Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:57): I am pleased to rise to speak on this bill, the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. Vocational training sits at the centre of something very important: training the electricians, nurses, tradespeople and technicians who actually build and run this state. I will start by acknowledging the TAFE teachers across Victoria that work under sometimes genuinely difficult conditions. They are not the problem in the system; they are the reason the system functions at all.

The coalition strongly supports free TAFE in principle. Removing financial barriers to training is a sensible objective. We have never previously opposed this policy, and we will not be opposing this bill. But supporting TAFE and free TAFE is not the same as endorsing this bill uncritically, because when you read the legislation – not the second-reading speech, the legislation – you will find that its title is doing a lot of work the bill itself does not do. This is a 45-page bill, and around five pages deal with free TAFE courses and funding guarantees. The other 40 are about expanded ministerial powers, reporting frameworks, budget veto powers, guidelines that TAFE must comply with and ministerial representations on TAFE boards, so the honest title would be ministerial powers over TAFE bill. That is what the bulk of the bill does. It is worth noting that this bill gives effect to the commitments made at the 2022 election. It is now 2026. If these were pressing reforms, they have had four years to do them. The timing of the introduction of the bill in an election year is perhaps it is own commentary.

Before getting into the bill’s provisions, it is worth being honest about the state of the sector this bill is supposed to strengthen. The Productivity Commission report released in February this year confirmed Victoria has the lowest VET completion rates per capita in the nation with the sole exception of the ACT, so it is lower than New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, and student satisfaction is at or below national averages. The real recurrent expenditure per training hour has fallen 18 per cent since 2020, from $23.77 to $19.44, and that is the lowest in the nation. The number of TAFE locations across Victoria has, you could say, nothing less than collapsed – from 6349 in 2022 to 1923 in 2024 – a 71 per cent reduction – and the government does not seem to want to talk about that much.

Several TAFE institutes are under significant financial strain. Box Hill recorded an $18.3 million loss last financial year. Chisholm recorded a $14.8 million loss, William Angliss $6.1 million and Melbourne Polytechnic $1.2 million. To round this out, the Auditor-General found that only five of 12 TAFEs would have achieved a net surplus without a one-off capital grant from the government to prop them up. Ultimately, TAFEs do not need to turn large profits, but they do need financial stability and the ability to invest in equipment, facilities and teaching capacity. Strategically for the state, they need some kind of operational redundancy built in which gives them the ability to adjust and pivot where opportunities arise in the training sector. But exactly like this government runs its own budget, we are running these TAFE organisations so close to the wind financially they have absolutely no budgetary headroom for strategic reform or adaption, and when they need to do it, they either hit a hard limit or they fall into deficit. That, structurally, is very bad.

When I reflect, I think particularly in my case as shadow minister for AI, on AI skills as an example, this is an area that needs a major pivot. I am very worried that, despite a couple of piecemeal announcements recently, the government’s investment in this has been so small, so piecemeal and confused that the existing five-year gap we already have with New South Wales in AI adoption and the economic advantages that they have gained will only get wider. I will have a lot more to say about that when our AI policy is announced, but I can tell you now: there is a pivotal role for TAFE in Victoria’s AI transition – pivotal – but it is currently completely misread and mismanaged by this government because it does not understand what training on or the skills for AI actually are.

With institutes running structural deficits, what is the government’s solution? It is more reporting requirements and more power for the central government. If that is what the bill refers to as ‘reform’, then we are in for a very rough ride in TAFE, because that is essentially where this bill lands. The Silver review, commissioned by this government, found that the VET system had continued skill shortages in priority industries, completion levels lower than the national average and student satisfaction at or below national averages. Financial viability, it noted, remains an issue for several TAFEs – and that is the government’s own appointed reviewer speaking. Meanwhile, Victoria needs 373,000 additional skilled workers by 2028 and 1.5 million by 2035 just to meet current demand. That is the scale of Victoria’s problem, and the bill does not even begin to go anywhere near addressing any of it, certainly not with the sense of urgency I think it requires.

The centrepiece of this bill, according to its title, is the free TAFE guarantee. Read that carefully, because the guarantee requires the minister to publish each year a list of VET courses that will be provided free of tuition fees. That is the guarantee. A list is the guarantee. It is a guarantee there will be a list. There is no requirement for a minimum number of courses. There is no guarantee that existing courses remain free. There is no requirement that the courses on the list this year appear on any future list. If you want the clearest possible statement of what this guarantee is actually worth, go to the new section 3.1.1A(4) of the bill, which states in plain language:

This section does not create a legal right in any person or give rise to any civil cause of action.

So the guarantee, by the government’s own drafting, is not legally enforceable. A student cannot take action if their courses are cut, and the government cannot be held accountable if the list shrinks. It is there in the bill. It is not my personal critique; it is in the bill itself.

In 2024 Labor conceded that only 53.7 per cent of free TAFE students had completed their four-year course since the program started in 2019. Since then the government has declined to release updated completion rates. They say the numbers are improving, but they will not say how much or from what base, so it is a statistically meaningless statement. And there is a broader point embedded in these completion figures. The bill assumes that the primary barrier to skills formation in Victoria is cost. Cost is a factor, clearly, but if you open the front door wider and wider and do nothing about the completion rates, you have not built a system, you have built a funnel with no output. When a student enrols in a course but does not complete it, what is the point? If we are not concentrating on completion as much as enrolment, then what is the point? It is a misallocation of capital.

I totally support the principle of free TAFE, but using the word ‘guarantee’ to describe something with no minimum requirement and no legal standing has not got much to do with policy or reform outcomes. It is pure marketing and hoping no-one notices. Well, business has noticed. I have been to many businesses in the last year – all sectors, all sizes – and apart from the tax and regulations killing them, the skill shortage is always in the top three. The cost of a skill shortage is what? It is low productivity. It is employee churn. It is inflation. It is inability to deliver. It is frustrated expansion plans. It affects Victoria’s fundamental underlying competitiveness. It also obviously means that we are not getting people into the employment they deserve – which makes it all a real pity, given the challenges before us.

I do not quite understand how as a government you can be content playing at this level. And I cannot understand the lack of ambition around it. You are pinning badges on yourself about having allegedly saved TAFE, but I think some others from this side will have some pretty strong evidence to back up the fact you did not. But for all that, when it is in your hands and you have terrible completion rates, the state has an acute shortage of skills and you can do something about it, all you can do is this bill.

The second promise with the TAFE funding guarantee of this bill is that 70 per cent of VET funding will be directed towards TAFE institutes and dual-sector universities. That might sound meaningful, but it is not. Under the National Skills Agreement, Victoria is already required to direct 70 per cent of Commonwealth funding to public providers in order to receive the $3.1 billion five-year allocation. The government’s own officials confirmed this at the bill briefing – that the TAFEs already received 73 per cent of VET funding in 2024–25 and are on track for 80 per cent in the current year. So this bill’s funding guarantee basically legislates what is already happening to satisfy what is already a Commonwealth requirement. It is not a new initiative, it is paperwork formalisation of existing obligations. It is a bit like the title of the bill – a casual misdirection and a creation of a narrative or impression that does not match the actual content. It is marketing. It also includes a three-year averaging mechanism, so the 70 per cent can be met by averaging across a three-year window, so in any given year there is no guarantee of actually meeting it. If they are in a bit of a budget squeeze, there is nothing stopping a financially tight government from back-ending the funding and not meeting the requirements at all. That is a target –

Jacinta Ermacora: Is that your promise?

Richard WELCH: Well, it is your bill. It is your policy. It is your response to the skills crisis.

Jacinta Ermacora interjected.

Richard WELCH: We are not debating our bill, we are debating your bill. If you do not want to talk about your own bill, that is fine. Do not talk about your own bill, because it is not a good one.

The PRESIDENT: Let us not have a discussion across the chamber, please.

