think it would have been prudent to wait for the final report, or, even better, we could have commissioned a review of fee-free TAFE.

I understand that free TAFE shows a commitment to addressing the skills shortages, supporting disadvantaged cohorts and boosting economic participation. I don't disagree with the intentions of the bill, and I believe that I could support a policy that looks to deliver free TAFE, but I do not understand the urgency to push this through right now. The current scheme is not expiring, and we do not yet have the data, at least in the public domain, nor has there been a proper review to make an informed decision about the outcomes of this bill and whether it is value for money for the outcomes we are seeking. I wonder if we could better achieve these goals and reduce attrition challenges by providing more targeted measures for marginal cohorts and using the others to improve the pay and conditions of the jobs that these trainees ultimately participate in.

The truth is that I don't know the answer to these questions because we don't yet have the data, but, without the evidence, I find it really difficult to support a piece of legislation that is not urgent. But, hey, there's an election soon, so I guess that explains the urgency.

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