Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026

 Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (15:02): Bob Hawke originally opened Broadmeadows TAFE in 1986, and it has changed thousands upon thousands of lives since, including my mum’s. She went back to school when were kids to do a VCE bridging course. Her original intention was to upgrade her nursing qualifications. But TAFE opened up her world and her choices, like it does for so many others, and she went on to achieve a degree in social work at La Trobe and enjoyed a successful career helping people at Broadmeadows Hospital. Labor governments have always valued our TAFE system, and we know that those on the other side do not. It was heartbreaking when they closed 22 campuses across the state, sacked 2000 teachers and cut over a billion dollars from TAFE, and we never want to see this happen again. That is why I am so proud to support this bill, which secures our TAFEs into the future through legislation and through guaranteed funding.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of our Labor government’s investment in the Kangan Institute in Broadmeadows. Everyone was so excited watching the building go up and seeing Labor’s massive $60 million investment in our community. If you have not already, check it out and see the incredible result – a magnificent state-of-the-art health and community centre of excellence, the jewel in the crown of Broadmeadows. It was so wonderful to be there again last week with the Premier and Minister Tierney. It is not just us who are proud of the building and the opportunities there. Everyone we spoke to felt so proud and valued to be learning and teaching in such a truly impressive space, with world-class labs, a fully functioning hospital ward, aged and disability simulation suites and kinder rooms, training people in the highest quality facilities for the jobs we need most. There is even a pathology lab where you can take blood from a dummy.

We met Darren Pearce, teacher of certificate III in individual support. He introduced us to students who had just started their free TAFE journey, including Alana Weir, Sophie Stokes and Sarah Kennedy. They shared inspirational stories about what motivated them to upskill, stories of care they had provided to loved ones in their lives and how fulfilling this was for them. They spoke of their desire to contribute further and to care for others in the community, to ensure a life of comfort and dignity for everyone. As you know, I love the north. The people here care deeply for each other, and there is a strong desire to give back, to contribute and to help others. I believe we are the most caring community in Australia. At Kangan you can turn those values into skills and jobs, and you can do it for free with our nation-leading free TAFE program. Labor is helping with the cost of living and making sure everyone has the opportunity for jobs and skills. You can feel Darren’s passion for teaching and caring, and his success rate was phenomenal. Last year 22 people started his certificate, 22 people completed it and 22 now have jobs. The students we met were women, all at different stages in life – school leavers, career changers and those returning from work after caring responsibilities or raising families.

Free TAFE is a proven pathway for women, with almost 60 per cent of free TAFE students being women – another thing we can celebrate in International Women’s Week and yet another thing Labor governments have delivered for women. Free kinder is great for everyone but particularly helps women take the opportunity to study and go back to work as well as giving our kids the best start in life and helping families with the cost of living. In the early years learning area we met more students, including Penni Sekeris and Olga Salles das Neves Pereira, who are both really enjoying the course and being able to study so close to home.

Bernie Dunne, early childhood education and centre program lead, talked about the huge difference the learning space made to her ability to teach, and she was so proud of the enhanced learning opportunities she was able to offer – so proud in fact she referred to the whole centre of excellence as ‘my building’. And that is a level of ownership the students felt too. They really loved learning there, they felt valued and supported, and the exceptional environment helps to attract students to the many jobs in early education that have been created with our Labor government’s strong focus on early years and free kinder. That is what free TAFE does – it values our community, it values our hands-on skills and it provides for the future, giving people the skills they need for the jobs they love.

Diploma of nursing students Emily Gosev, Aaliyah Boomgaard and Jaylen Sahinka shared similar stories of turning their personal caring experiences into skills and jobs and were really loving the hands-on experience at the hospital ward. Unpaid carers give so much to our community, and I give them a shout-out here. It is wonderful to see so many of them turning their values and experience into qualifications and jobs and giving even more of their beautiful hearts to the community by expanding the number of people they care for, and I thank them sincerely.

The Health and Community Centre of Excellence complements the other fabulous facilities at Kangan in Broadmeadows. The new Trades and Skills Centre was completed in 2021 and features state-of-the art plumbing training spaces, including a multistorey plumbing tower, a sandpit, welding bays and a gas equipment fitting room, as well as catering for electrician appliances and so many others – more real-life learning in high-quality facilities. The commercial cookery section hosts the marvellous Richards Restaurant, where I have enjoyed many a high-quality meal. I encourage locals to support our students and grab a delicious lunch on Wednesdays and Thursdays during school terms and experience for themselves the top-notch food and customer service there. Of course there are also the adult migrant English program areas, where so many people start their learning journey in Australia and so often make lifelong friends. There is also the beautiful Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre, the horticultural area and orchard and so many other hands-on learning spaces.