Richard WELCH: Apologies, President. I should have gone through you. The guarantee says nothing about independent registered training organisations, who according to data, support around 88 per cent of all students in skill training. They get no funding protection under this bill. If the government was serious about a whole-of-system skills solution and not just parts of it, you would think that RTOs would at least feature somewhere, but they do not, which I find incredible. I would not have thought RTOs are the enemy, but it is pretty clear that this government hates them and does not want them to succeed.

Here I have dispensed with the five pages of the bill that actually talk about free TAFE, whereas the bulk, another 40 of the 45 pages, are about ministerial control over TAFE. The bill creates expansive new ministerial control architecture over the TAFE network. The minister will be able to issue a statement of priorities that every TAFE must implement. Each TAFE must then produce a formal response explaining how it meets those priorities. The minister can reject that response and impose their own. Separately, a TAFE must submit annual budgets to the minister. The minister can accept it, amend it or veto it. If the minister vetoes the TAFE’s amended budget a second time, the minister simply writes the budget for them. Then there are also new reserve powers – that is the phrase that the bill actually uses, reserve powers – allowing the minister to appoint a ministerial representative to sit on a TAFE board if the minister considers the board is underperforming. The representative can attend board meetings, request any information they want and report back to the minister. They cannot vote, but boards must consider their advice and hand over whatever they ask for. The minister can also issue guidelines on how TAFEs prepare their responses, budgets and progress reports, and under the new general information powers, the minister can demand details of any commercial arrangement or third-party contract a TAFE has entered into.

The government says these powers are needed to improve efficiency and accountability – maybe. The sector does have financial problems, as the Auditor-General has been saying for some time, and the Silver review recommended structural reform around shared services, some possible mergers and asset rationalisation. But there is a pretty big difference between improving accountability and micromanagement. When a minister can set the priorities, veto the plans, write a budget and place a representative on the board, you have moved from oversight into something closer to direct operational control. The TAFE boards, in any meaningful sense, become an advisory committee to the ministry, and what you get from the TAFEs is probably not better performance – you get compliance theatre, more reporting, more directed responses, more progress reports on progress reports. None of that fixes a structural deficit or makes up our increasingly lost time to get a skilled workforce in Victoria.

The minister’s own second-reading speech says that previous reforms have seen the TAFE network operate more efficiently and collaboratively. But if that is true, then why these new powers? You either have a functioning system that needs support or a broken one that needs intervention; this bill claims the former and legislates for the latter. I will tell you what this is in reality: this is the government’s elaborate vote of no-confidence in TAFE – the TAFE that they like to pat themselves on the back for, claim total political credit for, and the remaining speeches will no doubt do that. But if that is the case, then explain this bill – because you want the credit for TAFE but you do not trust TAFE. You do not fund TAFE properly and you do not care what the completion rates of TAFE are. That is what the bill says unambiguously, and you can try and deny it, but it is there in black and white.

Labor actually hate TAFE because they do not yet control it fully, and they are going to put a stop to that. And Victoria will get to see, yet again, this government’s unique ability to stuff things up further, as only Jacinta Allan and her size 14 clown feet ministers can do over and over and over again. Crime, machete bins, circular economy reforms, energy, wind farms, planning, bail reforms, housing, police numbers, emergency services funding, negotiating with teachers, ambulance ramping, organised crime on the Big Build and the lack of a royal commission, losing the motorbike grand prix, the Avalon air show and the Commonwealth Games – this government stuffs it up over and over again. In fact you will stuff up TAFE so badly that you can only assume that this is one of the gold-plated Jacinta Allan policies. It is 2026, and Jacinta Allan is coming for the TAFE sector – not good. The last thing any institution in Victoria wants right now is to be fixed by Jacinta Allan. They would be hiding under their desks at the mere thought of it.

The one other thing worth noting is that the dual-sector universities – Federation, RMIT, Swinburne and Victoria University – have significantly more protection here. The minister cannot veto their responses or impose their priorities on them, given their independence under their own statutes, so the full weight and control of the architecture fall on the standalone TAFE institutions. They are the ones with the least protection and the most financial pressure. The coalition will move one amendment in this house, and I ask if that could be circulated now.

The PRESIDENT: That could be distributed, please.

Richard WELCH: I will just talk to the amendments briefly. Under the funding guarantee provisions, the minister is already required to report annually on whether the 70 per cent target has been met. We are proposing to add to that report a requirement to publish completion rates for the free TAFE courses on the same metrics. This is not a complicated task. No-one could imagine this would be a complicated task. It falls into part 4 of the bill, which is not due for implementation until 2027. It should not add any complication or delay to anything else that the bill is attempting to achieve. But the completion rates will tell you whether the training is actually producing qualified workers and giving people careers, which is the whole point. Students deserve to know whether courses lead to qualifications, industry deserves to know whether programs produce skilled graduates and taxpayers funding this at significant expense deserve to know what they are getting. The government stopped publishing completion rates in 2024. They were at 53.7 per cent at that point, and the reason given for not continuing to publish them was that ‘They are improving’. Now, that is not a measurement. At this point, without data, that is just an assertion. And who knows what ‘improving’ means and in what context. It is eminently sensible and practical, and I cannot think of any objection to simply publishing the completion rates. It seems absolutely common sense. Transparency on outcomes should not be a contested proposition. If the bill is going to use the word ‘guarantee’, the least it can do is tell us how well the system is actually performing against it.

We will not oppose this bill. We support free TAFE as a principle, and we are not going to use this as a political football. It is too important for games. But let us be honest about what is in front of us: this is not a bill that addresses Victoria’s skill crisis. It does not improve completion rates. It does not bring RTOs into the skills ecosystem better. It does not fix the financial position of the struggling institutes. It does not answer how this state will produce the workforce it needs for the next decade and for the new technologies we must adapt to.

What it does is centralise ministerial control over a sector that is already under strain and attach a label to that process that suggests something more ambitious than what it really is. The people who notice the difference between the label and the reality are the students who do not complete their course, the employers who cannot find the tradespeople they need and the TAFE teachers who are doing the actual work while the reporting workloads multiply around them. They deserve a system that works, but that is a different bill to this one.

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:21): I rise today to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026 on behalf of my Greens colleagues and me, which we absolutely will be supporting. It is always good to support the passage of good Greens policy. I say that looking back over the last few elections and some of the TAFE policies that the Greens took to those elections, and we specifically in those instances supported a continuation of free TAFE as well as a 70 per cent funding guarantee for public providers. So I am really pleased to see both of these things legislated by this bill.

TAFE is great. It provides quality, affordable and accessible training to so many people here in Victoria, and it should be free. TAFE students really benefit from the practical hands-on learning that TAFE offers, and it provides great pathways to employment. Cost should not stop people from accessing this important training. TAFE can play a really important role in preparing people for jobs of the future – practical, often technical, jobs that cannot be done by robots and cannot be done by AI; jobs that protect and restore our environment, training people in land conservation and ecosystem management; jobs that support the rollout of renewable energy in Victoria, with TAFEs training people to install solar, wind and batteries across the state; jobs that support our circular economy, reducing waste in all of its forms; and jobs that build sustainable and energy-efficient homes for Victorians. Skills learned at TAFE can help us prepare for the impacts of climate change. These are valuable jobs and roles that build our state, and TAFE plays a critical role in preparing people for these roles, so we must invest in it.

I will have a range of matters during the committee stage that I will be raising with the minister, particularly with respect to Aboriginal community controlled registered training organisations, as well as some other matters in addition, but I will leave those matters for that stage of the Council’s deliberations. On behalf of my Greens colleagues and me, I commend the bill to the house.

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:23): I am absolutely delighted and I am also honoured to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, otherwise known as the free TAFE guarantee bill. Free TAFE began here in Victoria, and it was introduced by the Victorian Labor government in 2019. Free TAFE was born of a conviction that the cost of training should never be the reason a person cannot transform their career, and it has worked so well that the Albanese government has now rolled it out nationally, with spectacular success. This bill will protect the legacy Victoria has built, and I want to be clear that this is an issue deeply felt in my community in south-west Victoria.

