Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that the bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Melbourne has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

(Quorum formed)

Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I actually went to TAFE, more than three decades ago. I was in a transition phase. I did not know what to do with my life, so I thought I'd do an accounting course at TAFE—Liverpool TAFE, to be precise. There were lots of students like me from non-English-speaking backgrounds. We had a good time. But either the course wasn't engaging enough or I wasn't really focusing on the subject of numbers, because eventually I dropped out. Then I ended up getting a job as a journalist for the Liverpool Champion in the early nineties, so my career as a journalist began. It was a short TAFE experience. I did make friends, but it didn't give me the skills—or, as I said, perhaps I wasn't totally drawn to the subject. Thus I found that the time was not very valuable—for me, at least.

I understand that the Labor government is so committed to investing in TAFE, with the belief that it will somehow solve our workforce skills shortages—investing so much money into providing the 500,000 fee-free TAFE places. TAFE has certainly played an important role in the development of a skilled workforce in Australia in the past 141 years, and I want to acknowledge that contribution.

Skills and training have never been as important as they are today. Whilst the industrial revolution had a hugely disruptive impact on blue-collar workers in the 19th and 20th centuries, the internet and the development of AI are having a similarly disruptive effect on the white-collar workforce in the 21st century. Many of the sources of employment that have become the norm for the past hundred years are going to either transform or vanish altogether as technology progresses. Jobs and Skills Australia released its report this week identifying that our labour market is remarkably resilient but there are also considerable economic challenges and uncertainties. Our labour force has shifted dramatically, with healthcare and social services becoming the largest employing industry, whilst in 1994 it was manufacturing. The rise of social media and AI technology has huge ramifications for our labour workforce. But, in speaking with many small to medium sized businesses in a recent manufacturing round table in Fowler, my electorate, I heard a different story, about the needs of many of our manufacturing businesses. Fee-free TAFE might be an incentive for young people to engage in vocational careers, but business owners in Fowler have other concerns. Many of them in key sectors have an average workforce age in the 60s and find it very difficult to persuade young people to enter their industries. This is because the culture has told them that manufacturing jobs are second-rate or lack prestige.

More than simply throwing money at fee-free TAFE, we need to reshape the narrative around trade based occupations. Parents need to be convinced that it's a good option for their children. Schools need to promote the value of entering trades as well as that of university education. Fee-free courses don't house or feed students. What plans are there to provide grants or loan programs, perhaps via industry, to get Australians into these jobs? That is how you encourage young people in these industries or allow those already in one trade to retrain into an emerging industry. It also explains why business owners tell me that the dropout rate for young staff is very high.

With many businesses in key sectors having an average workforce age in their 60s, time is of the essence. In Fowler, many are having to look overseas to bring in skilled workers to make up the shortfall, and then they're faced with enormous compliance costs and time-consuming red tape—and, increasingly, green tape. This needs to be addressed urgently. In Fowler, we have amongst the highest rates of residents whose first language is not English and government support for English language competency is vital. The many refugees that have settled in Western Sydney could be a significant boost to employment in industry. What is being done to enable them to do this? We will certainly need new skills available to combat cybercrime to harness technology in developing businesses and for who knows what the future might bring. It's an uncertain time but also an exciting time.

But what about other labour skills that are needed to kickstart our economy? The skills required to build houses, to fix your plumbing, to install your hot water system, to build pipes or to monitor a technology system at a water recycling plant, for example, are so hard to source. As I said, TAFE has played an important role in upskilling Australians. The provision of fee-free places is a great help in providing the opportunity, especially for those who are from lower socioeconomic and poorer areas, to be able to develop a meaningful career. That benefits all of us. But that doesn't mean that this bill should be waved through uncritically. The bill is heavily favourable to TAFE as a provider of vocational education and training. I'm concerned that other providers of VET might be left behind or unduly discriminated against, and I wonder if the minister can provide some reassurance that this is not the case. I can understand the practical benefit to governments in drafting free TAFE agreements with a single entity, but what is immediately easier is not always best in the long term. I'm of the firm belief that we shouldn't put all of our eggs into one basket. It doesn't bode well when public funds are just invested in one area that's proclaimed to be the cure to solving our workforce challenges. The government should balance its spending and ensure that reputable RTOs who can deliver specific industry needs be included in the vocational education and training funding.

This is for both sides: I think, whenever one side comes in, it focuses on one area that's more aligned to its values and politics, and then another. We need to ensure that there is a balance in this so that we don't cut anybody out.

I go back to the point—do not put all of your eggs in one basket to solve a problem.

The government has already passed legislation targeting shonky RTO providers, and none of us want to see people getting away with exploiting customers or the taxpayer. But this legislation could lead to a favouring of TAFE over smaller providers of VET, and in Fowler there are many of them. Enabling industry to provide their own in-house VET training would be a real boost, as would providing accessible grants for research and development as they move into emerging markets. I've spoken to many businesses who have got specific skills needs in their industry, in their factories, that TAFE cannot provide but they can provide. Therefore, the government of the day needs to work with many of these industries in electorates like Fowler.

My concern is not only for my electorate but for the general principle that it's best to have as much competition as possible in VET, to drive prices down and so that a wide variety of courses are available. In our exciting future, it's most likely that skilled areas will open up very quickly, requiring a nimble response in what might be very niche areas. Who in this House could have conceived or imagined, before 2016, the need to understand and use TikTok? Some members may have been here since the days of the telex machine!

Another concern I have with this bill is that a primary objective is to enact ongoing funding for a government policy. Despite the Albanese government's huge popularity, there may well come a day when they lose power! There may even come a day when the party decides to change leadership and head in another direction. Like I said, there's an exciting future ahead! We all know that no government can bind an incoming government to spending commitments. This bill seeks to do just that, and any future government would have to repeal the legislation to make their own changes. What a waste of time and money. Why do you overcommit? Why do you commit to something when you don't know whether or not you'll be back to deliver it?

The most important reason for wanting to be able to review fee-free TAFE in future funding would be following an evaluation of its success. I would like to know how successful fee-free TAFE provision has been for the past two years. Whilst many of the courses take three years to complete, many of them are six- to 12-month commitments. What has been the completion rate of the free courses that could be completed in six to 12 months? What has been the percentage dropout rate for all free courses started since its inception? I don't believe in a free lunch. I don't know that many people do. Anything that's for free sometimes does not actually deliver the outcomes.

I'm a proud member for Fowler in Western Sydney, which we all know is the backbone of manufacturing. We are the major supplier of trades men and women in New South Wales. We are the engine of the state of New South Wales and no doubt the country. In funding the one entity, I'm concerned that many people will miss out on the opportunity to create a pathway to skill themselves if they fall through the cracks of TAFE.

I support the principle of incentivising Australians to learn the skills and vocational training that our future demands. It is in all of our interests to do this. If the government can reassure me that this will be value for money and allow competition for non-TAFE RTOs, and show me that they are committed to more than the praising of TAFE, then I could be convinced to vote for the bill.

TAFE has had and still has a significant role in the education and training of people who live and work in south-west and Western Sydney. So I welcome any focus that any government in Australia gives when it comes to investing in skills and training, especially of our labour workforce and in particular the young people in my electorate of Fowler and in south-west Sydney.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor government are all about opportunity. We are the party of opportunity. The Albanese government is the government of opportunity, and the Albanese Labor government believes in equality of opportunity. That starts with a good education for all. Every Australian, no matter their background or financial situation, should have equal access to education—no-one held back, no-one left behind. I'm here in this parliament today because my family and I were given a fair go under a number of visionary Labor policies, particularly around education.

I'm the very proud son of Egyptian migrants who were very big on a good education to give us a go in life, and I received it in Australia. It allowed me to be standing here in the parliament today. I was able to, of course, get a good primary and secondary education, attend university and get the training I wanted, do postgrad studies and have a career that has spanned the private sector, the Public Service, business, politics of course, and so on. It was an education that opened up the doors of opportunity for me. It gave me the chance to make a contribution, as it has for millions of other Australians.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to creating an aspirational and accessible education system so that no-one ever has to choose between an education and putting food on the table. We on this side of the House know that we have a responsibility to help people here and now and a duty to the next generation of Australians. I obviously feel this very deeply, given the impact it's had on my life, which is why I'm standing here talking about this really important bill, the Free TAFE Bill. This bill commits the Commonwealth to ongoing support to states and territories for free TAFE. Supporting the VET and TAFE sector is in Labor's DNA. Labor are reversing the damage of a decade and rebuilding TAFE for communities across Australia. The government has made a landmark $30 billion, five-year national skills agreement with states and territories, lifting investment in skills across Australia, alongside the Albanese government's growing investment in fee-free TAFE.

We're also going after dodgy providers so that quality providers can do their work properly, because Labor knows that a reliable and trusted vocational education and training sector is critical for building our economy and creating a future made in Australia. TAFEs are trusted partners in this vision, driving quality improvements across the VET sector, leading on innovative teaching and learning practices, and assisting industries to develop skilled workforces. These things are critical. You can't have a strong VET sector without strong, public technical and further education, TAFE—we always use the acronym, but that's what TAFE stands for—at its heart.

Labor's fee-free TAFE has already changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians, providing cost-of-living relief and a pathway to well-paid and secure employment. In the first 18 months of fee-free TAFE there have been 508,000 enrolments. I want the opposition to think about that number: 508,000 additional enrolments. That means 508,000 Australians have an opportunity to get a quality education. Unlike those opposite, this Labor government will never consider fee-free TAFE to be, in the words of their deputy leader, wasteful spending. That's what she said, in this place.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many completed them?

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection. She said in this place it was 'wasteful' spending. That's their kind of ideological view of education. That mob—the opposition—think spending on Australians who want to get by, get a quality education and get equality of opportunity to make a contribution to fulfil their potential is wasteful spending.

In my community of Wills there are a number of incredible TAFE and vocational education campuses offering vital skills to support students and build the resilience and capacity of our nation. The electorate of Wills is also home to many staff and students in the VET sector, who have shared with me how important their vocational training has been. I had the privilege of meeting one of them this week in parliament. His name is Oisin. He was a Skillaroo recently, one of a group of remarkable young Australians who were selected to represent Australia at the WorldSkills international competition in Lyon, France. The WorldSkills international competition is the equivalent of the Olympics for skilled occupations. This year's competition hosted 1,400 competitors, from over 70 countries, competing in 59 skills in front of 250,000 visitors. Oisin was one of the 32 Australian Skillaroos and a recipient of the Cloud Computing Participation Award. Oisin went to TAFE and completed diplomas—I hope those opposite are listening—and with those diplomas went on to a bachelor's degree. One of his areas of study is information technology, specialising in cloud computing, which he was recognised for as a Skillaroo.

Oisin is about to start his career as a public servant and will no doubt continue to contribute his skills and passion to our country.