They have fabulous apprenticeship support officers too. It was such a pleasure to meet then with Minister Tierney last month when we celebrated five years of Apprenticeships Victoria and the help they have given over 80,000 apprentices to complete their qualifications and obtain a trade paper. Only Labor is making sure apprentices have all the help and support they need from day one. We are also bringing in the Apprentice Helpdesk, a one-stop shop for both apprentices and parents that provides advice and support, including information about wages, entitlements and health and wellbeing at work. We provide the apprentice employee assistance program, providing free confidential support for mental health and personal issues, difficult workplace situations and financial concerns. And now in its third year, Tradie Bootcamp supports women going into trade apprenticeships through a mix of classroom learning, worksite experience and skills development. We loved meeting the apprentices who had benefited from this support, including local mother of five Talitha, who was in her fourth year of construction management and very keen to become a building forewoman. She was really loving the job but also particularly proud that her children have witnessed her empowerment through training, working and being financially independent.

I also take this opportunity to give a shout-out to an amazing local Sally Caruana, founder and CEO of Sheforce, the first female-led labour hire and recruitment social enterprise, bridging the gender gap in industries such as construction, transport and manufacturing. Her vision, just like mine, is a world with equal, inclusive workplaces where everyone is valued, respected and supported. On this side of the house we believe everyone deserves the right to work and learn, and free TAFE gives people these opportunities, especially in my community.

Completion rates at Kangan indicate 27 per cent of students have a disability and over 50 per cent of students are culturally and linguistically diverse. Our Labor government have invested more than $16 billion in new and base funding into our TAFE and training system since 2014, and Victoria is the nation leader for free TAFE. It has been a game changer since its introduction in 2019, with over 80 free courses across the state. It has been so successful that the Albanese Labor government has now rolled it out Australia wide. The free courses on offer this year at Kangan include building and construction, engineering, nursing, early childhood care, cybersecurity, IT, animal studies, vet nursing, dental assisting, youth work, commercial cookery, aged care, disability care, health, justice, community service, logistics and accounting and bookkeeping.

My daughter has just started her year 12 journey and wanted me to look over her tertiary preference form last night. How fabulous was it that she could also add a diploma of nursing, a diploma of community services and a certificate IV in engineering to her form, all of which lead straight into jobs or alternatively provide credit towards bachelor degrees, all for free and 5 minutes from home right here in Broadmeadows. We have also got the new university study hub in Broadmeadows in partnership with La Trobe. That sure beats the 3 hours of travel time I used to waste daily trying to get from Glenroy to Bundoora by public transport. The tech school on the Kangan site is close to completion, set to open in the next few months, giving more than 20,000 students from 28 local schools high-tech and hands-on science, technology, engineering and maths programs. It will have a focus on STEM-related career options, such as advanced manufacturing, automation, health care, data analytics, construction, transport and logistics, and with the renewable energies program students will also learn about solar, hydrogen and smart energy systems, with a focus on environmental impact and the supply challenges we face.

While we were there with the Premier we got to see the cranes in the air, with 120 new social homes being built across the road on Coleraine Street, including purpose-built homes for people with a disability. Only Labor governments deliver real action on housing. These homes represent the biggest ever investment in Broadmeadows – a whopping $80 million partnership between the state and federal Labor governments, which I am so proud of. Enrolments at Kangan are up 20 per cent, and the TAFE had nearly 10,000 enrolments last year. It is no wonder Kangan has won so many industry awards. I want to thank chair Sharan Burrow and all the board members for their vision and commitment, as well as the new CEO Laura Macpherson, the former CEO Sally Curtain, all of the fabulous and dedicated staff and the wonderful head of campus Melissa Tinetti, who I worked closely with on the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board.

 Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (15:12): I also rise to address the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. I am grateful to the Shadow Minister for Jobs and Skills, the member for Evelyn, for her leadership on this this bill, for guiding the opposition team through understanding what the government is proposing and for hosting us at the government’s briefing on the bill et cetera – a briefing that I attended and engaged with as actively as I could. The bill before the house today enacts what was the political promise of the Labor Party to guarantee free TAFE, and that is what they are doing today. That is the headline. I would like to address that and some other details during the course of my contribution.

It is one thing to have that headline of ‘free TAFE’, but it is another thing to actually deliver the outcomes that the state needs and the state’s economy needs for this to be as impactful as it could be and as it should be. I suggest that there is a difference between the intent of the title and the political promise of this bill and the outcomes. Something which I raised during the course of that bill briefing provided by the government and departmental officers was in fact that: it was to say ‘Is there an opportunity within this bill to put some guardrails or a framework around the headline “free TAFE” title but also to ensure that Victoria has the skilled people that it needs for our Victorian economy to grow?’. I am sure I do not need to share with you nor with members present today just the dire economic circumstance that Victorians find themselves in.

That phrase ‘Invest anywhere but in Melbourne’ is doing the rounds of boardrooms. Certainly when I served in a previous shadow portfolio of Treasurer, that was the message that was given to me by large companies and smaller companies as well. They did not have the confidence to dip into their own pockets to work up the necessary capital to invest further in Victoria. The reason why they were not prepared to do that– or did not have an inclination to do that – was because of the high-taxing environment created by this Labor government. That is a serious concern because it actually holds back potential investment.

The other thing that they raised with me at the time too was the fact that on the government’s numbers, the skills pipeline –

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance. He has strayed a long way from talking about working from home.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): We are actually on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, so I will say the member is relevant.

Brad ROWSWELL: Minister Brooks at the table suggested to the member that it was a good point of order. It was a shocking point of order, and it has been recorded for all eternity in Hansard that the member for Point Cook does not know which way is up, but there we are.