The Baillieu Liberal government’s VET reforms cut $10 million in government funding from South West TAFE – 70 South West TAFE teachers lost their jobs, 169 courses were cut over two years and student fees rose by between 50 and 400 per cent. The Hamilton and Portland campuses were threatened with closure, and Glenormiston agricultural college was closed. I was mayor of Warrnambool at that time, and I knew that not only were the job losses devastating, the reduction of courses would be terrible for many people who looked to TAFE for their first step into secondary education, and it was also terrible for those industries in our region relying on trained and skilled graduates. This happened all across TAFE. What I just described in south-west Victoria happened across the state under the Napthine–Baillieu Liberal coalition government.

These were truly the actions of a former government that hated TAFE. Under the former Liberal government more than 2000 TAFE teachers were sacked across the state, 22 TAFE campuses were shut and $1 billion was ripped from TAFEs across Victoria. When the Liberals were last in power less than half the state’s training budget went to public TAFE. By early 2015 the number of regional students in training had fallen by 19 per cent – you can imagine the impact that had on our regional economy. Apprenticeships and traineeships were down 40 per cent, and TAFE’s share of the training market had collapsed from 44 per cent to just 25 per cent. I remember that as mayor I had a meeting with the CEO of the TAFE. When I walked in he said that he just had his local member in, Minister Napthine, who was asking the CEO of the TAFE what the impacts would be of the changes and what the changes were. He did not even know what the changes were that his very own government was implementing, and certainly he had not advocated for his own region. It became incredibly important at that point for a Labor government to rebuild TAFE, and we did. Step by step since gaining government we have rebuilt TAFE. When Labor came to government in 2014 the sector was projecting losses of $71.8 million across Victoria for 2014 alone. We provided South West TAFE and other regional TAFEs in financial distress with emergency funding so they could rebuild, and we created a statewide agriculture tech skills centre at Glenormiston. We invested $16 billion to rebuild a crumbling TAFE sector and built and upgraded 45 TAFE campuses. In 2019 we made it even better by introducing free TAFE.

Given the chance, the Liberals will cut free TAFE. Victorians will lose access to an opportunity, and our state will lose an important lever for economic growth. The likelihood of that happening if the Liberals ever were in government is very high. We now know, because of the take-up of free TAFE, that price is a barrier to accessing education. At this point, upwards of 5000 people have enrolled in free TAFE in south-west Victoria alone, at South West TAFE. That is people voting with their feet. That is people sorting out their next career and absolutely enjoying it as well. This bill will enshrine free TAFE in legislation – not just in policy, not just in a ministerial statement, but in the act. Because governments can change, and we have seen what the other side do when they are given the chance. Across Victoria more than 225,300 students have benefited from free TAFE since it began, saving more than $727 million in tuition fees. For that figure of 5000 or more at South West TAFE, I want to congratulate the staff at South West TAFE and in particular CEO Mark Fidge. South West TAFE won the Large Training Provider of the Year award in 2020. I was a board director at that time. It was amazing, the detailed assessment across a range of categories that South West TAFE won in order to achieve that national award, not least of which was the highest completion rates in courses at the time. These are not small numbers. These are people who might not have considered further study, who assumed the cost would put it beyond them, who quietly shelved a dream for becoming a nurse or a childcare worker or an electrician. I just want to give you one example from the local newspaper at the time, Friday 7 February 2020. It is headed up:

Free TAFE extended to childcare courses

Working in the childcare field just got a lot more affordable with South West TAFE offering free courses in Early Childhood Education and Care for the first time in Hamilton and Portland.

They are the very campuses the Libs were going to close.

We know that free TAFE is particularly important for women. More than 60 per cent of all free TAFE enrolments to date have been women. Many of them are returning to work after raising children or making a mid-life career change or trying to get secure employment after years of casualised employment. For women living in regional and rural Victoria, being able to afford to study close to home is particularly valuable. Last year I visited Willaura health centre. One of the staff members I met was a young mum. She had qualified as a nurse because she was able to study locally and for free. That meant she had kept her career on track and it meant the hospital had a much-needed staff member.

Free TAFE has been profound in its inclusiveness on so many levels. More than 67,200 Victorians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have benefited since free TAFE began in 2019. More than 22,300 Victorians living with a disability have accessed free TAFE. This government is investing $36 million in the Gordon’s disability inclusion centre of excellence. That is a facility that will train not just people with disability but a workforce that supports them.

Free TAFE also offers 80 qualifications and short courses without tuition fees. The most popular courses in 2025 tell a story about what Victorians actually need: certificate IV in training and assessment, certificate IV in accounting and bookkeeping, diploma of nursing, certificate III in information technology and certificate III in individual support. These are the most popular courses, and contrary to some of what has already been said in the chamber this morning, these are the courses that train the people who keep our hospitals running, who care for our elderly, who keep the books of local businesses and who build the digital economy. These statistics demonstrate how free TAFE enables us to target the skills our economy needs. It stimulates growth in student numbers for in-demand jobs and helps students build successful careers. Victorian TAFE Association research tells us that 81 of the top 100 fastest growing occupations are attainable with TAFE education.

South West TAFE’s 2024 annual report reported strong growth in health and community services, including aged care, nursing and community services programs – all growing sectors. We all know that these are the skills our economy desperately needs, particularly in regional towns. The latest figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research show that 86 per cent of students who completed a course at South West TAFE last year had found a job or gone on to further study. What an amazing figure. That is an incredible endorsement of the relevance of the work and the policy changes that have been put in place to position South West TAFE to achieve that. TAFE is the most direct route to jobs that matter, and a higher than 60 per cent completion rate is my understanding for South West TAFE’s free TAFE.

I want to spend my last few minutes having a look what the bill is doing. It amends the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 to enshrine the free TAFE guarantee in legislation. It locks in the commitment that 70 per cent of all government vocational education training funding will be allocated to TAFE, unlike the devastating figures I referred to under the Napthine–Baillieu governments. This is something we promised at the last election, and this bill delivers on that promise. The Allan Labor government has invested more than $16 billion in new and base funding in skills and TAFE since 2014, including more than $660 million into the 45 new and upgraded TAFE campuses across the network. In regional Victoria more than $237 million has been invested in upgrading and building new TAFE facilities. We have put TAFE at the heart of our training system, and this bill keeps it there.

This bill also legislates the Victorian TAFE network, made up of 11 standalone TAFEs and four dual-sector universities. I will just give a short description of the peak body and governance reforms that have been underway under Minister Tierney. I will take this opportunity to express appreciation and congratulations to Minister Tierney, who has been at the tiller since 2016, at the head of the Victorian TAFE sector. These achievements are absolutely hers to share with all the other people that you have worked with.

In conclusion, with cost-of-living pressures continuing to squeeze Victorian families, we need affordable public education that they can rely on. This bill does exactly that. It is based on the core value of access to public education in this state. It is based on the core value of those that cannot afford it should be able to access it equitably like the rest. This is a really important reform that locks in the work of the TAFE sector, the work of Minister Tierney and the work of all of the TAFE teachers and the communities and the industries that have supported free TAFE since 2019. I commend the bill to the house, very much so.

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (14:38): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, which the Liberal Party do not oppose. I listened to a lot of history there by Ms Ermacora, who is a relatively new member of this chamber and who probably does not have the full history of TAFE and what led to the problems that existed in the TAFE sector, so I would like to give her a little bit of a history lesson.

One of the benefits of being a long-term member of Parliament is I do have a long-term memory on the history of TAFE. I am also one of those people who does not throw away useful documents. I would like to read for a minute just a few paragraphs from an article that appeared in an educational journal in spring 2012. It says:

The … TAFE4ALL Campaign was launched in 2008 when Jacinta Allan, the then Victorian Labor minister responsible for TAFE, undermined the public TAFE sector with a disastrous piece of public policy.