While Oisin's success in competing as a Skillaroo is a unique and remarkable achievement, Labor is committed to making his story, a story of education and equality of opportunity, an unremarkable tale. We want it to be the norm. They might bleat about it being wasteful spending to have 500,000 enrolments in TAFE, but it makes such a difference for the life of every one of those students. It could be a platform to go on to further education. It could be a platform to go on to do things like those that Oisin has done and make great achievements and a contribution to this country. We're introducing this bill so that more people can have opportunities and stories like Oisin's.

We've partnered with states and territories through the Fee-Free TAFE Skills Agreement to deliver over $1.5 billion in funding for 500,000 free TAFE and VET places across Australia over the period 2023 to 2026. Half a million Australians will benefit from this. That's not wasteful spending in my book. That's an investment in the future of Australians. That's putting our trust in Australians to fulfil their potential through their educational journey. What makes a difference to this country is the vision to actually commit to Australians.

Fee-free TAFE supports all these training places in the skills that we need in areas of high demand. It provides access to priority cohorts, including the most vulnerable, and it supports students by removing the financial barriers to study. That's not wasteful spending; that's an investment. Nine in 10 new jobs over the next 10 years will need postschool study, and half of those jobs will need vocational education and training. That's an investment in jobs for Australians as well. This bill ensures that free TAFE continues to deliver a coordinated response to workforce shortages in industries of local and national priority, helping build the pipeline of skilled workers that Australia needs now and into the future. That's not wasteful spending; it is an investment in Australia's future.

While the bill sets out broad parameters, specific details will continue to be agreed through negotiations between the Commonwealth and the states. This legislation does not lock states into a fixed mode of delivering free TAFE. That's based on the flexibility of the Commonwealth and the states negotiating.

Those opposite have made a few heckles during this speech. It's been a bit limited because they know that 500,000 Australians are going to get an opportunity to get an education, and that is a good thing—for them, for Australia's future, for the jobs market and for the skill shortages that we're facing. When the coalition and the Greens vote together to block legislation like this, they seem to be more concerned with their political skins or about making a point with some sort of short-term political hit or with their ideological agenda than about the future of this country.

Rather than actually making an investment in Australians and their future through education, they've refused to back our additional fee-free TAFE and VET places for construction, which would expand access to new energy apprenticeships, expand capacity for training facilities and a trainer workforce, support women's careers in VET and increase financial support to priority apprentices and employees. What have you got against that? What possibly could be their opposition to investing in apprenticeships for women's careers and the training of a workforce to address skills shortage? I want to hear from those opposite what reason there could possibly be for them blocking this, apart from their political game playing, their voting with the Greens or whatever they're trying to do and whatever games are going on. They're not worried about the future of Australians, and they're not concerned about investment in Australians and their potential. They just want to play political games with this.

When they were in government, the Liberals and Nationals actually cut $3 billion of funding from the VET system and from TAFE. That tells you that there's an ideological motivation: they just don't want to support and invest in Australia's education. They're not interested in that. They want to make it harder for Australians to access education, get the skills they want—and the skills Australia needs—so they can make the contribution to the country that comes from the equality of opportunity to getting an education. Education lifts people up and empowers them and gives them an opportunity to make a difference in their lives and in their communities.

There's nothing that could be more impactful and more important than education. As I said, it is the key that opens the door to opportunity. It was the key that opened the door to my opportunity to actually make a contribution.

If there's an ideological antagonism towards TAFEs or public TAFEs by the opposition, it's an ideological position. I get that. But I would say to the coalition, 'Don't you understand the value or the importance that strong TAFEs make to our local communities?' For all the reasons that I've just outlined, surely some of those opposite who have high levels of intelligence, and there are some—I'm looking at one right now, Member for Casey.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He's not looking at me!

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm sorry, Darren. Surely they would understand the benefits that accrue, but it seems to me that they're out of touch with the needs of local communities and the needs of Australians. Labor knows that education is a right for all Australians; it's not just a privilege. It's not something that you can buy. Back in the fifties and sixties you had to have a lot of money to go to university, and it shut out 80 to 90 per cent of the population.

I asked the great Bob Hawke, my predecessor in the seat of Wills, what was the most important thing that he'd done out of all the great things he'd done in the Labor government—the golden era of the Hawke and Keating governments—and he said, 'You know what? One of the things that is not talked about enough is the policies that we put in place. When I started, about 30 per cent of Australians finished year 12,' or matriculation, as they used to call it, but, because of the policy that Bob Hawke and the Labor government put in place, by the end of his time around 80 to 90 per cent of Australians were finishing year 12—secondary education. He was most proud of that, and that was a government that achieved a lot, so it tells you the importance that education has at the heart of our DNA and the commitment that we have to it as a party.

Whether it's vocational, tertiary or other forms of studies, learning and training, Labor and the Albanese government are committed to making our educational system aspirational and accessible. That's why we have committed to wiping 20 per cent off student debt, improving the way payments are made, providing paid placements for a number of vocations and increasing wages for crucial sectors like aged care and child care. That's why we've introduced this visionary Free TAFE Bill—because it will make a difference to hundreds and thousands of Australians, who will open the door for their opportunity to make a contribution to this country. I would hope those opposite would see that and would come around and support this bill.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will thank the member for Wills for the compliment. I'll take that. I was actually—it's unintended, but it's a good segue—going to start my speech by talking about the importance of education. I've spoken about this from my first speech in this House. When I spoke about education in my first speech, I spoke about the opportunity it created for me. It helped me build the life that I have today and the life that my family have, and with the contribution I'm able to make in this role.

I also spoke about an education system that is focused on delivering outcomes for students—delivering outcomes to set them up for success into the future. The debate and the discussion we are having, and the vote we are having, are not about whether we support education; everyone in this House supports a strong education system. The debate and the discussion that we need to have are around the detail, around whether this bill—this policy—is the best use of taxpayer money to deliver educational outcomes for students.

TAFE is an important part of our education system. I was just on the phone about 15 minutes ago to my best friend, Glen, who's an electrician. He runs his own business now. He went through the TAFE system 20-plus years ago; he's getting old, like we all are. He wouldn't be able to run the business he has today and he wouldn't be able to employ people or help apprentices without TAFE. So we're not disputing the importance of TAFE and the role it plays.

But, as he said to me—and he made a really good point—everyone that wants to be in a trade, be it electrical or plumbing, needs to go. They're required to do it, absolutely, but also, if they don't have the means, there are systems in place for them to get access to that TAFE, so money isn't an impact if they have that desire.

It does feel a little bit like Groundhog Day 2½ years into this. It was one of my favourite movies growing up back in the day, with Bill Murray as Phil Connors living that same day over and over again. Sometimes when we're in this House, when we listen to the speeches from those opposite and the bills that come in, it feels like Groundhog Day because it follows that same theme of the very catchy title that sounds really good, good spin and good lines for them but then goes to the detail. The detail is always lacking, and the process is lacking. We're at Groundhog Day; I feel like I'm going through that. For Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, by the end of the movie the big outcome for him was that he'd grown, he'd learned, he'd developed, he'd become a better person. Unfortunately, 2½ years into the first term of the Albanese Labor government, they're still at day one. They're still at day one of the spin and the big headlines but no detail and no process. I'm going to go through and explain some of the concerns.

Take the headline, for example. Let's be really clear. It's not free TAFE. It is funded by taxpayers. For every decision we make in this House, it's not the government's money. It's not the opposition's money. It's taxpayer money. So we are asking Australians to invest in something and use their money. Someone has to pay for it. What that means is that, when we spend taxpayer money, we have to make sure it's the best use of that money. There is a great economic term called 'opportunity cost'. Every business, every family, every community organisation and every government has to recognise the opportunity cost of how they spend their money.

Now, this government spends like it's not going to run out. We saw that today. When you get desperate, you have to make decisions like removing the independence of the Future Fund. You need to start using that independent organisation's money on your own priorities, and that is an economic decision that will haunt this nation and this government for years to come. The Future Fund was an important independent organisation. But it shows that money doesn't grow on trees and you have to spend it wisely. We saw the Treasurer finally yesterday have to admit that the two surpluses that he delivered were not about making choices or tough decisions. They were all on the revenue upgrades that had come over the last two years. As he said in his own words yesterday:

In each of our 4 budget updates there were $80 billion in revenue upgrades, on average.

But with the labour market softening around the edges, this trend is diminishing.

He also said:

This has been compounded by structural challenges in the Chinese economy weighing on key commodity prices – iron ore prices are down 30 per cent since the start of the year.

As a result of these factors, I can inform the House that Treasury expects any revenue upgrades in the mid-year outlook will be much smaller.

The Treasurer himself has confirmed that his two surpluses that he likes to talk about were not because of the tough choices that he made but the revenue upgrades driven by iron ore and minerals. The unemployment rate that he inherited from the former Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg—he was very happy at the start of the pandemic to say the success of the former Treasurer was unemployment. He didn't talk about unemployment when he inherited such a low rate. He also doesn't talk about how inflation, while it hurts the family budget, actually helps the government budget.

This is crucial when we have this discussion, because we need to make choices. We need to understand whether this money is the best money, and so we look at the policy process that this government has gone through. There has been no performance review on the first round of the fee-free TAFE policy that this government has put forward. The first review will not be complete until June of 2025.

So the government are prepared to use scarce resources from the taxpayer to double-down on a policy without even reviewing whether it is the best use of that money.

I'm just going to give a comparison because, as I said, opportunity cost is important. We can talk about the supposed fee-free TAFE, which is actually taxpayer funded TAFE, but these are the other policies that currently aren't being funded by the government. On Monday night this week, as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Youth Mental Health, I was proud to host Raise. Raise is an organisation that mentors young people in schools, and its funding from the department of health runs out in December this year. But Raise has done the right thing. Raise has undertaken an independent evaluation through the University of Melbourne and the Social Outcomes Lab. That independent evaluation has shown that their mentoring service delivers $4.37 in social benefits for every dollar invested. As I said, Raise is still unfunded beyond December this year. But they've got a proposal with the department of health.

But it gets even better; the offer from Raise to the Australian government is even better than that. Not only does Raise's mentoring deliver $4.37 per dollar invested; Raise have committed publicly to gaining, for every dollar of federal government funding, another $2 from their own corporate partnerships and private donors. This is the comparison we have with a government that is happy to commit significant taxpayer money with no savings offered to offset it. We're going to see the Treasurer bring down a budget next year—we'll see; that's in debate—and we're going to see four years of deficits, because the revenues have dropped. But he and the government are prepared to commit this money today without offering any savings to the budget. Unfortunately, as the Treasurer said, his luck has run out—the revenues aren't there. I'll be watching whether the Minister for Health and Aged Care commits to this funding, because if the government have so much money to commit to taxpayer funded TAFE then I'm sure there should be no problem finding the $2 million to $3 million that Raise wants, given the opportunities that are there and the evaluations this process has undergone, which this bill and this policy haven't.

