Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am standing today to speak once again about the very unfortunate situation of the Victorian government's TAFE cuts. In the last 24 hours we have heard that a further 220 jobs are going to be lost in south-eastern Melbourne. Chisholm TAFE, which has a campus in my electorate of La Trobe, has announced that 220 jobs will be shed between now and the end of the year as a direct result of and precipitated by the Victorian government's decision to pull $300 million out of the TAFE sector in Victoria. That is in addition to the variety of other attacks it has made on Victorian education at both the primary and secondary levels.

These are very direct impacts on the part of the world that I and so many members on this side represent; indeed, it is also a part of the world that many members on the opposition benches represent. I call on them to speak out about the particularly dire effects on staff, on students and on the community of south-eastern Melbourne that have resulted from these cuts. They come on top of a further 240 job cuts that were delivered at Swinburne's various institutions as a result of the $300 million being taken out of TAFE education. These are extraordinary figures.

The Victorian TAFE Association has estimated that around 2,000 jobs, in all, will be lost. In fact, based on these two institutions alone announcing 460 jobs being lost, it looks like that is going to go up. (Time expired)