House debates Questions without Notice
Tertiary Education and Training
Andrew Giles Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training
2:52 pm
I'm very, very pleased to be asked about completions, because the member for Moncrieff has got a keen interest in this—275,000 completions, and, if she listens, she can recognise that completions are growing at twice the rate of enrolments. That's good news. That's the power of free TAFE and of our confidence in the Australians that enrol in it. One of these completions is my friend Caitlyn, a Navy veteran and single mum who this year graduated with her diploma of nursing thanks to free TAFE.
As we hear, only an Albanese government will guarantee Australians can continue to benefit from free TAFE, because all of those parties opposite—Liberals, Nationals and, indeed, One Nation over there—voted against free TAFE, and they keep talking it down. The shadow minister said last week, and I quote: 'Free TAFE is a waste of taxpayers' money and an attempt to buy votes.' It's a shameful and insulting thing to say, and it is so clear that all of those opposite, including the leader, who can't even say the word 'TAFE' in parliament—on National TAFE Day, it might be a good day to start, Leader of the Opposition—don't care about the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are doing the right thing for themselves and their families, doing the right thing for their communities and doing the right thing for our country, thanks to free TAFE, in becoming nurses, tradies, early childhood educators and all of these other important pathways that TAFE leads to. Labor will always stand with these Australians and with TAFE.
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