Despite attempts by many stakeholders to warn the Minister about the damage that the policy would do to the public TAFE system in Victoria, she and her government refused to listen and introduced the Victorian Training Guarantee …

Disregarding warnings that there was no effective way to regulate the system, no ability to rein in dodgy practices, that students would suffer and the public TAFE system would be undermined, the VTG was launched with the usual colour glossy pamphlets. It should have been called the Victorian Private Profit Guarantee!

The government proudly marketed the policy as providing a guarantee to all Victorians that they now had access to a subsidised training place in either a public TAFE or a private for profit registered training organisation.

The VTG policy saw an explosion in the number of private for profit RTOs and the plundering of public money and the undermining of the public TAFE … began.

Who said that? Which journal was it that wrote that? Well, this was actually in a journal called the Australian TAFE Teacher – its spring 2012 edition – which is a journal produced by none other than the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union. In fact that article was written by Greg Barclay, the Victorian branch president for TAFE and adult provision in the Australian Education Union. This was the Australian Education Union saying that Labor were wrong with their direction on TAFE.

I also have a couple of pamphlets that were produced during that time. This one was handed out in Bendigo. It is headed ‘The Victorian government is changing TAFE’ and it says:

Tens of thousands of people are affected by a massive hike in fees and loss of concessions.

Young people

Women

Single parents

Koori families

Unemployed people

Disabled people

None of them can afford these changes.

New TAFE fees for diplomas and advanced diplomas …

will increase. The annual fee was going from $877 to $2000, and the concession rate for low-income students was going from $55 to $2000. The pamphlet goes on to say:

Tell the Minister for Skills – your MP Jacinta Allan – that she’s wrong.

Join the campaign at tafe4all.org.au.

It gives a case study of a young woman who wants to work in aged care. She was studying a certificate IV in community welfare, and her enrolment fee was going from $55 – because she was on a low income – to $2000. She could not afford that, and the government told her to get a loan. What a disgraceful act that was. The AEU also conducted a whole heap of surveys on that, but I will not go through all of the history of that.

I remember standing on a polling booth outside the TAFE during the 2010 election, and a woman came up and absolutely started berating me and screaming at me that I had destroyed TAFE. I was saying to her, ‘Hey, hang on a minute; I’ve never done anything to TAFE.’ And she said, ‘Yes, you! You, Jacinta Allan – you have destroyed TAFE.’ I had great delight in telling her I was not Jacinta Allan; I was actually from the Liberal Party and I was there to help the electorate of Bendigo East, not to destroy it, like Jacinta Allan.

Anyway, let us get back to the bill. This bill has three main purposes.

Sonja Terpstra interjected.

Wendy LOVELL: If you would like, Ms Terpstra, I can go on about the failures of Labor in the TAFE system. I am happy to.

Sonja Terpstra: On a point of order, Acting President, I think Ms Lovell should direct her comments through the Chair and not across the chamber at individual members.

Wendy LOVELL: Sorry, I was responding to an interjection by Ms Terpstra. If she is going to interject, I will respond.

Sonja Terpstra: Further to the point of order, that is irrelevant. Ms Lovell must direct her comments through the Chair, whether she is responding to an interjection or not.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I will ask Ms Lovell to direct her comments through the Chair, and I ask that she be allowed to continue without interjection.

Wendy LOVELL: Thank you. Through you, Acting President, if Ms Terpstra would like, I can elaborate further on the failures of Labor in the TAFE system and the way they almost destroyed it in this state – brought it to its knees. I am happy to do that if she would like. But I would like to talk about this bill, because the main purposes of this bill are that it requires the minister to publish a list of free vocational courses; it legislates that at least 70 per cent of funding goes to TAFEs and dual-sector universities; and it significantly expands ministerial control over public education institutions. Our TAFE teachers do a fantastic job. I know that the teachers at GOTAFE are very dedicated and they work very closely with all of the TAFE students at Shepparton. Our GOTAFE has always been a very good institution in Greater Shepparton, and we value having that in town.

The importance of vocational education in regional Victoria can hardly be overstated. Regional cities and towns continue to suffer from chronic skills shortages. My electorate needs more nurses in hospitals, more tradies on building sites, more educators in kindergartens and more carers for our ageing population. Regional TAFEs allow students to receive training and education while staying connected to their local communities. Most of those students will go on to make a big contribution to their home towns, where they help build, serve and care for the community. VET also offers pathways to new careers for ambitious students who want to explore wider opportunities and seek new horizons.

TAFE institutes are vital for the Victorian economy and deserve more support, but they will not get it from this bill. Do not be fooled by the title of this bill. It will not actually guarantee that any particular TAFE course or a minimum number of TAFE courses will be free. The only thing this bill guarantees is the production of more paperwork. This bill will require the minister to produce a statement of TAFE priorities. It will require TAFEs to produce a response to the minister’s statement. It will require TAFEs to publish a progress report on how they are implementing their response to the minister’s statement. It will require TAFEs and dual-sector universities to produce all these documents as well as review and revise their strategic plans. TAFEs will now be busier than ever publishing plans, statements, responses and reports. This bill should be called the TAFE paperwork guarantee bill of 2026.

The government claims that the main aim of this bill is to guarantee the provision of certain courses in vocational education and training, free of tuition fees. But when we look more closely at the bill and the detail of the bill, we can see that this guarantee is a hollow promise. Clause 19 inserts a new section 3.1.1A, which says in subsection (1):

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.

But the bill does not say which courses must be free. It does not say that a minimum number of courses must be free. It does not say that the free courses must be linked to identified skills shortages. It just says the minister will publish a list of which courses the minister has decided to make free. That might be 80 this year, it might be 20 next year – who knows? The list is entirely at the minister’s discretion, and a list that can change from year to year provides no real guarantee.

Then subsection (4) says that this section does not create a legal right anyway. What is the point of passing legislation for a free TAFE guarantee when included in the legislation is a clause denying that it guarantees anything or creates a right that can be enforced? This guarantee is an empty promise that is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Clause 21 of this bill inserts a new section 3.1.2A, which at subsection (1) provides that out of all of that funding paid to TAFE institutes, dual-sector universities and private registered training organisations in a target year, at least 70 per cent must go to TAFEs and dual-sector universities. But this promise is nothing new to TAFEs, because it merely formalises what the state government is already required to do by the Commonwealth under the National Skills Agreement. As my colleague the member for Prahran said in the other place, this bill is nothing more than a press release on a legislative letterhead. The so-called new guarantees either are unenforceable or just replicate existing practice.

Labor is building into this bill creeping control over the TAFE sector. The one substantive change this bill makes is that it increases Labor’s control over the public institutions, through clause 16, which inserts a new division 3. This will give the power to the minister to place representatives onto TAFE boards who will watch over TAFE boards and report back to the minister. Clearly, the government is not satisfied with its ability to appoint board chairs: the Brumby Labor government introduced that power in 2010, bringing the previous arrangement, in which the board appointed its own chair, to an end. Now Labor wants to appoint ministerial representatives to monitor the very chair and board that the minister has appointed. The Labor government is obsessed with monitoring and controlling public institutions everywhere. We have seen how the government has weaponised monitoring powers against local government authorities to intimidate councillors who resist Labor’s agenda and probe into questionable decisions. This bill will also give that power to the minister to issue guidelines to TAFEs about their management of assets and financial decisions, in a clear shift towards a far more centralised and interventionist approach.