When we look at the evaluation, we see these are the questions the government should be talking about. They're going to talk a lot about enrolments. They will all talk about enrolments—the member for Wills talked about enrolments. Obviously, it's important that people are enrolling, but, again, if you're going to spend taxpayer money you should be asking yourself other questions. What's the targeted graduation rate—that is, what graduation rate is the government trying to achieve based on the number of enrolments? If you don't have a target, you're never going to hit it. Enrolling is great, but do you know what's even better, Deputy Speaker? Graduating and getting a job. That should be the focus—on the outcome.

The other thing we need to look at is not the top-line number of how many people have enrolled based on this taxpayer funded subsidy but how many new students are enrolling because of this new policy. There will be situations where people were already going to enrol in TAFE. They might want to be an electrician—let's use electricians as an example. Their parents could be earning half a million dollars each. They could be really well off in the corporate sector and happy to pay for their child's TAFE. But now we're asking taxpayers on $60,000 a year to fund that. We need to understand the incremental gains, particularly in the areas of skills shortage, and then look at how many people have completed the course and what the outcome is. As I said—and this is an important one—it should be enrolments, completions and employment: how many people are actually employed in their field of study and whether it is making a tangible difference.

As I said at the start of my speech, I believe in education as an opportunity for all—but an opportunity and a system that is focused on delivering educational, employment and social outcomes for the community and for students. But if we actually look at the economics behind this policy that those opposite talk about, there are a few awkward details here, or rather a lack of details. As the member for Wills said, the detail still apparently needs to be worked out. I have spoken about the opportunity costs. But the government have found an amazing way to get around that. They've simply just not funded the project. They've decided not to fund it. As page 3 of the explanatory memorandum states:

There is no financial impact resulting from the Free TAFE Bill 2024.

The bill also says 'may not be free'. So the course may actually not be free. I must admit that I'm very confused about those opposite standing up, talking about how the government and the taxpayer are going to subsidise these TAFE places when their own explanatory memorandum says that the bill has actually got no financial impact. So I'm looking forward to those opposite explaining how you can provide a taxpayer subsidised education course to students when it's actually going to have no financial impact.

I know my good friend the member for Parramatta, who's an economist, is in the chamber. I don't think he's up next; I think he's on chamber duty. But, if he hasn't spoken, I would love the member for Parramatta, as an economist, to explain how taxpayers can subsidise a program that will have no financial impact. Even the bill says that it 'may not be free'. So it's about the headline again—groundhog day—the spin and the optics of having the Free TAFE Bill 2024. It sounds very impressive, because the government know students and they know when they put the clips out on social media that no-one's actually going to go to the bill and read, in its own words, 'may not be free'. But the headline is: 'Free TAFE Bill 2024'! I'm looking forward to seeing all the social media clips coming out about the coalition—rah-rah-rah. But look at the detail. We're at groundhog day. It may not be free!

That is the problem for the Albanese Labor government. As with many other bills that we debate in this House, 2½ years into this government, the Prime Minister talks a big game. The Treasurer, with his PhD in political science, can spin numbers. He can spin the revenue upgrades; although he's run out now, because this is the reality: you can talk a good game, but if you don't deliver it, the Australian people notice. The Australian people understand that saying something is one thing, but actually doing it and delivering outcomes for the Australian people is the most important thing. As you go through this bill, when you look at the detail, it's not going to deliver to the Australian people. (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to strongly support this important piece of legislation, the Free TAFE Bill 2024, introduced by my good friend and colleague the Minister for Skills and Training. For decades, TAFE has been the cornerstone of vocational education in Australia. It has provided generations of Australians with the skills, qualifications and pathways they need to enter secure, well-paid jobs and build successful careers.

In my electorate of Newcastle, I am lucky enough to represent three Hunter TAFE campuses. These institutions have been a constant source of the provision of essential skills and qualifications to thousands of Novocastrians from all walks of life since 1896! The member who spoke before me might want to contemplate what it is like to have TAFE institution for more than 136 years in your electorate and the extraordinary work and upskilling that that has provided, not just for individuals but for the strengthening of our local economies. Whether it's pursuing a trade, learning a new technical skill or exploring a pathway to higher ed, TAFE is there, providing accessible, high-quality education to help take that next step. And the people of Newcastle have a deep respect for the vital role that TAFE plays in providing vocational education and training in our region and in the strengthening of our local economy.

TAFE's hands-on approach to learning, connection to industry and ability to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workforce have made it an indispensable resource. As of last year, the three TAFE campuses in Newcastle were providing education to a phenomenal 64,000 students. The top five of the most popular fields of study are engineering and all the related technologies there; management and commerce; society and culture; food, hospitality and personal services; and education. These are all critical industries that we know keep our nation moving. Their future success and contributions to Australia can be attributed to the education and training they have received at TAFE. With all that in mind, why wouldn't we want to encourage everyone to have a shot at TAFE without those financial barriers in place?

Through the Free TAFE Bill 2024, the Albanese Labor government is seeking to transform the lives of Australians and the future of our economy. At the heart of this bill is a fundamental principle—that access to education and training should not be determined by your financial situation. Labor is committed to building a fairer, more inclusive Australia by ensuring that anyone who wants to develop the skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the workforce has the opportunity to do so—for free.

We know how important free TAFE is to Australia. Free TAFE has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australians providing cost-of-living relief and a pathway to well-paid secure employment. In the first 18 months of free TAFE under this government, there have been 508,000 enrolments in courses in priority areas. That means 131,000 people into care, including disability and aged care; 48,900 into digital and tech; 35,000 into construction; and 35,500 into early childhood and care. Free TAFE has particularly benefited Australians from priority cohorts, with over 170,000 young Australians, 124,000 jobseekers and 30,000 First Nations Australians enrolling in the program.

Of all places, six in 10 have been taken up by women. This is remarkable. These are opportunities for people who were generally cut out from access because of the financial barriers that were in place until the Albanese Labor government brought about fee-free TAFE. One of those remarkable women who took up a fee-free place in my electorate is Kahlia. She's a small-business owner, beauty therapist and mother of three. Thanks to free TAFE, Kahlia completed a certificate IV in assessment and training and is now living out her goal of being a TAFE teacher in beauty therapy. She's putting her decades and decades of skills to fantastic work, training the next generation of remarkable beauty therapists. Kahlia told me that with three kids, including one with special needs, she doesn't have a lot of free time on her hands, but the flexibility offered by an online free TAFE course and not having to worry about the cost allowed her the confidence to back herself and to take that leap. Kahlia is one of many Newcastle women who have shared their stories with me about their new career paths thanks to free TAFE, and free TAFE has absolutely exceeded expectations.

The existing program is set to cease on 31 December 2026, and this legislation is aimed squarely at making free TAFE permanent and supporting at least 100,000 places a year every year across the nation from 2027 onwards. The first and most immediate effect of the Free TAFE Bill is the empowerment it gives to individuals. We know education is a powerful tool. It is life changing.

It's something that changes lives and open doors, and for too long many Australians have been held back because of the rising cost of vocational education and training. The Free TAFE Bill 2024 removes this financial barrier, giving people from all backgrounds the chance to acquire skills that are essential to their personal and professional development.

The value of free TAFE is immense. It means that Australians no longer need to take on significant debt or make sacrifices to gain qualifications needed for in-demand jobs. Whether it's a young person leaving high school, a mid-career professional wanting to upskill or someone looking to change careers entirely, free TAFE opens a clear and accessible pathway. No longer will people be forced to choose between pursuing their passion and paying off their education. This bill creates equal opportunities. It empowers people, as I said, to make choices based on their ambitions and talents and to not have to worry about financial limitations.

Second, there are, of course, tremendous benefits for the economy. We know that our economy thrives on the fact that we have a highly skilled workforce, but we know we have tremendous labour shortage areas because those opposite, frankly, had no interest in TAFE. They sat back, watching it be ground to its knees in most states and territories, and that is the mess we have inherited. But we are absolutely determined to rebuild TAFE because we know that, when people gain qualifications and enter the workforce, they make a tremendous contribution to the nation's economy through their higher earnings and their greater consumption as well. More Australians with higher paying jobs means greater tax revenue as well for governments, as well as reduced reliance on social welfare. These are great benefits for our community. So the investment that we make in free TAFE now well and truly pays for itself in people with good jobs who are paying more taxes and fewer people dependent on social security. So, when members opposite dare describe this as a waste of money, I want them to reflect on that.

Third, TAFE is a really essential part of building a fairer and more equitable society in the first place. In Australia, like in many countries, the cost of education can be a significant obstacle for many people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We want to bust those barriers down. Fee-free TAFE provides a level playing field for those who might otherwise be excluded from TAFE. I cannot overstate how important it is to make sure that we get women in traditionally male-dominated trades, that we're getting First Nations people every opportunity to have a well-paid job in a great skill-based sector and that people with disability are also getting access to a quality education and gaining the skills that they need to succeed. This is what the free TAFE courses are providing. Of course, in the end this is really all about being able to contribute also to a cohesive society where everybody feels like they've got a stake in the nation's future.

Supporting VET and TAFE is part of Labor's DNA. We all come from electorates where the vocational education and training sector is critical to our communities. I'm absolutely stunned that the National Party as coalition members wouldn't want to support this bill, because in their communities, like my region, that is where higher education takes place—through a grounded TAFE system.

We've already made a landmark $30 billion five-year National Skills Agreement with the states and territories, lifting the investment in skills across Australia, alongside our investment into free TAFE. This landmark agreement includes the rollout of a number of net zero manufacturing centres of excellence, including one in my electorate of Newcastle. These centres represent not only a bold vision for the future of sustainable manufacturing but also a commitment to innovation, education and the communities that depend on these industries. As Australia faces the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions and transitioning to a net zero economy by 2050, the need for leadership, skills and technological innovation in our manufacturing sector has never been more urgent.

The establishment of these centres of manufacturing excellence marks a pivotal moment in our commitment to clean energy, to cutting-edge technology, to job creation and to skills development. The people of Newcastle and the Hunter know how deadly serious this government is about investing in our manufacturing sector as a whole and investing into the upskilling of each and every one of our citizens.

On top of our demonstration of how government, industry and education can all work together to create a better, more sustainable future, the Albanese Labor government is also investing $91 million in skilling the new energy workforce for the transition to net zero, another $91 million to help in skilling the housing and construction workforce, $55.6 million for building women's careers programs, $265 million to provide additional targeted support under the Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System and almost $28 million to improve tertiary collaboration and lay the foundations for broader tertiary education reforms. We've still got some work to do in that transition and interface between TAFE and universities, but that is absolutely in this government's focus.

When Labor came to government, it was clear that not only had we inherited the $1 trillion of Liberal debt—so it's astonishing to hear those opposite still try to talk like they're good economic managers—but we were also left with this massive skills shortage. The OECD said that Australia had the second highest labour shortage per capita amongst all our comparable OECD countries. With a record like that, honestly, members opposite should be jumping on board to support this bill. It is going to be great news for those National Party seats. You know, like I know, TAFE is the backbone of the tertiary education systems in your electorates. The idea that you would want to deny your constituents access to a quality education and remove the financial barriers from that is astonishing. I don't know how you're going to go back to your electorates and explain it; I honestly don't. I don't have time to go through the track record of those opposite on TAFE, but let it be said it has been appalling.

