Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring to the attention of the House today the news that has broken this morning that absolutely confirms this government's mismanagement of VET FEE-HELP that has allowed the VET rorts to escalate in the last 2½ years under their watch. We have seen a 70 per cent growth in the top 20 colleges. It was not difficult to monitor. It was not difficult to see. It appears that it was easy to spot that this was happening, and this government has done nothing except what it usually does: shift the blame to someone else and claim that ASQA was not fit for purpose. In fact the data had not been given to ASQA to highlight this issue.

Under the Liberals' watch the vocational education and training sector has been in crisis, with VET FEE-HELP loans escalating from $699 million in 2013 to $1.7 billion in 2014. That is more than double. They have ignored the shonks who have been out there ripping off Australian taxpayers to provide courses that we now know may not even have happened, to provide laptops as incentives for people who had not the capacity to do the courses they were signed up for. This government needs to clean its act up. It needs to deal with these shonks right now. It needs to stop its plans to take over TAFE in this country, because they clearly cannot be trusted with education at any level.