Completion rates are appalling under Labor at the moment. Significant public money is spent on TAFEs, and the government has a responsibility to ensure that students and Victorian taxpayers are getting value for money from that investment. The government wants to claim that free TAFE has been a game changer, but course completion rates remain lower than they should be. The Productivity Commission’s latest report on government services, released in February, shows that Victoria has the lowest per capita completion rate in the nation, with the exception of the ACT. For example, the diploma of building and construction (building) had a commencement of 2819 students, but only 33 per cent completed the course, with a maximum subsidy per course of some $16,000. Thirty-three per cent is a failure in anybody’s language, and this 33 per cent is a direct failure of this government. Some of them may have changed courses and gone on to complete other courses, but it is really alarming when only a third of students complete their training course in a key industry where skill shortages are hurting the ability to build more houses. Victoria continues to face a skills crisis, and the skills gap is not being filled by our VET system as effectively as it could be. The Productivity Commission also found that student satisfaction levels with VET courses are at or below national averages, which is no doubt contributing to people changing course or ending their studies. This government has failed when it comes to TAFE; they continue to fail Victorian students in the TAFE sector. I look forward to a change of government in November and to some real investment in Victorian TAFEs.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:54): I also rise to make a contribution on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, and I am very pleased and proud to be doing so, because one thing I know is that this government’s commitment to public education is in our DNA. That is what Labor is about, and we are unapologetic about that. Free TAFE and the bill that enshrines our commitment to free TAFE is just another example of how we demonstrate our Labor values. I am also a graduate of TAFE myself. I attended many a TAFE course in my time, and I know many on this side of the chamber, including Mr Tarlamis and others, have also attended TAFE. Both of my children are tradies, and I am incredibly proud that they have been in the vocational training and education system.

I was listening to some of the contributions by Mr Welch and unfortunately Ms Lovell. What is lost on those opposite is that the history of TAFE is about the government speaking to industry and providing government-backed skills training for industry based on what industry tell us that they need. For example, my son is a plumber, and he works in an industry that is part of construction which is inherently dangerous. What you need to make sure, when you have someone carrying out works, is that they are carried out to appropriate regulations and standards, and what TAFE gives you is a guarantee that the government training that is being rolled out has been done in conjunction and in consultation with industry telling us what they in fact need based on what the government regulations are, and that in turn gives confidence to consumers who might engage tradespeople. Also for example, my husband started his life as a fitter and turner – another very important trade. He started work on the railways – metal trades play a very important role. Again, you want to have government training, because you have confidence in government training.

I am going to talk in a moment when I go through some of the history of these things, because I want to remind people who might be playing along at home and might be listening to these contributions today about what those opposite did to the trade training system. We can never forget that, because what that meant was that there was a lack of confidence in people who were getting qualifications that were not worth the paper they were written on. It is very important that consumers can have confidence in the work that is being carried out. Again, this is something that the government and industry work on together. It is based on what the industry have asked government to provide, and again you have quality in the TAFE training system that is provided, and people trust it.

As I said, myself as a TAFE graduate, my husband, my two children – my son has just finished his plumbing apprenticeship and is now a qualified tradesperson, and my daughter is still in the TAFE system undertaking her apprenticeship, and I could not be prouder of them. I could not be prouder of them, because both of my children –

Wendy Lovell: You should be proud of them.

Sonja TERPSTRA: I do not need a lecture from anyone on the opposition benches about what I should and should not be doing with my children. Certainly I am proud of my children for the fact that they are both in very important, in-demand trades, because we have a shortage of skilled trades in this country, because we have strong demand in construction and other trades occupations. It has only ever been Labor governments that have backed in trade training, because we listen to industry. Contrary to what you hear from those on the opposition benches about the need to have private sector investment and the like, we only have to think back to what happened when those opposite were in government. I can talk a bit about that now because it is important to remember. We all need to be students of history because we can never forget what happened.

I will quote from the Victorian training market report which was released in 2015, after those opposite were in government. That report indicated that the cuts that were imposed by the Liberal–National government when they were in power, under Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine, significantly damaged the public vocational education system in Victoria. I will say that again, because it is important and we need to remember it: the cuts significantly damaged the public vocational education system in Victoria, ideologically driven by those opposite. The silly thing is that they affected and impacted people in regional areas as well. Regional students in training fell by up to 19 per cent under those opposite, apprenticeships declined by up to 40 per cent, there were closures of courses and there were closures of campuses. We saw TAFE enrolments drop by 33 per cent over the subsequent year, and the number of students in apprenticeships and traineeships fell by 40 per cent. Let us also not forget that some of the qualifications that were being awarded to people were not worth the paper they were written on – completely dodgy and ineffectual. When we think about and reflect on what those opposite are about, it is in their DNA that they hate public education. They hate it. They do not want to fund it. Their ideological passion is about making sure that the private sector can make profits from it, which is very contrary to the whole point of what public education is about.

Wendy Lovell: On a point of order, Acting President, I just draw the member back to the bill and to her commentary on the bill, because she is certainly currently trying to write coalition policy, and she is getting it very wrong.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Further to the point of order, Acting President, I am merely responding to some of the nonsense that was given in the chamber earlier by members opposite.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): There have been wideranging discussions in this bill about history, so I am not going to uphold the point of order.

Sonja TERPSTRA: As I said, if those opposite want to open a door, it opens the door for everybody in this chamber who wants to make commentary on it. Again, the bottom line is that our government knows how important TAFE and public education and trade and vocational training is, because industry and businesses want it. They know that what comes with public education and TAFE is a guarantee of quality, and we know that. What we are doing with this bill is establishing a free TAFE guarantee which enshrines this government’s free TAFE program, legislating it and protecting it to make sure it continues into the future. Because as I said – and I just laid down the foundation for this – those opposite will destroy it. We should never forget what they did. What they did was bring the TAFE and vocational education and training system to its absolute knees. This is why this bill will enshrine this in law and protect it from future attacks from those opposite – because they hate public education; they hate it.

The other thing of importance is that, as I said, these reforms that the government is bringing forward will protect free TAFE by requiring the minister of the day to issue a list of free TAFE courses every year so people are aware of which courses they can attend for free. We know only too well and what we have seen is that free TAFE has been significantly important and of great benefit to many women who, after perhaps their children are off their hands or they have gone through some sort of divorce or separation, go and take up free TAFE courses to train and retrain. In fact I might talk about the fact of our fantastic tunnel-boring machine crews that are all women. These women have actually come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and I might just tell a story about when I visited the SRL East site last week. We were talking to the lead operator of the all-women tunnel-boring machine crew, who was telling us about one of the women who is now on that crew. She worked in retail – I think one of the supermarkets – her whole life, got to her early 50s and said, ‘I’m going to go and train at TAFE. I want to become a tunnel-boring machine pilot.’ And guess what, she is now a pilot on the tunnel-boring machine crew, the first all-women tunnel-boring machine crew in the world, which is building important infrastructure for Victorians down at Suburban Rail Loop East. I could not be prouder of that. That is a story that is going to make your heart full of joy and admiration for women who can take up an opportunity to train and retrain and be in well-paid, secure jobs, which TAFE provides a pathway for.

For these qualifications, again, this is what we did: we spoke to industry and said, ‘What do we need?’ We did not have a tunnel-boring machine institute, but we now have one at Holmesglen TAFE. What a fantastic initiative of this government. Rather than asking people to come in from overseas, we now train Victorians, locals, in our own TAFE facilities, which those opposite tried to destroy and would do so again if they had the chance. That is why this bill is so critically important – because we need to protect TAFE, and we need to protect it as well by guaranteeing that a minimum of 70 per cent of the state’s training budget will go to public TAFEs. Again, they hate public education. They hate it with a passion. I will say it again: we will be protecting it by guaranteeing a minimum of 70 per cent of the state’s training budget goes to public TAFEs. We will also protect the TAFE network by ensuring its existence and obligations in law, supporting collaboration and innovation, not competition for scraps of funding and market share, which is a hallmark of those opposite, because that is what they want to happen with the private sector. It is all about profit for them. It is not about student outcomes and it is not about qualifications, it is about making money.

