QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr GILES (Scullin—Minister for Skills and Training) (14:52): Happy National TAFE Day! And thank you—awana—to my friend the member for Lingiari, who took me last week to her beautiful country on the Tiwi Islands where we announced $6.9 million in mobile TAFE projects, because, on this side of the House, we are ensuring that Australians in every corner of the country have access to the skills and the training they need to get good, secure jobs.

We recognise National TAFE Day today to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who makes our TAFEs the national success that they are, like the teachers, the apprentices and the learners in the gallery today here. I pay tribute, too, to my colleagues who joined with me this morning to share their experiences as students and as teachers, because, on this side of the House, we stand on the shoulders of TAFE.

Labor is the party of TAFE, and we, under this Prime Minister, have put TAFE back at the very centre of our educational system after a decade of neglect from those opposite, when the Liberals and the Nationals tore billions of dollars out of TAFE and training. Thanks to free TAFE, Australians are voting with their feet. So, on National TAFE Day, I'm pleased to announce that, in its first 3½ years, we have now had more than 850,000 enrolments and— Ms Bell: How many completions?

Mr GILES: I'm very, very pleased to be asked about completions, because the member for Moncrieff has got a keen interest in this—275,000 completions, and, if she listens, she can recognise that completions are growing at twice the rate of enrolments. That's good news. That's the power of free TAFE and of our confidence in the Australians that enrol in it.

One of these completions is my friend Caitlyn, a Navy veteran and single mum who this year graduated with her diploma of nursing thanks to free TAFE. As we hear, only an Albanese government will guarantee Australians can continue to benefit from free TAFE, because all of those parties opposite—Liberals, Nationals and, indeed, One Nation over there—voted against free TAFE, and they keep talking it down.

The shadow minister said last week, and I quote: 'Free TAFE is a waste of taxpayers' money and an attempt to buy votes.' It's a shameful and insulting thing to say, and it is so clear that all of those opposite, including the leader, who can't even say the word 'TAFE' in parliament—on National TAFE Day, it might be a good day to start, Leader of the Opposition—don't care about the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are doing the right thing for themselves and their families, doing the right thing for their communities and doing the right thing for our country, thanks to free TAFE, in becoming nurses, tradies, early childhood educators and all of these other important pathways that TAFE leads to.

Labor will always stand with these Australians and with TAFE.