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

I thank my friend the member for Barton for her question, and I congratulate her on a really excellent first speech, the start of many great contributions for her community and in the national interest. It was also fantastic to join her just a few weeks ago at the St George Kogarah TAFE. We met there with some free TAFE students studying aged care and nursing, including some nursing students benefitting from our government's paid prac that began on 1 July. Free TAFE and paid prac—just two examples of how the Albanese Labor government is delivering for Australians and for young Australians in particular, supporting them to get the skills that they want for the jobs that we need done and supporting them to get ahead with real cost-of-living relief as well.

We know that for VET students and apprentices, just like students at university, cutting student debt will make a real difference, including for those students that the Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and I met with yesterday from CIT here in Canberra, like Jennifer, who has both a HECS debt and a VET debt. Jennifer will save $8,000, which will help set her up for her new career. Ralph, a diploma of nursing student, will save $3,000 because of our student debt relief, which will help him save and prepare to pursue further study to become a registered nurse like a couple of my colleagues in this place here.

These are just some of the thousands of stories that we've heard since we announced our 20 per cent cut from student debt. Three million Australians will benefit from this, including the better part of 300,000 apprentices and TAFE students. In the Albanese government, we are supporting every student and every apprentice to gain new skills to pursue new opportunities and to secure good jobs. To that end, free TAFE has now seen more than 650,000 enrolments and already 170,000 completions.

But we know that not everyone in this place supports free TAFE. The Liberals and the Nationals voted no to free TAFE, and the Leader of the Opposition said in this place that, if you don't pay for something, you don't value it. Well, Australians disagree, and the Albanese Labor government has been listening to students like Jennifer and like Ralph, who told us that cutting student debt would make a difference in their lives. They put that on the ballot paper, and, on 3 May, young people voted for this. Now we are delivering. We're getting on with delivering student debt relief and with it more opportunities for young people to get the skills they want and the jobs we need. (Time expired)

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