Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last year the state member for Armadale, Dr Buti, and I secured federal and state Labor commitments in the federal election campaign to build a new TAFE in Armadale. While we're unfortunate that Labor didn't make it to government in 2019, I'm so excited that the McGowan Labor state government has announced a new $22.6 million state-of-the-art TAFE campus to be built in the heart of Armadale in the electorate of Burt. This federal government has cut $3 billion from TAFE and training over the last seven years. Now more than ever, TAFE is critical to our nation's economic recovery. We need to be investing in skills and training to ensure that jobs are restored and, indeed, created in Australia as a whole and especially in my electorate of Burt. We need to better support apprentices and trainees, displaced workers, women and young people and provide training for emerging skills needed in our community. While the federal government have decimated the TAFE system over the years, the McGowan government in Western Australia not only are working hard to restore it in Armadale as part of their COVID recovery plan but have announced that more than $229 million will be spent on upgrading TAFEs across Western Australia. This is fantastic news for apprentices and trainees across the state, but in our community it's not just the students who will benefit; the entire Armadale town will be rejuvenated. There's no doubt this new TAFE will play a key role in setting up our community for a post-COVID-19 recovery.