That is abhorrent, and it should never be a thing when we are talking about public education. The value of public education, not only to individuals but to the Victorian economy and to Victorian industry, is critically important, and this bill will protect all of that. The bill also provides that TAFE will remain at the centre of Victoria’s training and education system. As I said, 70 per cent of all training will be funded and guaranteed to public providers, and it will also create certainty around free TAFE as a key pillar of Victoria’s training system.

As I said earlier, we know what those opposite would do if they ever got their hands on TAFE again. I have gone through some of the history around what we know those opposite did when they were in government. But, again, it is important to remember the history of vocational education and training. Let us not forget this is about government working with industry, understanding their needs and providing for them. It is about a guarantee which is about public confidence and consumer confidence in tradespeople who come away with a qualification – to know that they are appropriately trained, with government-guaranteed training as well, and that does provide consumer confidence.

This is a very critically important piece of legislation. We have heard all sorts of rhetoric and garbage from those opposite about completion rates and all the rest of it, and they have referred to the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) and all this sort of stuff, but the bottom line is it is a dog whistle. It is a dog whistle for them to say they will destroy the public education system of TAFE and open it up to the private market. They will continue to point to failures, but they will not point to successes, because the successes outweigh any concerns.

I listened very carefully to some of the commentary. VAGO actually talked about how the TAFE sector does have financial stability and the like, and it is actually doing okay, despite what those opposite say. But, again, they want to cherrypick what has been said in an Auditor-General’s report, which is completely ridiculous. I can also point to key completion rates. We had over 568,000 students who had enrolled in fee-free TAFE by early 2025, and some of the modes in which students are studying at TAFE mean that they are not completing their courses in four years because they might be studying part-time. There is a different way in which people are now opting to undertake their training at TAFE as well. If you look across the board, though, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research is also talking about datasets, and some of the data is a little bit difficult to read, but there is certainly higher engagement with TAFE amongst students in states with larger fee-free TAFE take-ups, like Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Now, those things are important to note, because those opposite will just cherrypick anything to bolster their argument, because what they want to do is try and rely on that – because we absolutely know, down the barrel, should they ever have the privilege of being in government again, what they would do. The first step that they would take is take the razor to TAFE, and they would completely destroy it. It took this Labor government and other iterations many, many years of trying to undo the inherent damage that those opposite created: closed campuses, cuts to courses and people who walked away without qualifications because things were on their knees. We can never forget that.

The clock is against me. I must say I never had a prouder moment than when I was fortunate enough to work with the minister as the TAFE ambassador. I had a great opportunity to go around and talk to many people in Victoria about the great benefits of TAFE. This is a very important bill. I commend this bill to the house. It is very important that we continue to back our TAFE and vocational education system.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:09): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. The provision of quality and accessible vocational education and training is essential to the education system, to industry and to the community. However, I think it is fair to say that our appreciation for a technical or TAFE education has been diminished over several years. We live in an age of the university. The profound and revolutionary changes to the education system under Gough Whitlam in the 1970s were life-changing for many. They opened up pathways to higher education previously closed to people like me, those from working-class and low socio-economic backgrounds. This changed Australia for the better. Decades later our federal colleagues on both sides of the aisle could do with a reminder of just how many great Australian writers, lawyers, academics, thinkers and, yes, politicians would simply not be where they are today if Whitlam had not made higher education free and thereby lowered the drawbridge to Australia’s universities. A university education should be within reach for all who want it and are suited to it.

However, this course correction, while very welcome – revolutionary, even – did have some unintended consequences. One was that a university education was elevated above other pathways, including TAFE and work. Flash forward several decades, and schools, workplaces and families of all backgrounds have an almost laser focus on getting young people on the pathway to university. While not intended, this devalued TAFE. We all recall kids at school doing subjects like ‘prevo’, prevocational training, or ‘home ec’, home economics, being referred to in the negative. Practical and work-focused subjects and pathways beyond school were seen as the lesser option. The idea was that if they were smarter they would go to uni, and in one generation this has led to a glut of lawyers who cannot find a plumber. It has also seen many young people studying courses and pursuing careers that perhaps are not suited to them. Some people are more practical learners. They thrive in environments that are focused on doing rather than reading, writing and listening. Some of us like sitting in the office and doing Teams meetings – actually none of us like doing those – and others prefer working outside or in person with actual things and with people. Neither is better or more valid than the other. The best possible outcome for students, business and society is that we have education and training pathways available that suit us all.

When university education was made free under Whitlam and somewhat affordable under successive governments, higher education was opened up to many more, including people like me. I come from a working-class family in Newcastle, and I was the first woman in my family to go to university. I have been independent from my family since I was 16 years old, and without those reforms I would never have had the chance to do an undergraduate degree and later my master’s in public policy. I am grateful, and this has been life changing. Indeed it is one of the many reasons I am here today. Having said that, I do not see other pathways to work and study as any less valid. Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far towards university at almost all costs. What this has led to is a lot of kids studying courses that they are not suited to as well as skills shortages in essential professions like nursing, disability support, mental health, information technology, cybersecurity, early childhood, horticulture, construction, hospitality and many more. We need to rebalance to respect university education as well as technical education and also work. There is nothing wrong with finishing school and getting a job.

The TAFE sector has had a few rough decades. The closure of technical colleges, the gutting of TAFE institutes and the shift to cheap and often nasty private registered training organisations (RTOs) all played their part in reducing the regard given to the TAFE sector. It cut the sector off at the knees, and now we see the results. We have less than ideal completion rates, and I will return to that point later. We have chronic shortages in health care, construction, hospitality and many more. You might be able to get your plans drawn up for your new home, but you most certainly will struggle to find the tradies to build it. For this and other reasons we welcome the provision of free TAFE courses and commend the government for righting the wrongs of previous decades and working toward a system where TAFE is no longer seen as the poor cousin of universities. We would welcome the provision of free education across the board, but that is a debate for another day. We support this bill and appreciate greatly that TAFE is closer to getting the respect it deserves.

However, we have a few caveats. The first point I would like to raise is that the guarantee in this bill is not really a guarantee. The guarantee contains no legal rights, cannot be enforced and only requires the minister to publish a list of free courses. The bill fulfils a 2022 Victorian government commitment to ensure that TAFE is guaranteed 70 per cent of VET funding. These amendments are part of the government’s work to reform and rebuild Victoria’s public TAFE system and for alignment to the National Skills Agreement with the Commonwealth. Current legislation does not define the role of TAFE as a public provider compared to other types of training providers, nor does it require TAFE institutes to operate in a coordinated way across Victoria.

Moreover, I have heard significant concerns in my electorate around access to TAFE, and I mean literal physical access – getting there. Many TAFE institutes have been closed, and there are simply not enough of them in the areas where there is need and demand. The Productivity Commission’s February report on government services found that TAFE provider locations in Victoria have significantly decreased and that Victoria has the lowest rates of VET qualifications per capita in Australia. This is simply not good enough and needs to be corrected as a matter of urgency.

Part of the problem I am hearing from my constituents is that many TAFE institutes that do exist are very difficult to get to via public transport. We are making it all too hard. Almost all TAFE students are juggling multiple demands and challenges to study. Often they have responsibilities at home and at work. Most do not come from families that can support them financially to study; they must work. Many do not have cars or the funds to pay for the costs associated with driving long distances and parking. This problem is only increasing as petrol prices soar and the cost-of-living crisis worsens. Cost-of-living pressures hit working people harder than everyone else. If this prevents them from acquiring skills and training, it is a double blow. The best possible outcome and the one most likely to lead to higher completion rates, which is ultimately what we all want, is for TAFE institutes to be plentiful, located in high-demand areas and easily accessible by public transport. It is not rocket science. Any educator or researcher will tell you that getting to your place of study should be easy.