Okay, back to main broadcasting. The opportunity here is to actually address what the government has also identified as a skills shortage, and on the government’s own numbers, that skill shortage is quite alarming.

A member interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: Well, it is, and it is a barrier to –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Through the Chair, member for Sandringham.

Brad ROWSWELL: Indeed it is a barrier to the private sector putting their hand into their own pocket and working up that capital to grow our economy. I think that there is an opportunity to link the aspiration for a greater skilled workforce and for an increase in the amount of skilled workers in this state to this bill as well. It is one thing for it to have the window-dressing of free TAFE, but it is another thing for it to actually have a practical, deliverable outcome. As I suggested during that bill briefing and in conversations afterwards, I think that there is a missed opportunity here to address that.

I am also concerned by some of the TAFE completion rates. I think that there is an awful lot of Victorian taxpayer money being invested into students who do not complete those courses, and they are –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Members on my right will cease to interject. Members on my right will come to order.

Brad ROWSWELL: I am sure Hansard will pick up some of the disorderly interjections from members of the government and, Acting Speaker, you would have heard them too: ‘What do we do? Do we refund them?’ Well, hold on a minute. If the government is bringing a bill to the Parliament that enshrines in law free TAFE guaranteed, I would have thought that members of the government would have actually considered what those options are through the prism of being responsible custodians of hardworking Victorian taxpayers money. Some of these subsidies are not chump change for a lot of Victorians. Some of the courses, for example –

Members interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: Well, again, government members are being disorderly and interjecting. They have asked me the question: do I support free TAFE? There has never been a question about whether I support free TAFE or not. I mean, it is a lovely rhetorical question to ask –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Members on my right will cease interjecting and let the member for Sandringham speak. Member for Tarneit, cease interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: For example, the diploma of building and construction (building) had a commencement of 2819 students, but only 917 completed – a completion rate of 33 per cent – with a maximum subsidy per course of some $16,000.

Michaela Settle: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member on his feet is misleading the house. The vice-chancellor of Federation University has called out the notion that is misleading the house. Completion rates do not mean a waste of money – in fact people often go on to other degrees or other courses.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): There is no point of order.

Brad ROWSWELL: Total typical maximum subsidy per course $16,125 for that particular course.

Michaela Settle interjected.

Brad ROWSWELL: I am not suggesting it is wasted money.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): The member for Eureka will come to order.

Brad ROWSWELL: What I am suggesting is that through the prism of free TAFE, through the prism of delivering a pipeline of skills that will benefit our state, benefit our economy, grow our economy, help us grow our way out of the terrible economic circumstances this government has got us into –

Michaela Settle interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): The member for Eureka will come to order.

Brad ROWSWELL: I just think that the Labor government should have thought of in this bill a mechanism by which taxpayer money is better used – that is all. That is all.

In the short time I have remaining I refer to a newsletter, the Australian TAFE Teacher of spring 2012. It is from the union actually, the Victorian branch vice-president of TAFE and adult provision of the AEU. It says that the AEU Victorian branch’s ‘TAFE for ALL, All for TAFE’ campaign was launched in 2008 when Jacinta Allan, the now Premier, the then Victorian Labor minister responsible for TAFE, undermined the public TAFE sector with a disastrous piece of public policy. It goes on to talk about the funding that was threatened by the then minister responsible, the now Premier Jacinta Allan. So, in the 47 seconds I have remaining I raise this because we hear all too often members of the Labor government saying that members of the house on this side do not support free TAFE, we do not support TAFE, and they wax lyrical about all of that when it is in fact here. The AEU Victorian branch has called out the then minister responsible, the now Premier, for the disastrous piece of public policy in relation to TAFE that she introduced herself.

Michaela Settle interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): The member for Eureka will come to order.

Brad ROWSWELL: The truth of this matter is I think this bill was a missed opportunity. Of course we are not opposing it, but it could have been so much better.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Before I call the next speaker I remind members in the chamber to have respect for the people on their feet. I cannot remove members from the chamber who continue to interject, but if you would like me to call back the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker to do so, I will do that. If I have called you to order, please cease interjecting.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (15:23): In rising to speak on this bill I want to reflect on my experience, particularly as one of the teachers at my former school that was in charge of career planning and running the year 10 careers program, and I would like to wish all those staff and students out there in term 2 a very happy career action planning lesson season. This is the term when in year 10 classrooms across our Victorian government schools, as well as in our independent schools, their career action planning is done. This is when many of those 15- and 16-year-olds start thinking about ‘What is it that I can do in my future?’ This Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026 makes it clear to all of those students who are sitting there in classrooms today and throughout this week in this term, heading into term 2 with career action plans, that there is a viable secured option for them to be able to continue their learning, not necessarily in a university setting but still in a tertiary setting where they can get a really good degree. So it is important to make sure that as these students are doing that planning they know for certain that this Labor government has made it law that free TAFE is part of our structure for tertiary education here in Victoria, that they will be able to access those different priority courses, the 80 qualifications and short courses that we have in our free TAFE program, so that they can continue that learning journey that they have been on and get into good secure work. This is particularly important for the students that I taught and the younger people in my electorate of Werribee.

