Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I can assure you that in the Albanese government you have a government that is an incredibly strong supporter of our TAFE system. That is a contrast to what we have seen over the last 10 years, where we saw a government ideologically opposed to the public provision of vocational education and training. If you needed any evidence of that, all you needed to do was look at the—I think it was $4 billion that was ripped out of the TAFE system by the former government, until just before the election when they realised they had a political problem and started throwing a few extra dollars at it.

There is no doubt that in your home state of Tasmania, in my home state of Queensland and in every state and territory across the country, our TAFE system has paid the price of being starved of resources for nearly 10 years by a Liberal and National government that was ideologically opposed to it.