Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor's so-called fee-free TAFE program has failed to deliver real results. They've spent in excess of $1½ billion of taxpayers' money and yet fewer Australians are in apprenticeships and traineeships today than before. This is not a success story; this is a policy failure. Fee-free TAFE might sound good on paper, but the reality is very different. The Albanese government is not training enough people in the areas where they're actually needed—trades, construction, aged care and essential infrastructure. We don't need more people in low-level generic training programs that don't lead to real jobs, especially not when it comes with a billion-dollar price tag. You can't build houses without tradies, you can't manufacture without boilermakers, you can't fix the economy without trained workers and you certainly can't grow the economy without a skilled workforce.

You may remember the Albanese government's Jobs and Skills Summit in 2022. It was meant to be a game changer. Instead, it was another classic talkfest with no real outcomes. Our skills gaps are getting worse, not better. Right now, we are facing a massive housing shortage and infrastructure bottlenecks. Builders and contractors are crying out for skilled tradies. Ask any builder and they'll tell you they're waiting for months to find a qualified worker. Projects are delayed, costs are rising and communities are missing out. Labor promised that fee-free TAFE would fix this problem, but the dial has not shifted.

Let's not forget Labor's record of decline. When the coalition was last in government, there were 415,000 apprentices and trainees in training. Today, under Labor, that number has collapsed to just 311,000. That's a reduction of more than 100,000, a whopping 25 per cent reduction. Despite the $1.5 billion being poured into fee-free TAFE, fewer people are actually in training. And, even when young people do sign up, too many drop out—three-quarters. Why? Because there's not enough support to help them complete their training. Fee-free TAFE doesn't fix completion rates. You can waive fees, but, if apprentices and trainees aren't mentored, supported or connected to real job opportunities, they won't finish their courses. The result is churn—lots of enrolments, very few completions, a bigger burden on the taxpayer and no solutions to the skills shortage.

If only one in four TAFE apprentices are finishing their courses and we have a skills shortage, the commonsense solution is to fix what we've got, not add more places. Let me put it this way: if you're struggling to pump water to your local community and, after inspection, you find a gaping hole in the pipeline, do you (a) fix the pipe or (b) build a bigger pump and pump more water through it? The government is buying a bigger pump and putting it on the taxpayers' credit card, which is already maxed out.

Labor's skills crisis isn't just a policy problem; it's an economic handbrake. More than one in three occupations across Australia are assessed as being in national shortage. That's 36 per cent of all occupations. Every day that Labor ignores this, costs go up for families, businesses and communities. When Labor talks, you pay. The longer Anthony Albanese and Labor ignore their skills crisis, the bigger the bill will be for our country. What we actually need is investment in outcomes. The construction industry does not need slogans. It needs serious investment in apprenticeships, training equipment and quality trainers and proper incentives for employers to take apprentices on. We need targeted funding for high-demand trades and skills. We need a stronger link between TAFE and employers. We need more apprentices gaining hands-on experience on real worksites. That is how you build a pipeline of skilled workers.

Fee-free TAFE as it stands is not meeting the needs of industry, it is not fixings workforce shortages and it is not helping young people build lasting careers. Unless there is a shift towards genuine workforce planning, stronger support for apprentices and policies that match training with actual jobs, Australia will keep falling further behind. 'Fee-free TAFE' is a slogan, not a solution. It hasn't delivered the skilled trades our nation needs. Under Labor, apprentice and trainee numbers have collapsed, shortages are worsening and projects are stalling. The coalition will continue to call for real investment in apprenticeships, real pathways to work and policies that will genuinely fix the skills gap facing Australia because, at the end of the day, this is about our young people, our economy and our nation's future.

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