We have over 5000 students enrolled in TAFE courses. Some of those students are still completing their schooling – they can do a pre-apprenticeship, so they will be in a different TAFE course as part of their last two years of school – but a lot of them have finished school or taken an early pathway to a TAFE course. Some of the most popular courses that we see are the cert III in individual support, the certificate III in information technology, the diploma of nursing, the cert IV in accounting and bookkeeping and the cert IV in training and assessment. I will come to training and assessment in just a moment and why that is so important for the state more broadly. Some of those courses are all about caring for other people in our community, and it is important to make sure that they continue to be offered free of tuition fees so we can get more people into those different care industries. It is also particularly important when we think of information technology. It is that way to prepare people for the jobs of the future.

When I speak to friends who are teaching at high schools, their students are very worried about what their jobs might look like into the future. It is not only the security of what that job might be or the changing landscape of the market, particularly with the rise of artificial intelligence, but also whether or not they will have the guarantee to get into their course and be able to complete it. That is why this bill is particularly important for those students.

Free TAFE has also meant that we have been able to have more people qualified to deliver TAFE courses. One of the great things about free TAFE is that it helps perpetuate itself. We have people who are trained in training and assessment who can deliver those TAFE courses with that industry experience. Training and assessment is also particularly important I know for our emergency services, particularly our volunteer emergency services. Having free TAFE courses that volunteers can access – it does not matter if you are leaving school or if you are 30 years old and wanting to assist the brigade – having this free TAFE training and assessment course means that you can be one of those people who signs off other firefighters or SES volunteers to complete their training. It is particularly important and something that I look forward to working with the Minister for Emergency Services on and continuing to encourage.

Free TAFE is vital for growing communities across the state, just like my own. We have fought for free TAFE and fought for the TAFE system since 2014 when the Labor government was elected. It is not just about the qualifications that come out of it but the cost-of-living support. University and further training can be really, really expensive, and Labor governments throughout the years have provided different initiatives to help students get to these different courses and be part of these courses. It saves Victorians an average of $3000 per course.

I know it was always really hard when we were doing career action planning – especially once we got to the end of year 12 and students had to make that final decision about which way they were going after December – to look at the course fees and the costs associated, especially in communities like mine. That was the difference between a kid continuing on to tertiary education to get a better job and not. We usually found them quite decent work, but it was not that further training that could get them into a job that could take them further.

One of the driving factors behind the low socioeconomic indicators in my community is that further education. A lot of families in my community have very low educational attainment when it comes to tertiary level. Free TAFE is quite often one of the first times that families, particularly around the central Werribee area, have been able to do tertiary-level study. Sometimes I walk down the street past the Gordon Institute, which is in Watton Street, and I bump into some former students, or I am at the train station and I see them rushing to take the train to Kangan or to VU or to any one of our other fantastic TAFEs. I bump into them and ask them what they are doing, and they say, ‘Sir,’ – they still call me Sir, which is very weird – ‘I’m doing a cert III, and I’m halfway through. I’m really looking forward to getting it finished because it means that my boss will be able to give me more hours. It means that I’ll be able to take on those extra duties at work.’ For some of them finishing a cert III or a diploma can mean they can start their own business. I was shocked the other day to see on Facebook an ad for one of my former students who is finishing up his diploma in building and construction – I cannot quite remember the code. One of the other quirks of the TAFE system is the number of codes you have got to remember.

He is advertising a handyman service around Werribee. He got this course for free, and now he is able to use it to make some coin for his family. He is also one of the first in his family to finish a tertiary qualification. I will not necessarily name him because he will probably get embarrassed, but I will be sure to share that business far and wide, because this is what free TAFE does – it creates not only opportunities to learn but also opportunities to do better and to do better for the community.

One of the other really important parts of our TAFE system is nursing, particularly our diploma nurses. Whenever you go to places like the Werribee hospital or our community health centres or up to the urgent care clinic, a lot of the people who will be at your side, in and out of the room, will be diploma nurses. Having this option means that those students who might not necessarily have gotten that ATAR to get into a bachelor of nursing have that stepping stone to get into the nursing profession. A lot of students from our Karen community as well, who have a lower attainment of English when they first start schooling, are sometimes locked out of those bachelor degrees because of the English language requirements. But a diploma is available to them, so they use it as a stepping stone.

The small-l liberal champions over there talk a little bit about the cost of free TAFE and the cost of students dropping off. Well, one of the amazing things about the way our TAFE system works is that as people complete different competencies and meet those different standards for the different levels of certificate, we can sign them off for that certificate. It means that they can essentially leave early from that diploma but still have a cert I or II. It is one of the amazing things about having this flexible TAFE system. We may see those numbers when we look at a diploma, but I know those kids are going out into jobs, into work and into running their own businesses. They may pick up their diploma in a few years time before the credits expire. This is a really important flexibility that communities like mine need. We do not need penny-pinching from those opposite. We need to make sure that we have a solid TAFE system and a guarantee for all those students who are out there right now thinking about their career action plans in the classroom, looking at the PowerPoints and doing the Morrisby testing. To have that option there, guaranteed in law, is something that Labor is championing. We are championing the protection for these sorts of courses, and education for all, to make sure that everyone can go ahead and run those businesses or be one of those first people in their family to finish a tertiary qualification. I commend this bill to the house.

