Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My first question from Senator Carr in this place upon taking this office was about an alleged national takeover plan. I made the point at the time that that was a discussion paper drafted by officials that was circulated as part of the COAG process—a longstanding COAG process to try to clarify roles and responsibilities.

There is no national plan to take over TAFE. The Commonwealth would have a great deal of trouble seizing TAFE even if it so desired. I might say, though, that under the flawed VET FEE-HELP scheme set up by those opposite—if we just go through the numbers that TAFEs have accessed through that—what we have seen since 2013 is an increase of 116 per cent in public TAFEs accessing the VET FEE-HELP scheme, from $168 million to $363 million.

So, Senator Carr, the contrived outrage of those opposite who signed a national partnership that talks about contestability and then set up a system that seized the TAFEs' access— (Time expired)