My question is to the Minister for Skills and Training. How is the Albanese Labor government investing in the skills Australians need, especially in places like regional Tasmania?

Thankyou to my friend the member for Braddon, firstly, for coming down from the other place to join us here and, secondly, for such a warm welcome to Burnie last Friday. The Albanese Labor government wants to see more Australians with vocational qualifications. To that end, we are pulling every lever we can to make skills and training accessible to everyone in every part of the country. We want to see more Aussies in places like Tasmania's north-west go to TAFE to get the skills they need for a good, secure job in their local communities. Fundamentally, that's why we introduced free TAFE—to break down the barriers that held Australians back and to back more Australians into the jobs we need. Already, there are more than 850,000 enrolments across the country. There have been 275,000 courses completed, growing every week. This is all supporting more Australians to go to TAFE to get a qualification in those industries that are so fundamentally important, like the construction trades, aged care and early childhood education—and then they can get to work.

In Tasmania alone, we've seen more than 11,000 enrolments—

Hear, hear!

including in the agricultural sector, Minister Collins. It was great to see TasTAFE's freer-farm facility on Friday during our visit. It is a TAFE that's also a working farm. It's nation leading. With free TAFE, our government is backing more Tasmanians to get the skills they need to grow that critical pipeline of workers that Australia needs for local jobs in the agricultural sector.

Just up the road, at TasTAFE's Burnie campus, the member for Braddon and I were joined by my Tasmanian counterpart, Minister Ellis, as well as my good friend Senator Dolega, to open brand-new student residences on campus. They are jointly funded by both governments, part of the Clean Energy TAFE Centre of Excellence, so that the next generation of TAFE students and apprentices—like Zeke and Luke, who we met on Friday—can get the training they need without worrying about finding a place to stay, breaking down yet another barrier that has held back too many regional learners. Luke's a first-year carpentry apprentice. He's one of the thousands of Australians receiving our $10,000 incentive through the Key Apprenticeship Program, helping him not just to start but to finish his trade. We spoke about how this program is showing our government's respect for that trade, and he told me how he'd spent his first payment already—on tools, of course!

From Burnie to Broome, and stretching right across the country, our government's investments are helping Australians like Luke and Zeke get skills, qualifications and the confidence, too, that they need to succeed. That's what this government's approach to skills and training is all about—creating opportunities, strengthening communities and building Australia's future workforce through free TAFE, the Key Apprenticeship Program and so much more.