 Rachel WESTAWAY (Prahran) (15:33): I rise today to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, and I do so in two capacities: as the member for Prahran, which is an electorate built on hospitality and small business community, and also as the Shadow Assistant Minister for Tourism, Hospitality and Major Events. The workforce crisis in this sector is not a matter of public abstraction; it is a matter of empty kitchens, closed dining rooms and Victorians who cannot find the trained staff they need to keep their doors open. The Liberals and Nationals support a strong VET system, and we have never opposed free TAFE. We believe a vocational qualification is a pathway to genuine dignity and economic opportunity, every bit as valuable as a university degree. We will not allow Labor to say otherwise. This government is very good at naming things; it is not as good at delivering them. This bill deserves honest scrutiny, though, and we intend to provide it.

In substance there are three things this bill does: (1) it legislates the government’s existing practice of publishing a list of free courses each year, (2) it legislates a 70 per cent funding floor for TAFE institutes and dual-sector universities and (3) it substantially expands ministerial control over TAFE operations, budgets and governance. We do not oppose the first two in principle, but the so-called guarantees are somewhat hollow. The free TAFE guarantee creates no legal rights; it cannot be enforced in court – the bill says so explicitly. All it requires is for the minister to publish a list of free courses. The number of courses on that list is entirely at the minister’s discretion. The government could reduce it from 80 free course to 20 tomorrow and remain fully compliant.

A guarantee that cannot be enforced is not a guarantee at all, it is a press release with legislative letterhead. The TAFE funding guarantee, the 70 per cent floor, simply replicates what is already required under the National Skills Agreement with the Commonwealth. TAFEs received 73 per cent of VET funding in the 2023–24 period and 80 per cent in the 2024–25 period. The government is legislating a floor it has already been exceeding, with a three-year averaging window built in to allow it to dip below when convenient. That is not a guarantee, that is a minimum dressed up as a promise.

The Productivity Commission’s report on government services released in February 2026 makes for uncomfortable reading. On this government’s watch TAFE provider locations in Victoria have collapsed by 71 per cent. Real recurrent VET expenditure per annual hour fell 18 per cent to $9.44, the lowest in the nation. Victoria has the lowest rate of VET qualification completions per capita in Australia, and student satisfaction is at or below national averages. After years of Labor managing our TAFE system, Victoria is last – last in completions, last in expenditure per hour and last in the nation. And that is not a record to legislate, that is a record to fix, in my view. As to the finances, Box Hill TAFE recorded an $8.3 million loss in 2024–25; Chisholm, $4.8 million; and William Angliss, $1 million. Only five out of 12 TAFEs achieved a net surplus without one-off government capital grants. The Auditor-General has warned that the long-term financial stability of these institutions is at risk. The Silver review described the system as having:

… continued skills shortages in priority industries, completion levels lower than the national average, and student satisfaction at or below the national averages.

Yet only five pages of this 45-page bill address free TAFE. The remaining 40 pages expand ministerial control. The government’s response to a system in distress is not investment, it is control.

I want to dedicate proper time to the part of the training system this bill most seriously ignores, the independent registered training organisation sector. ITECA, the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia, is the peak national body representing independent tertiary education and training providers, and they were not even consulted on the bill. That alone speaks volumes in my view. Just before Christmas 2025 the Allan Labor government informed 58 high-performing RTOs that their contracts to deliver government-subsidised training would not be renewed for 2026. These were organisations delivering in construction, in engineering, in health care, aged care, food processing and community services. Staff faced job losses and students faced disruption, and that was nine days before Christmas. The government handed 58 RTOs a pre-Christmas sacking letter and then introduced a bill that does not even mention them once. ITECA’s concerns about this bill are precise and absolutely substantive. The TAFE funding guarantee concentrates taxpayer investment in a single provider type without evidence that it produces better outcomes. It undermines competitive neutrality in the skills market and it systematically reduces genuine student choice.

The data does not support the premise that public TAFE always mean better outcomes. Let us consider it. Independent RTOs support more than 88 per cent of student enrolments in Victoria’s skills sector, and over 61 per cent of Victorian employers chose independent providers for their nationally recognised training in 2024.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Members on my right will come to order.

Rachel WESTAWAY: National Centre for Vocational Education Research data shows students with independent providers reported higher satisfaction levels across all 10 outcome measures compared to public TAFE. Funding to the independent sector was cut by $7.3 million from 2018 to 2024, and non-TAFE providers now receive just 25.5 per cent of VET funding. When the government directs funding overwhelmingly towards public providers while the independent sector demonstrably serves the majority of students and enjoys higher employment confidence, it is not making a quality argument, it is making a political argument.

Students know quality when they see it, and the problem is that this government keeps narrowing their ability to choose. There is no funding guarantee for independent RTOs in this bill – none.

Dylan Wight: Correct.

Rachel WESTAWAY: If we are genuinely serious about student outcomes –

Members interjecting.

