Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm glad to speak today about the vital role of vocational training and education and investments that are being made in skills and training in my electorate and across the country. Last week I was delighted to meet with staff and students at South Metropolitan TAFE's AeroSpace Training Centre in Jandakot in my electorate. The scope of education there includes training to be cabin crew, aviation mechanics and pilots. Students can take advantage of a range of certificate courses that create pathways into the aviation industry as it recovers after the pandemic. The centre includes a 1,500-square-metre hangar which offers impressive and extensive hands-on practical training. The campus hosts helicopters, light aircraft and a broad range of aviation components, in addition to a flight simulator. I was chuffed to meet with the next generation of cabin crew on board the centre's own Boeing 737.

Alongside aviation, Fremantle has long been a home to high school maritime training. In the north-west of my electorate, South Metropolitan TAFE's Fremantle campus has been delivering internationally recognised maritime skills training for more than 20 years. Now, thanks to a $2 million investment from the McGowan Labor government, the campus boasts a state-of-the-art maritime simulator suite. The simulators allow shipmasters, officers and engineers to use the latest technology and training tools to suit the needs of existing and emerging maritime industries. The project, notably, is one of the many under the McGowan government's largest investment in TAFE in Western Australia's history.

Under the former government there was a senseless and harmful decline in the number of apprentices and trainees across the country. Once again it is Labor governments, state and federal in Western Australia, that are doing the repair job, cleaning up the mess and helping prepare Australians for the future. There's no doubt that the aviation and maritime training capacity in my electorate has been expanded thanks to the Albanese government's commitment to deliver 180,000 fee-free TAFE places across the nation. Those opposite failed to secure a shared approach and commitment between the Commonwealth states and territories to drive skills and training forward, but, thankfully, under the leadership of my friend and colleague Brendan O'Connor, the Minister for Skills and Training, that has now changed.

At the beginning of the year the Australian and WA governments signed a landmark skills agreement that means $112 million for WA skills and training, and provides fee-free TAFE and vocational education for more than 18,000 students. There's already been a surge of uptake, with more than 13,000 enrolments in semester 1. Impressively, 66 per cent of the cohort enjoying the benefits of the fee-free training are women. Qualifications in early childhood education, aged and disability care, nursing and technology have seen the strongest enrolments. At a time when we find ourselves with workforce shortages and demand in critical sectors, it is again Labor governments, state and federal, that are investing in a stronger, more highly skilled workforce and building a more resilient, prosperous economy for all.