I recently had a constituent inquiry on this subject. My constituent is a resident of Beaconsfield Upper looking to study horticulture, with aspirations of becoming an arborist. He found course options in Cranbourne and Glen Waverley; however, he does not drive. There are no viable public transport options from Beaconsfield Upper to these locations on weekdays. Beaconsfield Upper is a suburb of Cardinia shire, which currently has no TAFE facilities, and I note that Cardinia shire is one of the fastest growing suburbs in the south-east. My constituent has no choice but to pay a rideshare service to travel to TAFE. That is absurd. Most students simply cannot afford to catch an Uber to TAFE. So while we welcome the free TAFE guarantee, this must be accompanied by a practical commitment to access, or it simply will not work.

I would like to return now to the vexed issue of completion rates. Obviously there is little point offering free TAFE courses if they are not being finished in decent numbers. I note that the Productivity Commission’s report flagged this issue and highlighted a need for the minister’s annual report to include student completion rates for all free TAFE courses. I suggest that it would also be helpful to know who is taking up these courses and why. If the purpose of free TAFE is to skill a future workforce, it is important that we know that the people who are in these courses are intending to use them for work or further study. I would imagine that there are some community members who would be keen to socialise at TAFE or dabble in a new area or new learnings. If people are looking for a fresh start or to change careers via TAFE study and they are not finishing the course, then we need to understand why that is the case. Free TAFE cannot be a feel-good exercise or a shiny media release. It is far too important. It must lead to real outcomes for individuals and the economy.

Speaking of potential, it would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to highlight the missed opportunities in the TAFE sector for cannabis-related study, including the myriad benefits of hemp. The cannabis market is estimated at over $25 billion worldwide and growing rapidly, pardon the pun. Cannabis has been used for millennia. Some use it for a good time; others use it for relaxation, socialisation, sleep, appetite, inflammation, epilepsy, perimenopause, ADHD and many other conditions. Consumers report finding it less addictive and harmful than alcohol and with much fewer side effects than a range of commonly prescribed medications. Despite recent prohibitionist propaganda in the press, the health benefits of cannabis are well documented. There are close to 700,000 medicinal cannabis consumers in Australia and many more general consumers.

What gets less attention are the environmental and other benefits of hemp, which are numerous and indisputable. Hemp is being used all over the world in construction, fashion, packaging and much more. Hemp is a multibillion-dollar industry. Just ask famous heartthrob Zac Efron, who recently built a fully sustainable house in Australia out of hemp and who champions it as the building material of the future. The cannabis and hemp revolution is here, and it is going to require a workforce in medicine, in manufacturing and in construction. TAFE institutes should – like in comparable countries like Canada, the US and many other European countries – be at the forefront of equipping our health, horticulture, pharmaceutical, construction and other workforces. There are so many opportunities for employment in the cannabis field, especially in an age where AI is decimating other industries. The immature and outdated stereotypes about this wondrous plant need to stop, and we need an education system and workforce ready to harness her many benefits.

Cannabis is now and has always been a working-class issue. We would like to see the TAFE sector at the forefront of the cannabis education revolution. Right now we are being left behind. We should have plentiful public TAFE institutes offering courses, like the Linnaeus Competence Center Hemp in Germany, which develops vocational education and training approaches to industrial hemp cultivation; like the WeCann Academy in Brazil, which offers an international certification in endocannabinoid medicine designed for healthcare professionals; or closer to home, like Ballarat’s Federation TAFE, which will be the first campus in Australia to deliver nationally accredited training in medicinal cannabis cultivation and production. Federation University provost Liam Sloan said:

Federation will be the first in Australia to deliver the Certificates III and IV in Medicinal Cannabis Cultivation and Production. The design and development of these courses presents many opportunities for Federation TAFE and the communities in which we operate, including the potential for hundreds of jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, research and development.

Industry partnerships are a key element of Federation’s co-operative education model …

Federation TAFE is committed to addressing skills shortages and is also excited to work with our industry partners to play a part in improving the quality of life for patients suffering from a range of conditions who will benefit from easier access to a range of reliable and locally produced medicinal cannabis products.

The market is there. The students are willing. Our education system is not keeping up.

Another issue I would like to flag is the concern from the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, or VACCHO, about unintended consequences of the bill. While VACCHO supports the intention of the TAFE funding guarantee, we share their concern that the training providers defined in the TAFE funding guarantee are too narrow in focus. They are calling for a change to the wording in the bill from ‘TAFE and dual-sector universities’ to a more general term of ‘public vocational education and training providers’. This change removes the possibility that Aboriginal community controlled RTOs could be excluded from funding and does not change the outcome of the bill, and I just want to acknowledge that from what I understand the minister will be speaking to this in the committee-of-the-whole stage.

At Legalise Cannabis Victoria we commend the government making TAFE more affordable. These changes are starting to bring the reputation and standing of TAFE and the technical education sector back to where they should be. There is honour in any work that is done well and to a high standard. Working people take pride in their work, and they should also take pride in the education and training they undertake to be able to do this work. We all should be proud of TAFE. We commend this bill and hope that in the very near future the provision of publicly accessible, affordable and local TAFE education is a reality for all Victorians.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (15:25): I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. This bill includes a number of different areas: new objectives for the TAFE network, new powers to the minister in relation to the TAFE network and a strategic planning framework for the TAFE network providers. I would like to note for the house that I do have something in common with Ms Terpstra. It is worth mentioning at least one thing in common – very different policies, I note: we both have sons involved at TAFE. I am certainly very proud to be a mum of someone who is going through an apprenticeship at the moment, and I think we have so much to be thankful for from our TAFEs. I have spoken with a number of teachers, and I think they do an incredible job – and it is not an easy job to do at all, because you have got to be trained to be able to teach as well as be trained in your actual trade.

We have 90 campuses, and in our regional areas they are so important. We know that the Sunraysia Institute of TAFE covers the north-west area; we have got campuses in Mildura, in Swan Hill, in Robinvale and in Ouyen. At the GOTAFE we have got campuses in Shepparton, in Seymour, in Benalla and in Wangaratta. I remember visiting Wangaratta and seeing the TAFE there, and that was fantastic. Also Bendigo TAFE, which is local to where I live, have got some great facilities there and even a place where you can go and get your hair cut, which is fantastic. There is a lot of work being done at those sites.

There are certainly a number of issues, though, and I know Ms Ermacora in her contribution said free TAFE helps you target. But I think when you look at the statistics, they show that just over 53 per cent are completing a free TAFE four-year course. Back in 2024 the government gave that information, and that shows that there are certainly a lot missing those targets right now.

I received a letter from a group training organisation, and I think it is worth quoting from it. It says:

Victoria faces a significant and rapidly escalating skills crisis. Apprenticeship training contracts have fallen from more than 58,000 in 2022–23 to fewer than 25,000 today, while youth unemployment, school disengagement, and critical shortages across construction, manufacturing, health, social housing, and emerging industries continue to intensify. At the same time, substantial government investment – particularly in programs such as Head Start and Fee-Free TAFE – has not translated into the outcomes Victoria urgently needs.

We know that there is some recent data that has been released, and it confirms that the number of Victorian apprentices and trainees in training and commencing an apprenticeship continues to fall. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research figures published yesterday for the 12 months ending September 2025 expose the Allan Labor government’s continued failure to address Victoria’s shortage of skilled workers. The report provides a snapshot, and it shows that the number of commencements was down 22.6 per cent, with 3480 fewer commencements for trade occupations and 3340 fewer commencements for non-trade occupations. The number in training also fell by 13 per cent, and the number of completions for non-trade occupations fell 16.5 per cent, with 14.7 per cent fewer females completing their apprenticeship or traineeship. The data shows that Victoria continues to have the lowest rate of students complete VET qualifications per capita in the nation, with the exception of the ACT, with student satisfaction levels at or below national averages. That should highlight some major issues, and I think we should be asking why. Why is that happening? This is just going to further contribute to Victoria’s skilled workforce shortages, which lead to higher prices and restrictions on economic growth.