Rachel WESTAWAY: You know, I find it extraordinary that the government laughs at this when this is about students who actually should have choice. There is no funding guarantee for independent RTOs in this bill – none – as I said before. I want to speak plainly about a sector being failed by this training system.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): Members on my right will cease interjecting. Members who are not in their proper seats will cease interjecting. I have warned you about this. Let the member speak.

Rachel WESTAWAY: There are 56,305 restaurants and cafes in Australia, Victoria is home to 31.7 per cent of them, and the sector employs 706,500 workers and generates $2 billion in annual revenue. Yet according to ARCA, the Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association, profit margins have fallen to 2.8 per cent for restaurants and 2.6 per cent for cafes. It would be better to put your money in the bank. CreditorWatch confirms that 10.6 per cent of food service businesses closed in the past year, which is nearly double the national average and the worst closure rate in any sector in Australia. ARCA projects one in nine venues will close in 2026 and that, my colleagues across the room, is not a laughing matter. In an electorate like Prahran, on Chapel Street and Greville Street, in South Yarra and in Windsor, that is not a statistic; this is a neighbourhood changing beyond recognition. One in nine hospitality venues is predicted to close in 2026. That is not a market correction; it is a community losing its identity.

We are training 2575 chefs a year for a country that needs 50,000. Every year that gap widens. You just need to look at the jobs on seek.com to see how many jobs there are in that sector, and we do not have enough people to actually fill them. Every year another venue closes, another kitchen goes dark and another community loses something, and it will not get it back easily. When the government talks about hospitality training, it talks almost exclusively about commercial cookery apprenticeships, the back-of-house chef pipeline. But that pipeline, as I have just shown, is in absolute freefall. The complete neglect is of front-of-house qualifications as well. The cert III in hospitality is a recognised training pathway for service staff, floor supervisors, baristas and the tens of thousands of workers who face the revenue-generating core of our restaurants and cafes. Priority funding has been absolutely stripped from it.

We support this bill, but we will move an amendment in the Legislative Council requiring that the minister’s annual report include student completion rates for all free TAFE courses. This is not a complicated task; it is the most basic test of whether public money is actually achieving a public outcome.

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:53): The previous speaker talked about investing, but as I read this bill there are no guarantees about anything in this bill. There are no guarantees at all about TAFE or about the free courses that will be there in the future in this particular bill. But in starting off, I suppose we are of the generation where the old trade schools actually provided real workers for the economy in Victoria, and I would hope that the TAFE can do that into the future. People were well set up for their careers with the tech schools, and a lot of people bemoan the fact that the tech schools are no longer there. We would like TAFE to be more like the tech schools than some of the things it is actually delivering at the moment.

In my electorate I am fortunate to have at one end of the electorate SuniTAFE, with a campus in Swan Hill that delivers a great heavy automotive course that trains people for trucks and heavy farm machinery and earth-moving machinery and is a standout in the state. It has a building component that you would appreciate. That, again, is a great learning facility there for the trades for the building industry, and it also has a very strong healthcare sector in what they train for the healthcare sector there. But at the other end of my electorate we have Echuca, where Bendigo TAFE has a campus notionally. It is a TAFE drought. We might have had a good autumn break, plenty of rain in recent times, but when it comes to TAFE we have had a perpetual drought when it comes to delivering courses in the Echuca region by Bendigo TAFE. I note that the minister can actually set out the objectives of the TAFE network and has the powers in relation to what the TAFE network does. I urge the minister with the powers that will be given to her under clause 1 of this bill that maybe she might want to have a look at what Bendigo TAFE are not doing in Echuca and have them actually deliver a lot more courses into Echuca. With those particular powers that the minister is going to be granted under clause 1 of the bill:

to provide for the objectives of the TAFE network; and

to provide for the Minister’s powers in relation to the TAFE network …

I would probably go to the comments that Helen Silver made in the Silver report, who found that there was considerable scope for financial efficiencies to be realised in the TAFE sector, notably by accelerating shared service reforms.

Silver found that each TAFE had its own student system, meaning there was duplication in costs and processes which impacted adversely on service delivery and student experience. Silver recommended that TAFE should pursue shared service reform and consider mergers, or all TAFEs merging into a single entity. This bill gives the minister the opportunity to carry out the recommendations from the Silver review to make TAFEs have shared services. Where have we heard this whole story before? With the health system in Victoria. ‘We’ll create networks, we’ll have mergers, we’ll actually put everyone together because it is more efficient.’ Helen Silver has recommended that TAFEs could consider mergers or being put into a whole statewide single entity. This bill gives the minister the power to do that and to direct TAFEs to start to do that. She says that the single entity may result in up to $200 million in savings. We know how broke the government is; I am sure $200 million would be very attractive to the government through merging all the TAFEs into the future.