This Labor government will stand up for investment into public education. We will ensure increased access to TAFE by removing all financial obstacles to do so. We need these projects to all be up and running to deal with the housing crisis, to deal with the transition to clean economies, to ensure that women are getting into those well-paid male-dominated trade industries. That's what free TAFE is doing. That is the change and power of this. I'm sorry, but those TAFE grinches opposite really need to take a look at how they cast their vote and how they explain that to their constituents. (Time expired)

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If we cast our mind back to a former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, she actually said once something which is quite pertinent to today's debate. She said, 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.' That really is at the core of today's debate on the Free TAFE Bill 2024. 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.'

Those opposite are trying to establish some phoney fault lines in this building to suggest that people on this side of the House don't support education, to suggest that people on this side of the House don't support vocational training or university education, to suggest that people on this side of the House don't recognise that a good education is a pathway to a better-paying job and economic success for an individual. That fault line doesn't exist. There is not a member in this place, on either side of the chamber or on the crossbench, who doesn't value education, who hasn't benefited from Australia's world-class education system in one way or another. And there's not a person in this place who doesn't want to see young Australians achieve their full potential.

But there are people in this place who understand the value of taxpayers' money.

There are people in in place who understand that nothing is actually ever free. It's always someone else's money, and in this case the someone else whose money is to pay for Labor's reckless promise is the Australian taxpayer.

'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.' Now, we have obligations in this place for those of us who have been lucky enough, as I have, to have served in the cabinet and served in portfolios where we've had responsibility for the taxpayers' money. I had obligations to make sure that, wherever possible, I achieved value for money for the Australian taxpayers. I understand how hard Australians work for their money. I understand that, when they give their taxes to the government, they expect us to work just as hard to get value for money for the dollars they're contributing. There are limited resources. The member for Casey touched on this in his presentation when he said there's an opportunity cost here. The money you spend in one part of government business is an opportunity cost for potential expenditure in another part, whether it's offering services or critical infrastructure in our communities.

What we have here is the government seeking to create a false fault line in the building when it could be working with those on this side of the House and providing more transparency and a better system which we could vote to support. My main concerns with the bill before the House relate directly to transparency, relate to fairness and relate to the fact that this is not actually targeted in a way that Australian taxpayers' dollars should be targeted: at the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged. It doesn't take any consideration of an individual's capacity to pay. For example, if I or someone like me were to undertake a TAFE course under the Labor approach, I'd get a fee-free course. I have more than enough capacity to pay for the course. Why would I get a fee-free course?

On this fairness debate, think about a cleaner. They are some of the hardest-working Australians but not really well paid; an average wage for a cleaner in Australia might be about $60,000 a year. Why should a cleaner who hasn't had the advantages of a university education or a TAFE course pay the TAFE fees of a plumber or an electrician? The plumber has the capacity. On average wages, they make $87,000 a year. An electrician's average wage in Australia is currently $94,000 a year. So why are the taxes of a cleaner on $58,000 a year going to pay the fee-free TAFE of a plumber or electrician? I've got to say that not once in my 16 years in this place has a plumber or an electrician come to me and said: 'You know what? The money I spent on my training was a waste of money.' They know it's an investment in their own future. They're quite happy to pay for the skills and training they need knowing full well that they will benefit from that training in the years ahead. It's an investment in themselves. Those plumbers, those electricians, who have some limited capacity to pay at the time of their study have access to other systems already where they can delay the payment. We have a very advanced system in Australia where you can delay the payment for the course itself.

I want to re-emphasise this. There is not a person in this place who doesn't believe that we should be investing in our young people or that we should be investing in educational opportunities, whether it's through TAFE, VET or on to university, but we on this side of the House want to make sure that we're getting value for money for the Australian taxpayers' dollars, because nothing is ever free. Someone else is always paying. The fact that this bill does not provide any provision to assess an individual's capacity to pay, to contribute to their own education, is a fundamental flaw with the bill before the House.

Unfortunately, this government has form in relation to writing blank cheques and expecting other people to pay. This is another cynical vote-buying exercise aimed at younger voters. What we've seen in the last couple of weeks is that this government has finally realised that cost of living is an issue for the Australian people. It's woken up to the fact after 2½ years and after wasting more than $400 million on a referendum. They finally realise that cost of living is a big issue.

Their first response was to come out with a vote-buying scheme targeted so cynically that it disproportionally benefits young people and people who graduated with a degree in inner urban areas at the expense of working-class people in regional areas. I'm referring specifically to the announcement that the government will pay $16 billion to reduce student HELP debts by 20 per cent. The reason this bill is very similar to the one before the House today, and is so egregious, is that when I asked the Parliamentary Library—a very independent source—for a breakdown on who this will benefit the most—what a surprise! The seats that will benefit the most from this $16 billion are either held by the Labor Party and are under direct threat from the Greens or are held by the Greens themselves and are Labor Party target seats.

The Parliamentary Library data is so unequivocally damning of this plan that I am surprised that there hasn't been more outrage over it. For example, this proposal will benefit 12,777 people in the seat of Gippsland. It's good for them. They'll get that 20 per cent reduction. But, in the Prime Minister's seat of Grayndler, it will help 28,009 students—that's more than double. In the education minister's seat of Blaxland, it's 25,901. Remember, it's 12,000 in Gippsland, 25,000 in the education minister's seat, and 28,000 in the Prime Minister's seat.

It gets worse, because across Australia, when you average out the seats held by the National Party—obviously rural and regional seats—the average number of students across all National Party seats who will benefit from this debt retirement at taxpayers' expense is 13,384. But, when you average out the seats held by the Greens, the target seats for the Australian Labor Party, in the inner city, which is where they're obviously hoping to make some ground at the next election, what do you think the number would be, Member for Nicholls? Would it be more or less?

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm worried it's going to be more.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In seats held by the Greens, the average is 32,288. That's almost 2½ times the number. This is a disgusting use of taxpayers' money to cynically try and buy votes in the city, and those opposite know it.

This gets us right back to the bill before the House today. This government wants to write blank cheques with other people's money to try to buy votes of the younger people in Australia with no regard whatsoever for the fact that somebody always has to pay for their promises.

One of the most interesting aspects of the debate before the House is that Labor takes great pride in saying that 508,000 students have taken on fee-free enrolments during their time in government. That's an impressive number. But what we've been asking of the government is: how many of those students who have taken advantage of a fee-free TAFE course have finished the course? That's a reasonable question. Is it 50 per cent, 90 per cent or 20 per cent? Because how could you decide to extend a program unless you'd measured it, reviewed it, assessed its success and decided that this is a program that is worthy of continuing or maybe we need to tweak it a bit.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's called 'evaluation'.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Nicholls is right. It's called evaluation. It's also called—for a minister—taking responsibility for the use of taxpayers' money and ensuring that you achieve the best possible outcome for the hardworking Australians who have contributed tax in the first place and expect you to work just as hard to ensure you achieve value for money with the dollars they contribute to the overall revenue of the Commonwealth.

There have been 508,000 fee-free enrolments during the time of government, but no data has been provided to members on this side of the House in relation to the completion rates. This is a bit mischievous, at best, by the government, because we heard in Senate estimates that that data has been made available. While the minister comes in here and claims it takes four years to get usable data, it was actually confirmed in Senate estimates that he regularly receives a report on fee-free TAFE numbers, with the latest current data provided on 30 June 2024.

Data is provided to the minister's office every three months. So why is he coming in here and saying it takes four years to get usable data? Why is he saying that? Has he misspoken? I hope he hasn't misled the House; that would be an appalling state of affairs. If there are 508,000 people who have had the advantage of fee-free TAFE, surely the Australian taxpayers have every right to know how many of those students have completed their course, are still making progress on their course or have dropped out. If I was a minister and making commitments with hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, I'd want to know: 'Has it worked? Has this been a good program?' Surely you'd be calling in the secretary of the department and bureaucrats, and saying: 'Hey, team, 508,000 people have enrolled. Fee-free enrolments seems to be a very successful program. A lot of people have turned up. But how many of them have actually completed their course?' This is the critical aspect of it.

There is no transparency in the debate. This is all about trying to buy the votes of young people and then masquerading in here that there's some sort of fault line with those on that side caring much more about education than those on this side, who apparently don't care. That's just not the truth. These are reasonable questions for the minister to answer: Why won't he give us the data on completion rates? Why isn't fee-free TAFE specifically targeted at the most vulnerable, disadvantaged Australians? And why isn't there at least some consideration on an individual's capacity to pay? If you can afford to contribute to your own education in some shape or form, then, surely, you should, because that gives the government more money to help more vulnerable people in the first place.

Right throughout their presentations today, those opposite have belled the cat. They've come out and told us that if you do a TAFE or university course you'll earn more money across your life. If you're going to benefit financially so significantly, why should the taxes of the cleaner I talked about earlier—on $58,000 a year, with no access to further training or earning extra income—go to making education free for someone who's going to earn probably twice as much in their career? It fails the test of fairness, fails the test of transparency and fails the test of value for money for Australian taxpayers.

I urge the minister: instead of trying to create false fault lines around education, come in here and tell the truth. What has been the completion rate of the 508,000 fee-free TAFE enrolments in this term of government? How many people have completed their courses? How many are progressing successfully through their courses, and how many have dropped out? We will then be in a better position, on both sides of the House, to evaluate the proposal put before us. But there is no way those of us on this side of the House are going to give this government a blank cheque to go out and try and cynically buy more votes of young Australians and show no respect to the Australian taxpayers who work damn hard for their money and expect ministers to work just as hard.

Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a proud product of the TAFE system, as are more than 5½ thousand people living within the electorate of Holt. My journey to this House was shaped by my early years as a shop assistant, where I stacked shelves and navigated the aisles of various Woolies stores across the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Thanks to the TAFE sector I was able to upskill and pursue my passion in culinary arts. I earned a certificate III in commercial cookery from Box Hill TAFE and diplomas in hospitality management and patisserie from William Angliss Institute. This allowed me to pursue my passion of baking and to move into the bakery department at Woolworths. This change in position increased my hourly wage by a few dollars and gave me a sense of security knowing that I was skilled in a trade.

My story is like so many more from the community I so proudly represent. As I look to the future, over 90 per cent of jobs will require tertiary qualification.

For millions of Australians these skills cannot come from universities. Instead, it is only the hands-on experience that TAFE can provide that will give them the training they need to launch their careers. This is why the Albanese Labor government is committed to strengthening our education system and rebuilding Australia's TAFE sector.

We know that the Liberal-National opposition has consistently undermined TAFE, seeking to privatise it at the state level and washing their hands of responsibility at the federal level. When we came to government we inherited a TAFE system on the brink of collapse. It was a system devastated by a decade of neglect under the former government. Unlike the Liberals, we do not see TAFE as a nuisance or as something less than a university degree. We see TAFE and vocational education as essential to the future of our workforce. TAFE is vital for boosting productivity, addressing skill shortages and ensuring every Australian has the opportunity to climb the social and economic ladder.

