Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Thank you for this motion, and I speak in support of a program that is changing lives in Pearce and right across our country.

For three years now, free TAFE has expanded opportunity and opened up new pathways for Australians to gain the skills they want for the jobs we desperately need. It began in January 2023 and has already seen more than 500,000 enrolments in priority areas such as digital and technology, construction, and early childhood education and care. These are not abstract numbers, they are real people: mums returning to the workforce, young people finding their first career and workers retraining as our economy changes.

The Albanese Labor government has now legislated to make free TAFE a permanent feature of our national training system, securing its future so it cannot be taken away on a whim. From 2027, Commonwealth funding will support at least 100,000 fee-free TAFE places every year, embedding free TAFE at the heart of vocational education and training.

We should be very clear that this has happened despite opposition from those opposite. At every step, they have dragged their feet, refused to back in extra free TAFE places for construction and new energy and voted against the very bill that locks in free TAFE for the long term.

Through the Fee-Free TAFE Skills Agreement, the Albanese Labor government has partnered with state and territory governments to invest over $1.5 billion in free TAFE places across the country. In 2023 alone, 180,000 free TAFE places were delivered nationwide, and a further 300,000 places are being rolled out over the three years from 2024, with an additional 20,000 places targeted to construction and housing.

In my own electorate of Pearce, we see the benefits of this investment every day. Local TAFE campuses and training providers have welcomed hundreds of new students into fee-free courses in aged care, disability support, early childhood education and construction trades, helping to meet Western Australia's skill shortages in health, housing and critical community services. Young people from suburbs and regional communities across Pearce are gaining their first qualifications without being deterred by upfront fees, and mature-age workers are retraining into in-demand roles instead of leaving the workforce altogether. Importantly, free TAFE is reaching groups who too often miss out: women now make up nearly 62 per cent of enrolments, First Nations Australians around 6 per cent and people with disability about 8.5 per cent, with strong participation from regional and remote areas.

It gives local businesses access to trained workers in the sectors where they are crying out for staff. It supports our hospitals, our childcare centres, our aged-care providers and our construction sites with a steady pipeline of skilled people who live in the community they serve.

For each student, it turns aspiration into a practical pathway from the classroom to a good, secure job.

That is why legislating free TAFE matters so much. With the passage of the free TAFE legislation at the Commonwealth level, free TAFE is now an enduring part of our national system, guaranteeing at least 100,000 places a year from 2027 and locking in long-term support to the states and territories. This safeguard means that future governments will not be able to quietly walk away from their responsibility to train the workforce Australia needs.

The contrast with those opposite is stark. Federally, the opposition opposed the fee-free TAFE bill and refused to support key measures to grow TAFE and apprenticeships. However, in Victoria, their state colleagues have understood what their federal counterparts will not: that Free TAFE removes the single biggest barrier to vocational training and that guaranteeing its future is both economically responsible and socially just. The Victorian parliament has legislated a free TAFE guarantee, recognising free TAFE as a pillar of their education and training system, and the Victorian opposition has not opposed that bill. If the Victorian Liberals can accept that free TAFE works, then there is no excuse for the federal Liberals to stand in the way.

I commend this motion to the House and reaffirm our commitment that no-one will be held back and no-one left behind when it comes to skills and training in Australia.

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