Silver also found there was a significant underutilisation of assets across the TAFE network and recommend these assets be sold. The rhetorical question to the other side of the house is: what TAFE facilities are you going to sell. They are very loud in their criticism of this side of the chamber, but they have actually got the Silver report in their hand that is recommending that TAFE assets should be sold. Apart from the $200 million in savings if they actually merge, Silver is estimating that those assets that potentially could be disposed of are $525 million. This bill sets it up so that the minister, the Labor government, can actually force mergers of TAFE and can then ask those TAFEs, under the statement of expectations, to dispose of assets. As you would know, Acting Speaker Farnham, when the government sells assets like $525 million worth of TAFE assets, that goes into consolidated revenue. It does not go back to the education system, it goes to Treasury. And Treasury, no doubt, has this huge black hole that it wants to fill because of the debt that the state has. This bill is a Trojan Horse, in my view, for the potential mergers of TAFEs, potentially one whole statewide TAFE, and for the disposal of TAFE assets. I go back to being parochial with my electorate. I think SuniTAFE is probably very safe because it is doing a great job with its Swan Hill campus and the courses it delivers there. But when I look at the footprint in Echuca, which is absolutely underutilised, that fits into the description of what Helen Silver talks about. There may be a risk that the minister decides Echuca and Bendigo TAFE campuses are not delivering many courses: ‘We’ll sell it. We’ll put that money into consolidated revenue to pay debts into the future.’ Silver also recommended increased reporting requirements for the minister – again, an opportunity for the minister to find out where the money is and what can be done with it in the future.

In the time left, I want to talk about part 3 of the bill, the free TAFE guarantee – the title of the bill, of which the meat is on one page, on page 38, of a 43-page bill. We have got to get to page 38 of the bill before we actually talk about the title that is in the bill, which is the free TAFE bill. In my mind, if you were talking about a free TAFE guarantee, you would actually have a list of the courses that were being guaranteed. If you had a prescriptive piece of legislation, you would have a list of all the courses that were going to be guaranteed by the free TAFE guarantee. But all the all the free TAFE guarantee does is say that the minister must determine in each year a list of courses of vocational education and training that are to be provided by TAFE institutes and dual-sector universities free of tuition fee. So every year the minister gets to choose what courses qualify for free TAFE.

There is nothing in this bill that says there has to be one course, 10 courses or 100 courses. This is all about giving the minister total discretion. There is this illusion being created that there will be all these free TAFE courses, but in reality all this bill does is give the minister the power to determine each year what courses will be on that list. New section 3.1.1A(2) says:

The Minister must determine a class of vocational education and training student who is eligible to undertake the list of courses of vocational education and training determined under subsection (1).

Not only does the minister have the power to determine what will be free TAFE in any given year but the minister also has the power to determine what class of vocational education and training student is eligible to undertake the courses. Is that course going to be means tested in the future? We know the government is out of money. Are they actually going to means test those courses into the future to ensure that a certain class of students will not be eligible for the free TAFE part of that course into the future?

It says that the minister must cause a list of courses determined under new section 3.1.1A(1) to be published on the internet site of the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions. Again, you have got to go to an internet site to find out what determination the minister has made each year as to what is free and what class of people will qualify for those courses into the future. Just saying something is available on a website is a very easy catch-all for everything, because it is not that easy to find sometimes. By the time people navigate their way through websites, it is not easy to find necessarily. It can be buried a long way in, through quite a few links before you find what courses might be available into the future.

It also says this section does not create a legal right to any person or give rise to any civil cause of action, so there are actually no guarantees at all in this. There is a catch-all at the end that says yes, the minister determines what courses will be free on an annualised basis. The minister determines what class of student will be able to undertake them, so it could be means tested into the future, and then the catch-all at the end says there is no right to a legal recourse if people do not get what they want out of this piece of legislation.

This piece of legislation sets up a mirage that there is going to be free TAFE into the future, but the detail of it says the minister does not have to do anything. The minister can have one course that is free, that only a few people are eligible for, and that would qualify under this legislation. I believe this is a political stunt in an election year to try and shore up the government’s failing support in the Victorian community.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (16:02): I am pleased to have the opportunity to make what might be a relatively short contribution on the bill before the house this afternoon and to follow on from the comments of those on this side of the house who have made significant and important reference to our TAFE sector. I have sat back and listened to some of the commentary through the course of debate on this bill and I want to go to some of the references that have been made in the context of the important history that occurred in this state between 2010 and 2014.

Speakers on this side of the house have outlined those significant cuts – more than $1 billion cut from TAFE, the sacking of more than 2000 workers and the closure of significant campuses. We have changed that since coming into government in November 2014 and have had the opportunity to invest in the skills and the training and the people, most importantly, that work so very hard in our TAFE sector. The opportunity to invest and to allow people to find new skills and new training is something that I know is incredibly important to the minister and those on this side of the house.

At the back end of last year I had the opportunity to have the outstanding minister in my electorate for our next milestone of the delivery of the Sunbury TAFE partnership with Kangan.

Steve McGhie: Nice to hear.

Josh BULL: It is a more than $25 million investment. I will take up the interjection from the fantastic member for Melton, who I know is also very excited about the delivery of TAFE in his community. Not too far from both of us is of course the investment in the Broadmeadows campus as well. That, if you like, forms that northern or north–north-west triangle of investment in training opportunities in TAFE, and I know how hard the member for Melton worked to secure that commitment. I also want to give a shout-out to the outstanding member for Broadmeadows, who did terrific work in the delivery of, I believe, a more than $60 million investment in that TAFE. What of course we know is that the opportunity to invest, whether it is in Melton, whether it is in Broadmeadows or whether it is in Sunbury, from early 2028 goes to training opportunities that provide for growing communities and make for those skills and investments that we so desperately need.

