Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow marks National TAFE Day, and it's an opportunity to celebrate our public TAFE system. Last week I saw firsthand how free TAFE is changing lives. At Gippsland TAFE in Morwell, I met with students in early childhood education, in allied health and in plumbing. Every single one of these students was studying for free, and they were loving it, including Shye. Shye is a mother of five and a grandmother of 11. She was retired until she heard about free TAFE. She told me that she still had more to give and that it's never too late to retrain and start again. So she started again, enrolling in early childhood education. Shye said she couldn't think of a profession that's more important right now. So free TAFE is not only changing Shye's life; it's giving our children the best start in life, because they'll have more passionate and dedicated educators just like Shye.

Our enrolments in free TAFE keep growing. We've already beaten our national target of 180,000 enrolments, with more than 200,000 students taking part. More than 60 per cent are women. They're women who are eager to re-enter the workforce and who want to retrain and give back but have held back because they just couldn't afford it. Free TAFE is a game changer, and that's why we're funding 300,000 more free TAFE places over the next few years.

I'd like to give a shout-out to the students at Morwell and their fantastic TAFE teachers for making me so welcome. It's no wonder that Gippsland TAFE was named Large Training Provider of the Year at this year's Victorian Training Awards. Congratulations again to Gippsland TAFE. It's the students and teachers at Gippsland TAFE that fill me with hope for our future, because free TAFE is changing lives.