A recent report by Jobs and Skills Australia highlighted the transformative power of TAFE. On average, TAFE graduates see their annual wages increase by $11,800, and 39 per cent of graduate no longer relied on income support. These are life-changing outcomes that improve not only financial security but also overall quality of life for individuals and their families. As someone who has lived on a minimum wage for more than 15 years, I know how much of a difference this kind of financial stability can make. This is why I am proud to be part of a government that champions free TAFE for Australia.

In just 18 months Labor's free TAFE initiative has led to more than 508,000 enrolments. This program is creating hundreds of thousands of opportunities for people across the nation, including in our local community. Recently, with the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, I visited Chisholm TAFE in Cranbourne to meet some of these students and hear their stories. One of them was Zainab, a refugee from Afghanistan who is currently studying English. She told me how she plans to pursue aged-care training after completing her course so that she can give back to the country that has welcomed her. Another student, Dylan, is father to a young child and is studying horticulture. He shared how free TAFE gave him the chance to upskill and secure a better-paid job. Dylan also told me that he couldn't risk being in debt for $30,000 while raising a child and, thanks to Labor's free TAFE, he doesn't have to. Then there's Evie, who left school in year 10 and worked in her family's business for years. Now she's pursuing a TAFE qualification, with the dream of starting her own business.

It is hard to fathom how the Liberal Party can sit across from us and label free TAFE as 'wasteful spending'. Stories like Zainab's, Dylan's and Evie's are proof of why our government is committed to free TAFE. This program is not just about education; it's about transforming lives, breaking down barriers and opening the doors to success for Australians from all walks of life. This is why I'm proud to stand here today and announce that Labor will make free TAFE permanent. From 2027 onwards, Labor will fund more than 100,000 free TAFE places every year. Let me say that again: we are making free TAFE permanent for over 100,000 Australians every single year. Free TAFE is already providing a pipeline of work to crucial industries, with over 130,000 enrolments in the care sector, over 35,000 in the early childhood sector and almost 35,000 enrolments in the construction sector.

This program is addressing workforce shortages in national priority areas. It is training the carers we need to support our aging parents. It is training the educators we need to care for our children while we work. It is training the plumbers and bricklayers we need to build houses and address the housing shortage. It is training the electricians and solar installers we need to power Australia's renewable energy transition.

Victoria, my home state, has been leading the way on free TAFE. Since 2019, a state-run program has been in place and its success is clear. The Victoria Skills Plan estimates that, of the 350,000 new workers needed in our state between 2023 and 2026, nearly half will require a TAFE qualification.

While the Liberals call free TAFE wasteful spending, they have no plans to address our workforce shortage, they want to get rid of free TAFE, they want to block Labor's student debt relief and they want to make it more expensive for every Australian to gain the skills they need for a secure and well-paid job. And once they make it harder to access education, they will overturn workplace rights and push your wages down.

The Liberals claim to care about the cost of living, but they have shown us no solution. This bill ensures federal funding for states and territories to deliver these free-TAFE places. Agreements with the Commonwealth will set clear terms, including the number of places, areas of study, priority groups, reporting requirements and financial arrangements. These agreements will ensure transparency and accountability, while delivering the skills Australians need to thrive.

This builds on the National Skills Agreement, which was signed by the former minister Brendan O'Connor and his state and territory counterparts last year. This agreement represents a $12.6 billion investment into TAFE by the Albanese Labor government. This funding is aimed at addressing crucial and future needs in Australia's workforce, including to support a future made in Australia, the net zero transformation, construction and housing supply, the care and support economy, defence manufacturing and digital capability.

We are investing $325 million in establishing a network of national TAFE centres of excellence to promote best practices in education and training. We are investing $100 million to support the growth and retention of a high quality workforce. We are investing over $250 million to support students to complete their qualification, with a specific emphasis on supporting women and those from marginalised backgrounds.

Labor's free TAFE initiative is not just an investment in education; it's an investment in people, communities and the future of our great nation. Free TAFE is about giving Australians the tools to build lives for themselves and their families. It's about addressing skill shortages, strengthening our economy and ensuring that no one is left behind. I know the impact that TAFE can have on someone's life and I know that, for every Zainab, Dylan and Evie, Labor's commitment to TAFE means opportunity and a better future.

This is what Labor stands for: a government that invests in people, values education and delivers on its promise. I am proud to be part of a government that is making free TAFE permanent—a government that believes in the life changing power of education and skills. Let us continue building a stronger, fairer and more prosperous Australia together.

Thank you to the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, and his predecessor, the Hon. Brendan O'Connor, for your hard work and advocacy for free TAFE. I commend this bill to the House.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Free TAFE Bill 2024. It's always interesting in this place, the people who come up with the names of bills, like a headline writer in a newspaper. 'Free TAFE Bill' sounds great; it sounds fantastic—free! It probably should be called 'the taxpayer funded TAFE bill' or the 'free for some but not for others TAFE bill'.

I want to talk a bit about how I think TAFE can be better and how we can move forward as a country by making education and TAFE better, based on some experiences I've had overseas, and also talk about that concept we have of 'free'. What is 'free'? It's great when you go down to the pub and someone's put on free beer. It might be free for us, but someone, somewhere, has paid, because everything has a cost, and that cost has to be borne somewhere. It is the same for free parking or whatever it is. The reality is that, for everything we do, for all the decisions we make in this place, a cost is borne in almost every case by the Australian taxpayer. So, calling something free is a misnomer. The cost is borne by the Australian taxpayer.

I come from a very entrepreneurial place. Nicholls is made up of people who often came from a long way across the world throughout history, to make a better life. They've worked incredibly hard, often working on farms and then buying their own farms and setting up food manufacturing businesses. And people work in those food manufacturing businesses. People set up businesses. We're not really a taxpayer funded region like, might I say, the great city of Canberra, where a lot of people are paid for by the taxpayer. We come from a place where people make their own money through their ingenuity and their effort.

Those people, because they work so hard to make it and put so much of their own risk to make it, are really interested in how governments spend that money, and those people are pretty concerned with the way governments are spending it at the moment. I can't tell you how many taxpayers called me, even though it's a state issue, to tell me how hard they work to pay tax, only to see the Victorian Labor government flush $589 million of it down the toilet on a Commonwealth Games that was planned for and is not going to happen. The taxpayers in my electorate, who, as the member for Gippsland said, worked damned hard for that, are very annoyed that government incompetence could lead to that much wastage.

I and many people in my electorate are the beneficiaries of education, and a lot of people in this place are the beneficiaries of education, and everyone in this place really supports education. The member for Gippsland was right when he talked about the fact that this attempt to make a fault line between them caring about education and us not caring is ridiculous. Many of us have benefited from education. I've attempted three degrees, and I've graduated with two of them. My first one didn't work out, but I did have to pay; I had to pay for not completing that course—and I'll come back to that a bit later. I was working on a farm in the nineties and I realised I wanted to move forward in my career in agriculture and that I needed more agricultural education, so I went and did a degree in agricultural science at the University of Melbourne. I took up what was then known as a HECS loan. That's a great agreement with the government where they say, 'Sam, we're going to invest in your education, and when you start earning down the track as a result of our investment, you can pay back that loan.' And I did that. It took me a little while, but I did it.

Many years later, I wanted to get educated again, so I went to La Trobe University, which, fortunately for me, has a regional campus. I wanted to do an MBA.

Again, the government said, 'Sam, we're prepared to invest in your education by giving you, but you've got a capacity to pay, so we're going to get you to pay it back.' At that time, it was called a FEE-HELP loan. That effort of mine to get educated, earn more money and then pay it back into the pool helped other people who did not have a capacity to pay immediately. I did my MBA and I paid that one off quicker because I was earning more money by that stage.

I think a responsible government has got to look at how things are funded. Responsible governments, in the past, have looked at university. Do we have university that is just open slather and free for everyone or do we have an arrangement where we invest in you, but when you've got a capacity to pay it back, you do that. That's what a responsible government does.

I am interested to know, too, where exactly the funds are coming from this so-called free or—as I should say—taxpayer-funded TAFE, because page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum of the Free TAFE Bill states, 'There is no financial impact resulting from the Free TAFE Bill 2024.' This sounds like magic pudding stuff to me. You're going to make something free, but that thing has a cost which you'll shift to somewhere—but then you're saying there is no financial impact. I don't quite understand that. Maybe I am not that bright—that's a possibility—but, if someone can explain that to me, I would love to know how there is no financial impact resulting from the Free TAFE Bill. Maybe that's one for the minister to come in to this place and talk about.

I don't want to criticise people working in the TAFE sector; I think they're doing a really good job, and there are some good outcomes from TAFE. But in my discussions with businesses in my electorate, particularly in hospitality, manufacturing and agriculture, they don't think TAFE's hitting the mark. They don't think that TAFE is delivering exactly what they need. TAFE does some good things, but I think the structure and the investment needs to change. I don't think the investment needs to go into making it free for people; I think the investment needs to go into making it better for people and better for Australian industry.

I had the great fortune of winning a Churchill Fellowship at the start of 2020. My plan was to go to Europe and North America to study a problem that I'd identified in my electorate—well, I wasn't a member of parliament then, but it was a problem in the region that I lived in. That was the fact that we were having trouble getting students at school to move into business. I wanted to see what countries like Germany, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom were doing about that. I got delayed because of the COVID pandemic, but I did get to go last year during the mid-winter break.

I was really impressed with the German system of vocational education. I toured many places: Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Fresenius, the chamber of commerce in Frankfurt, and to a terrific technical school, I suppose you'd call it.

What impressed me the most about their system was that students got apprenticeships and, depending on the system, they spent two or three days working in the business—for example, Mercedes-Benz—and, for the remaining two or three days of the week they were getting a technical education at a vocational education school. The other good thing about that was that the vocational education system and the curriculum wasn't so much decided upon and run by the government; it was run by the chamber of commerce. Industry had more involvement in the curriculum than I have noticed that industry has in the TAFE curriculum here. I think that's something we can work on to improve TAFE. The other thing that impressed me about that was the quality of the technical school and the quality of the teaching.

Whilst I don't want to denigrate TAFE, I thought that what I saw in Germany was better than what we have here in TAFE.

I say that as a solution. Instead of investing in and spending the taxpayers' money on making it free for anyone—as the member for Gippsland pointed out, there's no consideration of capacity to pay. You could have a billionaire walk in and do a fee-free TAFE course. You could have someone who has enormous resources or someone whose parents have enormous resources who might pay. It's not targeted at the most vulnerable people, whom we do want to get an education. So, instead of that investment into just making it open slather or free for anyone who walks through the door, why don't we invest in improving the system and look at what countries overseas do in relation to vocational education? I think that's really important.

The member for Gippsland raised some very good points—and I interjected behind him, just to give him some support—about the word 'evaluation'. It's important, and the onus is on governments and ministers in this place, to evaluate the effect of the taxpayer spend. As I pointed out before, many people have made a very critical and poor evaluation of the Victorian government's decision to waste $589 million on a Commonwealth Games that didn't go ahead.