The government right across all portfolio areas is delivering a significant amount of reform and providing for not just the opportunity for training and upskilling but the opportunity for people to then go on and get a terrific job in a workforce that is growing, which is something that is really, really important. When you compare and contrast that to what we saw from 2010 to 2014 – and I know that the member for Bentleigh went at length to detail some of that history – I am certain that this government’s investments have not just shifted the dial but in so many ways revolutionised the way we deal with training opportunities and skills in this state. That is something that is incredibly important. That is something that I think as government members we are very proud of, but the work is certainly not yet complete nor done. We know we need to keep partnering with TAFE, like Kangan and other providers, to make for better skills and opportunities. I can see the support from this side of the house, and that does not surprise me one bit. Compare and contrast this side to what we saw from over there, with those gates up, padlocks on fences and tumbleweeds going through the TAFE institutions that were there previously. I heard the member for Bundoora make some comments about this this week and others as well, and this is significant and important. What we know is these are really important investments.

I understand that there is some other business to deal with in the house. I did say these comments were going to be fairly brief, and with those reasonably short comments I commend the bill to the house.

 Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (16:08): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. Let me start where Victorians start, with the real economy. Housing, infrastructure, care, energy and manufacturing all depend on skilled people – electricians, plumbers, builders, fitters, aged care workers, early childhood educators, cyber technicians and much more. Most of these pathways run through vocational education and through TAFE. One example I give as the member for Mornington is the Chisholm Institute, which services both Frankston city and the Mornington Peninsula, which has campuses both at Frankston and at Rosebud. The Frankston campus delivers vocational and further educational courses from certificates to diplomas across trades, health, business, IT, hospitality, early childhood education and allied health. The Rosebud campus ensures Mornington Peninsula residents have closer access to high-quality TAFE training locally, supporting apprentices, school leavers, career changers and small businesses. Where people are educated locally they are also more likely to stay, build their lives, get jobs and start families locally. That is why this side of the chamber supports a strong VET system with TAFE at its heart, and it is why our test for this bill is simple: will it help more Victorians get skills, finish their qualification and move into work? On the bill’s substance, part 3 inserts a free TAFE guarantee. The minister must determine each year a list of VET courses to be provided by TAFE institutes and participating dual-sector universities free of tuition fees and must determine the class of students eligible to undertake those courses.

The list must be published, but the bill is explicit that this provision creates no legal right and gives rise to no civil course of action. In other words, students get a published list, not an enforceable entitlement.

Part 4 inserts a TAFE funding guarantee. It requires that at least 70 per cent of training and skills funding in a target year be paid to TAFE institutes and dual-sector universities. Of course I note that no TAFE is actually free – in this situation it is taxpayer-funded TAFE. The bill deems the guarantee met if the average across a three-year window – year before, target year, year after – equals 70 per cent, and it defines the first target year as the calendar year commencing 1 January 2028. In addition, public reporting is delayed, and the bill again includes a no legal right and no civil course of action clause.

There are a number of issues, though, with respect to this bill. We need to note the fact that, for example, Jobs and Skills Australia projects that employment for technicians and trade workers will increase by about 195,000 nationally over the decade to May 2025. There is a massive skills pipeline challenge in front of us, and meeting demand depends on the throughput of the systems we have in place. We need a system that ensures that people are not just enrolling but actually completing their courses. The evidence is showing a significant lack of completion of courses in the system at the moment. The qualifications completed per 1000 people aged 15 to 64 in Victoria was 15.9, below the national rate of 20, and higher only than the ACT. Student satisfaction sits below national levels too. In 2024, 87.6 per cent of Victorian government-funded qualification completers reported being satisfied with overall quality, compared with 89.5 per cent nationally.

We want to push a number of amendments to improve this bill. These are constructive amendments that push for a stronger policy direction. The first is to mandate transparent course-level reporting. The second is to lift funding intensity to match the task. The third is to set explicit completion and workforce targets in priority areas aligned with demand, such as construction, electrical trades, care and clean energy pathways, and fund the supports that keep students and apprentices in training. Fourthly, we want to protect regional access, and finally, we want to keep quality and capacity across the whole training market. TAFE should be the anchor, and it should be a standard-setter. But Victoria will not build and fill the gap of skills shortages by sidelining high-quality non-TAFE providers that can fill gaps, particularly in niche and regional delivery. Funding should follow quality and outcomes under strong regulation.

In conclusion, the government says that the Liberals are anti TAFE. This is simply untrue. We back TAFE and we back affordability, but we will not accept guarantees that are drafted to avoid accountability. We will not accept a system that celebrates enrolments while failing to publish the data that tells Victorians how many people actually finish and move into work. That is simply more waste. If the government wants bipartisan support, then it should accept bipartisan accountability. That is the guarantee we should legislate: that Victorians deserve a training system that turns enrolments into qualifications and qualifications into skilled workers.