QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Mr GILES (Scullin—Minister for Skills and Training) (14:57): I thank my friend the member for Calwell for his question. He gave an extraordinary first speech in this place, and he's carried on exactly where that left off. In his electorate, too, there has been extraordinary support for free TAFE, a commitment that we took to the 2022 election and which we have delivered.
Free TAFE is breaking down the barriers to students getting the skills they need for jobs that we need doing. Since the program started, we have seen 685,000 free TAFE enrolments. That's hundreds of thousands of Australians benefiting from free TAFE, saving on the cost of their courses and getting skills that we need that often before simply weren't affordable.
A student in Queensland now can save $15,000 on a Diploma of Nursing; a student in Western Australia can save $3,500 on a Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care; and a student from Broadmeadows, in the member for Calwell's electorate, can also save up to $15,000 on doing their cert IV building and construction diploma. As I announced last week, there have now been around 190,000 course completions.
That is, of course, more people to build the homes that Minister O'Neil is working towards. It's more Australians to care for those unwell, and also for our youngest and our oldest, Australians. The member asked me about how Australians have responded to free TAFE.
Well, on 3 May, Australians voted to back free TAFE, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are voting with their feet to enrol in free TAFE courses. On this side of the House, everyone backs free TAFE 100 per cent. but we know that those opposite are against free TAFE. In fact, it might be the only thing they agree on.
They say, too, that they're the voice of regional Australia, yet, despite the fact that regional communities represent more than one-third of all free TAFE enrolments, they stand against it and, more than that, they talk down to those Australians benefiting from free TAFE. The Leader of the Opposition said of free TAFE last year: 'If you don't pay for something, you don't value it.' Then, last month she flagged that free TAFE is still on the coalition's chopping block.
She said that it drains resources. Just yesterday, the member for Cook said our free TAFE program is, and I quote him, 'virtue signalling'. What a shameful and contemptuous thing to say to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are directly benefiting from free TAFE and making their contribution to their communities!
The coalition haven't listened and they haven't learned. Australians know that only a united Albanese Labor government will back free TAFE and deliver Australians the skills they want for the jobs that we need. (Time expired)