There have been many questions from this side of the House to the minister to say, 'Of the 508,000 enrolments, how many people have completed their course, how many people are progressing through their course, and how many people are dropping out?' There seems to be some real confusion as to whether that data is available or not. Senate estimates seem to have uncovered that there is data available, but then the minister comes in and says, 'They're four-year courses, so we don't know yet.' I don't think that's good enough. I think the minister has to be able to say, 'Here is the evaluation of where those enrolments are up to,' because we, the parliament, and the taxpayers who are working very hard to pay this tax are spending a lot of money on this policy, and they want to know what bang they're getting for their buck. I think that's reasonable, and the minister needs to come clean on some of that. We need more robust evaluation of a policy such as this.

Vocational academic pathways are really important for people. People need to have access to university or vocational education. It's not for everyone, but it certainly doesn't enhance people's lives. It enhances people's earning capacity and it enhances us as a nation. But what's the best bang for buck for our taxpayer dollars in relation to our education systems? Is it just making it free for everyone, or can we invest that money in a better way, looking, as I've said, to Europe? Is it reasonable to say that an Australian who benefits from the education that they receive from the taxpayer should contribute to that education? Not necessarily upfront, because that would be a barrier to entry, but down the track in the way that FEE-HELP and other student loan systems have been set up in relation to other courses. I pose that question.

The coalition won't be supporting this bill, because we don't see it as being a reasonable expenditure of taxpayers' money. There are too many questions about how it would be funded and it fails the general fairness test. It doesn't target money at vulnerable people, it just sort of throws it out there. Again, I'm for investment in Australian education, but let's make it a targeted investment that improves the education system and our students, and benefits our industries as much as it can.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

COKER () (): Free TAFE changes lives. It's a foundation for opportunity for many Australians—for young people, for women, for thousands of people across Australia who want well-paid and secure work in sectors where we have worker shortages. Our government recognises this and understands the crucial role that this sector will play in building Australia's future. That's why I stand today to support the Free TAFE Bill 2024, a bill that will ensure that free TAFE becomes permanent.

I stand on behalf of many Australians—thousands of TAFE students, school leavers and everyday people—who want a career change. I stand on behalf of all those people across my electorate of Corangamite who value TAFE: people who want to build the houses we need, people who want to make more things here in Australia, people who want to care for our most vulnerable Australians or provide our youngest Australians with early-years education, people who support this reform, and people who have benefited from the extraordinary success of free TAFE in the last 18 months. We know that more than half a million Australians have embraced this opportunity, gaining the skills that they want in the areas we need, like nursing, manufacturing, the care sector and construction.

As the member for Corangamite, I certainly note that this legislation will strengthen Gordon TAFE in my electorate and its capacity to attract more students to our region and, in turn, support economic success for our region. The Gordon is playing an amazing role, offering opportunities for many people across our communities in the Bellarine, the Surf Coast and the Geelong region. It is an amazing organisation. It started in the 19th century and began because there was such a need for skills in our growing economy. Today, we're facing a similar challenge to broaden our skills base and expand our skilled workforce so that it can meet the needs of Australia and take us into the future as a strong economy.

To do that, we need to empower TAFE to do its job well. That means pursuing bold reforms like free TAFE, a reform that backs in TAFEs like the Gordon to grow our skills base. I would like to give a shout out to Gordon, which has gone from strength to strength, with now 13,000 students enrolled. It began with only 10 students all those years ago. There are many success stories that have come from Gordon TAFE. I met with a TAFE student yesterday here at parliament, Trey McAuley. He's a local apprentice carpenter and he is inspiring other apprentices and trainees to aim for the stars just like he has. Trey's apprenticeship and training at Gordon has led to an opportunity to represent Australia in the 47th WorldSkills International Championships in Lyon, France this year. Trey said that TAFE provided him with so many amazing opportunities, and he said:

…I love my job, and to think it began with a regional competition at The Gordon and led me to where I am now is exciting…My employer is another reason why working in the trade industry has been a great career choice. I'm committed to giving it my best.

That's what TAFE is all about, and free TAFE will mean this experience is available to so many more Australians who would otherwise miss out.

We do have a responsibility to help people here and now. That starts with education for all Australians, no matter their background or financial situation, so that no one is held back and no one is left behind. We believe in equal opportunity. By making TAFE free, we're removing the financial barriers to access and ensuring that everyone has a chance to pursue a career they love and achieve their potential. Importantly, we believe in investing in our people.

By investing in them, we're ensuring all Australians have the skills and capacity to contribute to a thriving economy. It's clear our whole nation benefits when we make it easier for people to access education. A fairer society benefits everyone. The long-term benefits of more skilled, productive workers will create economic growth that benefits all Australians.

The reality is that the cost of inaction is higher. Failing to invest in skilling up our people will leave businesses stranded, businesses who are still struggling from workforce shortages, workforce shortages that are a legacy of the former coalition government. We all remember how the Liberals presided over the second-biggest skills shortage in the OECD. Now in opposition they're refusing to back so many key reforms in skills and training: our additional free TAFE and VET places for construction, expanding access to new energy apprenticeships, expanding capacity for training facilities and a trainer workforce, support for women's careers in VET or increased financial supports to prioritise apprenticeships and employers. And still they failed to land a national agreement with states and territories to build Australia's skills base. In government, the Liberals cut $3 billion of funding from the VET system and TAFE. Instead of funding TAFEs and skilling Australians, the Liberal government paid celebrity tradie Scott Cam $345,000 for 15 months of work in 2020. The Leader of the Opposition hasn't said the word 'TAFE' in this place since 2004.

But what's absolutely extraordinary is that the Liberal Party opposed free TAFE. They want to slam the door on opportunity for future Australians. They want to deny people the opportunity that half a million people have already embraced. Why would they do this? The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has pulled back the curtain to reveal the flawed reasoning behind why they want to rip apart the TAFE sector. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition made some statements on this bill in the House that in my opinion were quite shocking. She said:

And remember this, and it's a key principle and tenet of the Liberal Party: if you don't pay for something, you don't value it.

She then went on to dig an even bigger hole and say:

So, if you're told that your TAFE is free and all you have to do is turn up—you actually have to do some work, and then you have to get a qualification at the end—and if that's all that it is but you haven't paid for it, you don't see it as something that makes a difference to you in your life; you don't see it as something valuable.

These comments do reflect so much about the Liberal Party's values or, in this case, the lack of them—that education and a pathway to rewarding work only exists for those that can afford it. And what would the deputy opposition leader say to the 500,000 recipients of free TAFE—that their skills are less valuable because they have received support? In stark contrast, the Labor government believes that Australians should have access to education and to accreditation, regardless of what's in your or your parents' bank accounts. I would urge those opposite, instead of bagging free TAFE, to get out there and talk to people who've benefited from the program. There are thousands of people right across our country and in my electorate of Corangamite who are so enthusiastic about this opportunity and the benefits it has brought to them and to our nation.

In closing, I'd like to draw the attention of the House to the comments made by the shadow spokesperson for education. The senator for Victoria said:

… there are people, employers everywhere, crying out for tradies, for workers that don't necessarily require university education.

What I'd say to the senator is this: you are correct; we need more tradies, and our tradies don't necessarily need university education. But they do need a TAFE qualification. But not all Australians who want to be a tradie can afford that qualification. And that's why free TAFE is important. That's why Labor is backing this reform.

Free TAFE is empowering people to pursue their dreams, to secure rewarding work, to get a decent pay packet and to contribute to Australia's productivity in sectors that need qualified workers. Free TAFE makes absolute sense, and I urge the opposition to join us in supporting this bill and all those who will benefit from it.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Free TAFE Bill 2024. Well, folks, you can see it's election time. The Albanese Labor government try and come up with big announcements but, when it comes down to the finer details, you uncover just how dodgy their ideas really are. You know education is the most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage, and it is the best investment we can make in Australia's future.

In government, the coalition invested more than $13 billion in skills over the final two years alone, representing the most significant reforms to Aussie skills in more than a decade. The coalition will oppose Labor's fee-free TAFE, because it is unfunded and could permanently increase Commonwealth spending by up to $500 million a year. So, the question is: what will Labor cut to fund this permanent commitment? Will Prime Minister Albanese make good on his commitment? Or will it be like his power price promise? Remember that, everybody? Prime Minister Albanese promised that, if he was elected, power bills would be $275 cheaper—a promise he repeated 97 times. However, since he's been elected, he cannot even say the number, and power prices have risen substantially. Remember the Prime Minister's great line, 'My word is my bond'? And, less than 48 hours later, he broke his promise and didn't even blink an eye.

So for all the people who are looking at this policy and hoping to obtain fee-free TAFE in the future, please be careful—be very, very careful—because this current Prime Minister has all the credibility of a vegetarian shark. The Albanese Labor government has failed to outline how it plans to fund this unfunded election promise. Is this the right way to use our hardworking taxpayers' money?

We on this side of the House are not anti-TAFE. But we are concerned about the Commonwealth funding places only at TAFEs, through fee-free TAFE policies. What about the other vocational training providers? What about Vocational Skills Australia, the National College of Vocational Education, the Vocational Language and Learning Centre, Vocational Training Institute, and many other organisations? Why single out TAFE?

Prime Minister Albanese and skills minister Andrew Giles have repeatedly dodged questions about how many Australians have completed or dropped out of the $500,000 fee-free TAFE courses. This is despite the government's own talking points stating that just 13 per cent of fee-free TAFE enrolments have resulted in a qualification being completed, at an eye-watering cost of $1.5 billion. Minister Giles may have misled the parliament when he stated that fee-free TAFE completion numbers—

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Dawson, I'd just remind you, while you're giving your address, to refer to members by their ministerial title.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Skills minister Andrew Giles may have misled parliament when he stated that fee-free TAFE completion numbers could not be provided because it takes four years to get useable data. Officials confirmed that he regularly receives a report on fee-free TAFE numbers, the latest one being as current as 30 June 2024. This data is updated every three months, not every four years.

Industry sources suggest free TAFE fail rates could be as high as 50 to 60 per cent across many courses, and the training sector has indicated that some courses have failure rates as high as 70 to 90 per cent.

There is a pattern of behaviour with the skills minister, Andrew Giles. His performance in the parliament as the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs led to his sacking. As skills minister, he then told the parliament that fee-free TAFE would have no financial impact, even whilst he had the costing sitting on his desk. He told the parliament he would not know how many fee-free students are graduating until 2028, while his own question time brief told him he had the answer. It was just 13 per cent. Minister Giles is not across his brief, and he is signing up the taxpayer to an ongoing financial commitment he has not found funding for.

Prime Minister Albanese and skills minister Andrew Giles must now come clean about why they had deliberately withheld the true ongoing cost of their fee-free TAFE bill for all parliament to see, for all of parliament's consideration. When will they fund their pledge to permanently fund their fee-free TAFE? And how are they going to pay for it? Labor's approach to the Free TAFE Bill is disrespectful to the Australian taxpayers and another example of the Labor loose economic approach. There is no such thing as free. Someone always has to pay, and it's the taxpayers.

