PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr VENNING (Grey) (13:01): National TAFE Day was on 9 September. I want to acknowledge every TAFE teacher, every trainer, every staff member and every student across Grey. You are doing the work that skills up regional Australia.
You are training the electricians, the diesel mechanics, the nurses and the builders that our towns depend upon. Thank you for your dedication. It does not go unnoticed.
But I have to be honest about what's actually happening under this government. The Albanese Labor government has spent over $1.5 billion on fee-free TAFE between 2023 and 2026. That is a lot of taxpayer money.
And now Labor is promising 100,000 fee-free TAFE places every year from 2027, locked in as a permanent guarantee. Now that sounds like a good press release, but it is not delivering in the regions—shock horror. When the coalition left office in 2022, there were 426,000 Australians in apprenticeships and traineeships.
Guess what that figure is now? That figure is now 282,000. That is a significant decline—another Labor failure.
Trade occupations alone are down 30,000 since Labor came to government. No wonder we have a skills shortage in that sector. In South Australia, the fee-free TAFE completion rate in 2025 was around 50 per cent.
That is not a success story. That is a policy failure. You cannot call a program a win when half of the people who start it don't finish it.
Take Coober Pedy, the opal capital of the world: a town with a proud history that has been forgotten by the Canberra-bubble bureaucrats. Coober Pedy might have a TAFE building, but the residents there have no real pathway into the industry that built their town. Some of the best opal cutters in the world are right there in Coober Pedy, ready to teach local youth about presentation and about grading.
Yet we are told the government has refused to use the local TAFE facility for this, citing outdated machinery. I'll bet my last dollar that the pencil pushers in the city who made that decision have never seen an opal mine in action. The very skills that define Coober Pedy are at risk of being lost.
We do not want Coober Pedy to become another Mintabie. In places like Coober Pedy, we need funding and support tied directly to local relevant training. Instead, we are funding ghost students, enrolments that go nowhere near a real job.
You can get your boat licence in Coober Pedy, even though you're about 5½ hours drive from the nearest ocean. Real education outcomes require mutual investment, not empty handouts. Coober Pedy is half the size it was 30 years ago.
It shows us plainly what happens when governments treat remote communities as an afterthought. Sadly, it isn't a unique case. Towns right across regional, rural and remote South Australia are living this very same story.
Our regions have been forgotten for too long under this government. This government needs to start backing the engine room of our nation, and it needs to start now. It is no secret that Australia is facing a housing shortage and major infrastructure bottlenecks.
Builders are crying out for skilled tradespeople, waiting months to find qualified workers to finish basic jobs. Projects are delayed. Costs are going up.
Communities miss out. Labor promised fee-free TAFE would fix this, but the dial has not shifted. It's gone backwards.
Before I finish, I want to thank every Australian currently doing an apprenticeship. You are learning the skills that will build the houses, run the farms and keep the lights on in this country. You are proof of what's possible when training connects to a real job.
That's what this government needs to get right—not enrolment numbers but outcomes for people like those in Coober Pedy. TAFE students and other students in Grey deserve a government that backs them properly. Right now, the government is not getting it right.