Those on social benefits who are required to go to TAFE to get a Centrelink payment are enrolling in courses and then dropping out. This is a huge waste of vital resources, and this is at the taxpayers' expense. And how is this dealing with workforce shortages? Since Labor took office, Australia has 85,000 fewer apprentices and trainees. This means we have lost more apprentices and trainees than fee-free TAFE has graduated. That doesn't seem to be going in the right direction to me. If you have a look at the number line and you look at the numbers, that certainly is not going in the right direction.

TAFE has been vital in our lives for 141 years, helping train the next generation of Queenslanders or older generations looking for a career change. In my electorate of Dawson, our economy supports many jobs and more than 87,000 workers in Mackay alone, and many of these jobs are tradies. They've had to have some vocational training. The plumbers, who fix our toilets and make sure our leaks are right; the electricians, who keep everything going around the house, who keep the lights on; and the beauty attendants, who keep our wives and girlfriends happy, are certainly worth the money. But we really, really need to keep all the vocational service providers going, not just pick one, not just pick TAFE.

With major job shortages, we are seeing a large focus on bringing overseas workers in to fill the gaps. What we would like to see is more vocational service providers training our Australian citizens to undertake these jobs, but not just TAFE. Why is the government always focused on just TAFE? Maybe that will come out as this debate goes on. Across the country we're seeing massive shortages in the aged-care and disability sectors and with our frontline paramedics. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to address this crisis?

Even with free courses, those who are registered dropout. In Victoria, for example, just one per cent of those who were registered for a free Certificate II in Plumbing successfully completed their training.

Again, this is wasting more money and resources that could have been utilised by someone who is serious about finishing a course or a diploma.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a cert IV, mate! You obviously know nothing about this!

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection from the skills minister, but he'd be better off getting across his brief rather than helping me with mine.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was trying to help you!

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have a very shocking way of helping; I'll give you that!

How can you promise fee-free TAFE courses which may not be free? This is misleading, and students deserve better than making faith pledges on skills and training. How can the Albanese Labor government commit to permanently funding a program without even knowing if it's working effectively? This is wasting funding that could be used elsewhere—a very typical problem that occurs when you have a Labor government.

This one-term Labor government has no idea when it comes to making smart decisions for everyday people. As Australians continue to be hit hard by Labor's cost-of-living crisis, they deserve answers as to how Labor is using their money. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is trying to cash in on the TAFE brand to boost his bad polling numbers. But you can't claim you're permanently funding 100,000 fee-free TAFE places and then refuse to allocate any money. This comes in stark contrast to what happened earlier in the week with the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024—remember that? Those opposite had no value for tradies there. Under the misinformation bill, if you are an academic you can't be accused of misinformation but if you're a tradie or layperson you can. All of a sudden they come up with this bill—not very consistent but very typical.

Education has always been accessible to those who want to complete a certificate or a diploma. We need people who can enrol and finish their course to improve skills shortages across the country. Skills shortages have worsened under this current Labor government, and the Albanese approach is downright negligent. This legislation is bound to fail while it's not funded and there's no evaluation of how effective it is. This is why this side of the House will not support it. If it wasn't for the questioning of department officials at Senate estimates, the Labor government would have hidden the truth from everyday Australians. I know that taxpayers' money is not important to those opposite but it is important to me. How can we support this reckless legislation? It is totally irresponsible. This is not a good policy and not good value for our taxpayers. Labor's free-TAFE pledge is nothing but a big sham.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to rise and speak on this bill, the Free TAFE Bill 2024. I start by commending the Minister for Skills and Training for incorporating for the future an investment in education and training in this country. There's no doubt that when we came to office just over 2½ years ago we were confronted with one of the worst skills shortages in this country's history. For 50 years we have not had such a great paucity of skills in so many sectors of our economy. For that reason the Prime Minister made the right decision to call together constituent parts of the economy, including representatives of employers, businesses, workers, universities, the VET sector—including TAFEs—and civil society, in order to confront the major challenges we have in our economy. One of the major challenges we've had to date and for the period we've been in government has been to deal with these skills shortages across the economy.

Arising out of that summit, the first decision was made by the Albanese government and the state and territory governments to commit to 180,000 fee-free TAFE places for the first 12 months, if you like.

We reached the target well before time, and we did so in order to ensure that people across this nation, whether they're in cities, regional towns or smaller communities, were able to access training and education in areas of current and future demand. The reason they were picked up so quickly was that people were really in need of those skills—not only the students acquiring the skills but the businesses that are crying out for a skilled workforce, and, at large, our economy. Out of the success of those early days, we continue to invest and continue to partner with eight other governments, six state and two territory governments, working together. I believe that there are very strong signs of success.

I want to disabuse this place of the proposition put by those opposite that this has not been a successful initiative from the commencement, because the reality is that the completion rates of fee-free TAFE—and that data will continue to flow through from providers to state and territory governments to the Commonwealth—are in most circumstances higher than the completion rates of university degrees and other VET sector courses. That's the first thing that should be said, because there's a lot of misinformation being put forward by those opposite, who do not have a clue when it comes to dealing with TAFE. We know the only time that they consider TAFE is when it's about how they can rip as much money as they can from those remarkable public providers. That's the history of the coalition when it comes to looking after TAFE colleges throughout this country, unfortunately.

I'm most surprised that the member for Dawson, the preceding speaker, who represents a community that absolutely requires access to education and training, including in the VET sector, would think it was a nonsense to provide opportunities for his constituents. You think about this. There are more than half a million Australians enrolled in fee-free TAFE. That means approximately 3,000 to 4,000 people in each and every electorate of this country—because the other thing about the data, when you look at access to free TAFE courses, is that you see there has been a real effort to ensure that this is an investment across Australia. Just over a third of the places, for example, are in regional Australia, as they should be. Over 50 per cent, closer to 60 per cent, are for women, and that's largely because of the demand in sectors of the economy where there are more women working and more opportunities in education and the care economy.

The nonsense put forward by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister, and those who read her notes and have been pretty much parroting it since the debate started in this place, is shown to be completely wrong when you look at the facts. This is a successful scheme. It's been taken up by half a million Australians or more, and it's been popular throughout the country, in city and regional areas, and I think it will continue to be successful.

The reason I think it will be successful is that we are in dire need of this investment. This is not just to support students and young workers in acquiring skills. This is for businesses that are crying out for the skills that they need. This is for our economy because, as the minister has said, and I said before him, we are suffering the worst skills shortage in half a century and we need to do better.

This bill also is in the context of a lot of reforms outlined by the Albanese government in relation to the VET sector. Frankly, I think federal governments, even Labor governments of the past, could have done better in the VET sector, looking back. Hindsight's obviously an easy perspective. But the reality is that this government, the Albanese government, has put the VET sector on an equal footing with the university sector in a way that no preceding federal government has done, or at least not for decades. We've done that by lifting the status of the VET sector, including the very important role that public providers play in this very critical tertiary sector in our country. I'm very proud that we've managed to do that. We've elevated the sector, designating a minister responsible for the sector—working closely, of course, with the minister responsible for universities, but working primarily to ensure the VET sector is successful. And why are we looking to do that? Because the VET sector provides nearly half the skills to our labour market.

Historically, the Commonwealth has too often acted as a funding body rather than as a strategic partner with state and territory governments. The National Skills Agreement, a five-year agreement with $30 billion of financial certainty for the sector, was a landmark agreement and one that had not been reached for a decade. In the previous nine years, the previous government failed to reach any agreement with state and territory governments on the VET sector, and that was to the detriment of not only the sector but the people looking to acquire skills and the businesses who wanted to ensure that their skill vacancies could be filled.

This is about ensuring, firstly, that we work as strategic partners with state and territory governments and, secondly, that we work closer with industry so that we are in touch with the changing nature of the labour market and our economy and making sure that we are investing in areas of demand—not just for today but for tomorrow. There is a time lag between what is needed now and what is needed after the acquisition of skills and knowledge. We have to anticipate more precisely what our economy needs in three years time and in five years time so that when we look to invest in education and training, whether it be universities or the VET sector, we do so with an understanding of what our economy, labour market and businesses demand. And I think we will do that better with the creation of Jobs and Skills Australia.

Jobs and Skills Australia is about anticipating more precisely the needs of our labour market today and tomorrow. It is complemented by jobs and skills councils, through which we are making sure we have real economic insight into the data analysed by Jobs and Skills Australia. That combination of data collection and analysis of the labour market and real economic insight by economic players in different sectors of our economy will bring about much better intelligence for governments—and for industry—to make decisions around investing in education and training for this country. And that's what we're seeing under this government.

It was not a coincidence that this government chose to introduce the Jobs and Skills Australia legislation as the first bill of this parliamentary term. I want to pay tribute to the Prime Minister. It was a signature policy of his. He saw it as being akin to Infrastructure Australia—what we did with capital investment we could do with human capital. I think that has been a great success to date. There's a long way to go, but I'm certainly confident that that will continue to work in the interests of the Australian people, our economy and, indeed, workers and businesses. This is all working in combination. Setting up an arrangement where the best intelligence informs our funding in education and training, whether it be universities or the VET sector, is critical so we don't waste taxpayers' money.

The other thing I want to knock on the head is the idea that we don't invest in non-TAFE providers. There is an enormous amount of investment in them. Billions and billions of dollars are invested in non-public providers in the VET sector by the Commonwealth and by state and territory governments. We do believe that TAFE should sit at the heart of the VET sector, but we accept that there are industry providers and other specialist providers who really do provide great education and training.

Our major concern as a government is that we want to get rid of the shonks. We want to get rid of the bottom feeders. We want to get rid of the ones who'd like to spend more time turning up to campaign fundraisers for politicians than actually delivering skills to their students. That's why we provided powers to the regulatory body, ASQA—and to the minister—to make sure that, if we find that people are being exploited or that students are not getting the standard of education and training that they deserve, we are able to rid our sector of those providers. We will do so in the interests of not only the students but the taxpayers of Australia, who fund some of these providers, and the businesses who need qualified staff, not those with phony qualifications from dodgy providers.

I'm very proud of the fact that in my time in the skills portfolio we were very much focused on removing low-quality and subquality providers, which in some cases were criminal in the way in which they defrauded students who were apparently enrolled in training courses that weren't actually operating. We need to clean up the sector. We need to lift it, to elevate it, and to put TAFE back at the centre.

That's all happening under this government and I think this bill is a manifestation of that ongoing reform.

This bill also provides an opportunity for the people of Australia to understand how little the opposition cares about education training in this country. Every speaker on the other side is getting up and trashing TAFE and attacking students who get support at a time of acute cost-of-living pressures. They don't want us to provide support at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet in some situations. They don't want us to remove cost barriers to education and training, yet during the pandemic they were willing to provide Harvey Norman, who was in receipt of record profits, millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer funding. And they don't want to provide a worker or a student in the electorate of Dawson an opportunity to acquire skills so that person can be gainfully employed. That is the hypocrisy here.

It's not that they don't like taxpayers' money being spent; they just don't want taxpayers' money spent on ordinary Australians. They want it to be given to companies who are making record profits during a pandemic. That's how faulty the JobKeeper design was. We supported JobKeeper, but we did not support excessive money going to companies that were making record profits. That was a waste of taxpayers' money. But apparently, according to the opposition, wasteful spending includes funding TAFE courses in order to remove cost barriers for students to acquire skills in areas of demand.

I've heard those opposite say that this does not cover all courses; well, it doesn't. The design of this program is focused on those areas which are in acute demand in our economy. We make no apologies about investing in areas which are an existing and future demand of our labour market, our businesses and those workers who need those skills. That is a good design policy. Maybe they should have thought of that sort of design when they were creating JobKeeper and not providing it to companies that were making more money during the pandemic rather than less.

We have focused on those areas of demand, so we know that if you acquire those skills your chances of employment are much greater. It means that those businesses crying out for skills are more likely to find a prospective employee as a result of the acquisition of those skills. This is a perfectly designed policy to assist in investing in education training, because we do believe there's a causal link between how knowledgeable and how innovative our labour market is and the wellbeing of Australia.

We understand that in a knowledge based, globalised economy the countries with the smartest, most knowledgeable and most skilled labour markets will be the winners in the 21st century. It seems to be lost on those opposite that investing in education training is not just good for the recipients who acquire that knowledge and those skills but also good for their families, for business, for our economy and for our society.

For all the reasons that I've outlined, and for the many more that the minister and other members on this side have added to this debate, I would ask those opposite to think again and to support this legislation. It's really important for students and it's really important for workers. It's important for businesses and, as I said, it's important for our national economy.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an interesting topic that we're debating today, the Free TAFE Bill 2024. It's one that I think should be important to all members across the chamber. We heard a bit there from the member for Gorton about what the overarching objective of the policy is. If we forget about the partisanship for a moment I think that we can boil it down to the fact that we need to determine a way, within this building, to ensure that the future needs of Australia's economy are met. I think the question needs to be: how do we do that in the most efficient and effective way that we possibly can?

It's not just about giving those individual Australians the opportunity to make more of their opportunity in life—to earn more money and to create more opportunity for themselves and their families. It's also about the broader economic opportunity for Australia. How do we ensure that our young people—and in many cases, not-so-young people—have the skills required to boost our economic chances, to make us competitive internationally and to meet those needs in our communities?

I think about the skill shortages that are currently in place within the electorate of Bowman. We've got a massive housing shortage at the moment. I know that's not unique to me but a problem we're facing across the board. A lot of that challenge, of course, are issues around planning and approvals at the local government level, but a large part of it—and I talk to a lot of building companies within my electorate and my background is in the property sector—is those skill shortages. They can't find enough people to build the homes that they need. That's why it's important we try to tackle that. And it's important that we make sure, when we invest taxpayer funds in initiatives that are seeking to address it, that it's done in the most prudent and most effective way.

Unfortunately, as the bill currently stands, the coalition will have to vote against it, because what we've uncovered is that this promise—we'll acknowledge that this was a promise of this government—is unfunded. It's going to permanently increase Commonwealth spending by $500 million a year, and it's going to commit the Commonwealth to funding fee-free TAFE—I note that's a set of three words that's a challenge to say quickly—before there's been an opportunity to properly evaluate the effectiveness of the program. We've got some serious concerns about the effectiveness of it, and I'll be outlining a bit of that today.

I think we uncovered in Senate estimates recently that there's been no review conducted into Labor's fee-free TAFE expenditure to date, which is quite remarkable given that we've reached a point where there has already been a billion dollars of Commonwealth investment in this program. We think it's not appropriate to legislate a commitment to permanently fund a program without telling Australians how much it will cost, reviewing how it's working and how we can improve it, and determining what the dropout rate is and how we can prevent it from being as high as it is. I think we owe it to Australian students to be upfront about that and to demonstrate that we are investing in them but doing it in a way that's responsible for the long haul.

Part of our problem with this legislation is that we want to support every student, not just some. There are some great TAFE institutions across this country. I've got a wonderful TAFE at Alexandra Hills, and in a minute I'll talk about what the former federal government invested in that institution. But we want to ensure that, regardless of whether individuals—a local Redlander or any local who's represented within this parliament—want to undertake their training within a TAFE institution or through an independent provider within their area, they are given an appropriate level of support and that the federal government isn't putting its thumb on the balance, which will create poor outcomes overall.

The problem is that this policy essentially directs funds to just one part of the training sector. I recognise that there are other federal investments made in private institutions, but this is a significant investment and to favour just one element of the whole training ecosystem is not helpful. We're not anti-TAFE. We're just concerned that federal funding through this program is going only to the TAFE institutions.

Of course, we've heard a bit of debate within this chamber about the dropout rate amongst those undertaking these fee-free TAFE courses. We understand that the dropout rate could as be as low as 13 per cent. Then you look at comments recently from the South Australian skills minister. He gave evidence to the South Australian parliament on 30 October that in South Australia the dropout rate for free-free TAFE is 12.5 per cent. This definitely gives us a clue as to what could be happening across the rest of Australia.

I want to turn to a report the Productivity Commission have released, which is the report of their five-year productivity inquiry. They talked about options for providing subsidy allocations in the VET sector.

I won't read the whole thing verbatim, but I'll talk about their key headlines. They talked about how free tertiary places carry a fiscal cost and are unlikely to improve outcomes. This is from the Productivity Commission, who we task, in this country, with taking a look at the broader picture of these policies and determining what is the most effective way for a federal government to invest. It said that fee-free TAFE policies are also unlikely to provide community-wide benefits, as suggested by the outcomes of this policy in Victoria. It went on to note:

Although enrolments increased at TAFEs, this probably reflected substitution from students who would have otherwise studied at private and community providers. For example, there were fewer enrolments in the Diploma of Nursing at non-TAFE providers, against the trend of previous years. Some private providers claimed that many students were feeling a financial pressure to study at TAFE.

It also went on to note:

It weakened competition as the market share of TAFEs increased at the expense of private and community providers, diverging from the national trend.

So we had seen the national trend going in the different direction, and, due to the market manipulation in Victoria by the state government's policies, we saw that flip, and that's not necessarily a good thing, as we've uncovered with the—there are some dodgy providers out there. I think we all admit that, and I think governments from both sides of the chamber have been working to try to knock them out of the industry. But there are also some bloody good providers. There are some really good providers in this country. There are many in my electorate, and they do a great job in training our young people.

The Productivity Commission report went on to say:

There is also no evidence that the quality of delivery is higher at public than private providers …

And I think this side of the chamber acknowledges that. It went on to conclude:

Therefore, free TAFE is not a means to increase quality of outcomes.

In that context, the additional cost of funding free TAFE would be better spent elsewhere, potentially on widening access to VET, other forms of skills acquisition or other ways of improving the education system.

While I'm referring to the 5-year productivity inquiry report from the Productivity Commission, I want to also note what it had to say with regard to student debt, which is, of course, a matter that has been debated in this chamber at some length. It described it as a 'purely redistributive measure', and said:

As in the case of free education, it would be regressive, benefiting those who have attended university and tend to have higher incomes, with the largest payments going to those who have completed courses with higher expected lifetime earnings, such as medicine, law, and engineering …

There you go. There should be some reading over Christmas for the government in relation to Productivity Commission reports.

Looking at the questioning of departmental officials at the Senate estimates that occurred over recent weeks, there has been no performance review of the fee-free TAFE policy, and one will not be completed until June 2025, after the federal election—I'm sure. This means that Labor is effectively committing to permanently fund a program without knowing whether this is actually having the effect on the ground that we want it to have. The minister did answer a question last week in relation to this, when he said that it takes up to four years to get usable data out of these completion number stats. I find that remarkable. I think that, if we're investing at this level as the federal government, we should be able to insist we get quicker data than that and get a proper sense before we commit fully, to determine whether this is effective, if there are other means by which we could be doing this and how we can ensure that we're not getting a dropout rate that's concerning to us.

While fee-free TAFE is only delivering what we understand to be a completion rate of 13 per cent, industry led training providers have completion rates of around 80 to 90 per cent. Industry sources suggest that free TAFE fail rates could be as high as 55 to 60 per cent across many courses, and some in the training sector have indicated some courses could have failure rates as high as 70 to 90 per cent. In Victoria, it's worth noting that just one per cent of those who registered for a free certificate IV in plumbing successfully completed their training.

I want to reflect a bit on the coalition's record in terms of backing young Australians, and even older Australians, to develop the skills that they need. We don't want to just back one side of the sector; we want to back the whole sector.

The coalition handed the Albanese government a skills and training system not just trending up but powering ahead on the back of record investments guaranteed by a strong economy. The policies of the coalition invested over $13 billion into skills over the final two years of the government alone, representing the most significant reforms in Australian skills in over a decade. Trade apprentices in training hit record highs in the final months of the coalition government, and, as of June 2022, there were 429,000 apprentices and trainees in training and 277,900 commencements. Data release from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research confirms that Australia has lost almost 85,000 apprentices and trainees from the national training pipeline since this government came to office—effectively one in five. The data shows the number of apprentices in training has dropped to around 350,000 in March 2024, and over the same period new training commencements dropped to just 166,200 in March, meaning that over 100,000 fewer apprentices and trainees have started a trade or skill since Labor took office—or a drop of about 40 per cent. The important thing is there is a lead time with these. We want to make a dent in the skills shortage, and, if training numbers are dropping off, that will have a significant impact.

I want to touch on some of the coalition investment we have seen in my neck of the woods. The previous government were able to invest $1.2 million for an upgrade of the electrical labs at Alexandra Hills TAFE facility. That was part of our $500 million Revitalising TAFE Campuses Across Australia program. It was a pleasure for me to join the then minister there to see the first trainees in that facility, in the dying days in the last term of parliament. It was the first stage of the new electrical engineering upgrades, including a new electrical wiring bay workshop, as well as classrooms and soldering facilities. This upgrade has supported the doubling of students at that TAFE. That's the sort of meaningful investment that businesses in my electorate need to get those trades to build the homes and make the investments within the property sector that we desperately need in my neck of the woods. We've seen up to 840 students use the facilities there this year. That's a fantastic improvement from the facilities that were there before, which were quite outdated.

The rhetoric that we've been hearing from those opposite around the fact that the coalition don't support the TAFE sector, that we somehow want to demonise those who are going to TAFE or training people at TAFE doesn't match the reality on the ground. Most of the investment was really worthwhile, and the key thing here is we want to be looking after all students, not just a chosen few.

In my final seconds, I'll just reiterate that we don't want to have to support a system or scheme that is underfunded, that's going to permanently increasing expenditure by $500 million a year and that, currently, has not been reviewed. We don't know how effective it's going to be.

Debate adjourned.