Recently I have been participating in the electric vehicles inquiry, and we had the National Electrical and Communications Association come, and they were sharing some of the challenges that there are at the moment with workforce, particularly with the electrical industry. They were asked: are there enough contractors available to complete the work?

They said:

The answer is no. In 2030 – the analysis has been undertaken – we will be, across Australia, 32,000 electricians short. If you consider the rate of people, electricians, leaving the industry, as opposed to those coming into the industry – 35,000. It is a four-year apprenticeship. 2030 is four years away, so theoretically, because the completion rates for apprenticeships are close to 50 per cent, we should have 70,000 electrical apprentices enrolled today. We do not, and we will run short. The dilemma that you will have is not only this. You have the community home batteries program, which is extracting a lot of our workforce. You also have everything to do with net zero and energy efficiency drawing on it. You have a housing and infrastructure shortage. This is where all the electricians are going to be dragged from.

They go on to make a number of other important points. One is they talked about needing to engage with more mature-age apprenticeships. They said:

We are seeing a lot of people over the age of 21 who want to enter the trade, but there is a cost barrier with mature-age apprenticeship rates. A lot of employers, especially the small- and medium-sized enterprises, will not pay those additional funds even though they are probably better performers.

One other aspect that they mentioned during the inquiry, and I thought this was worth highlighting, was training and how important it is. It says:

… training needs to be reviewed to make sure that it is keeping up with incoming technologies and stuff like that. The trade schooling was written last century in the 1980s and 90s, and it does need reviewing.

They talk about how:

… the baseline for an A-grade electrician is still moving forward to keep up with the evolving technologies, and we need to put more investment into post-trade training to make sure that they are skilled for energy demand, monitoring, control, batteries, EV charging, and all that sort of stuff as well.

So that is from the Hansard from the inquiry, which I thought was worth noting today.

Another area that I have certainly been made aware of is agriculture – I know Bendigo TAFE is one of the places that offers agriculture – and it is such an important part of our industry and contributes so much. The gross value of agricultural production was $94.3 billion in 2022–23; that is Australia-wide. And in 2021–22 Victoria’s gross value of agricultural production was $20.2 billion, accounting for 23 per cent of our GVAP, making Victoria Australia’s second-largest agricultural producer. The North Central LLEN provides this information. They, in their presentation, highlight the importance of employment: 154,000 people employed in the sector, in agricultural production and manufacturing, 75 per cent of those being in regional areas.

I am aware of the challenges that there are in our TAFE system and the training, and some of those have been highlighted. Recently, I was hearing about insufficient staffing. Courses are frequently staffed with temporary or reduced teaching capacity rather than stable, industry-experienced educators, undermining that continuity and practical supervision. Inadequate equipment and learning materials can lead to issues. Essential machinery, workshop tools and up-to-date learning resources are either unavailable or so limited that hands-on learning is compromised. Also, the lack of marketing, sometimes, of courses such as agriculture can mean that it can see declining enrolments and reduced industry awareness of the pathways. I know, just talking more broadly of some of the challenges the industry is facing, those declining VET enrolments despite the rising need for the training in those areas are because of that limited access to practical hands-on training and the infrastructure that you need to be able to deliver those courses. The trainer recruitment and retention challenges there, the travel and access barriers that have been referred to in this debate as well for school and regional learners – I know I have spoken with grandparents that have had to take grandchildren very long distances, while parents are working, to get them to training. That risk of misalignment between training delivery and contemporary farm practice can be a challenge, because we know in agriculture there are very advanced technologies out there today.

We heard earlier about the group training organisations and the important part they play in connecting people between school and workplace; they also face some challenges. I know they currently operate under seven different regulatory bodies, which creates significant duplication, confusion and cost. I note that their funding has remained unchanged, at $3.2 million, for more than 20 years despite growing demand and the removal of federal support in 2014. The correspondence I received from one of these organisations says fee-free TAFE has broadened access to training but completion rates have fallen significantly. This is a glaring issue.

As I mentioned earlier, apprenticeship training contracts have dropped by 33,000 from 2022–23 to today. That is a major problem that we have. Ms Terpstra, I heard in the debate, talked about our side taking a razor. This is a challenge. I believe it is time that this government started taking accountability or responsibility. They have been in for 12 years; we hear a lot of replaying of the old records, looking back. But I think what is happening right now, if the government want to put the focus on the razor that they are using, I certainly know the complexity allowance in our rural and regional schools has been cut. It is being phased out under this government right now, over the next three years. Another area in which they are impacting regional schools is in tuition funding support that has been cut. Another area is the community-use facility. Again, the razor under this government right now is cutting funds to our rural and regional schools. If they want to talk about razors, I would suggest that the government look at what they are doing right now in education and to our regional students, because we know that we do have significant need for a skilled workforce in Victoria. We need that to grow our economy, and the challenge we have right now is that growing divide between those with the skills and those able to deliver.

It is so important. TAFE provides so many important pathways: builders, plumbers, electricians, painters, hairdressers, beauty and nurses – I know Ms Lovell in her contribution talked about the need for that in our regional areas – hospitality and tourism, veterinary studies, finance and business, agriculture and horticulture like I mentioned, transport and logistics. These are all so important. This bill is a missed opportunity. As Mr Welch referred to earlier, it is a nice twist with the title, but what we see under this government time and time again is just spin. Ms Terpstra mentioned the open door. I would say the exit door is ready for this government in November, because I think people really do want to see a change. We need a strong VET system. We need a TAFE network that delivers for students and for industry, and we need jobs if we want to grow Victoria.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:39): Today we are using that word again, the word that this government loves to use so much: free. Free, as if things are free. We heard this morning about our free public transport for a month, which apparently is going to cost $80 million – it is not free at all. When the government says something is free, they are really trying to obscure who is paying for these things. It is quite illuminating. Lots of members in this place have spoken about the mysterious low completion rates. I think Mrs Broad quoted a rate that was last reported in 2024 of a 53 per cent completion rate, so 47 per cent waste in the sector. If you do not complete a course, it is not very useful if you do not get the ticket at the end of it.

It is almost as if people cannot see the connection between something being free and something not being valued enough to actually see it through to completion. It is so obvious that that is the cause. It is remarkable that people cannot see that that is one of the core reasons why the completion rates are so low and why we are wasting so much money on this. Actually I think the HECS system is not too bad, and I would far prefer to see a system in Victoria where there are some sort of investment and buy-in. It would not reduce accessibility for people, because anyone could still access a loan, but then people would think far more carefully before taking on a course if they knew that they had to one day pay for it out of their wages. I think that this would dramatically improve the completion rates. In fact I am quite confident of that fact: it would improve the completion rates.

Also it would have this other great effect that the courses actually offered at TAFE would be market driven. They would be driven by people who really want to do it and are willing to take on a debt to do it, or their employer is willing to pay for them to do it because they value it. You would end up with courses that actually reflect market sentiment rather than what the government think is fashionable at the time or what they get lobbied into providing. It would be driven by what the requirements actually are – what people actually want to put their money up for. The good thing about that also is it would not cost as much money for the taxpayer. That is a good thing too. These businesses that want the people and that have been upset about not having enough labour would all of a sudden maybe not have as many taxes – maybe their business would be more successful.

I think that one of the big problems with what we are doing with this bill is I feel like it is actually homogenising the education system even further, limiting competition and putting us in a situation where the government is dictating what will and will not be done in courses. They say they have got this great big course that they want to run over here because they have got these requirements, as if they can centrally plan – as if central planning has not been a disaster throughout history. Rather than responding to the market in an organic, bottom-up way, they do everything in a top-down, direction-driven way, which I think is going totally the wrong way about it. If you want to get completion rates up, I think getting people to buy in to these courses is an excellent way to do it. When something is stated as free, we all know it is not free. We are just changing who pays for it. And when we make it free and we have such poor completion rates, we are not getting good value for money either. If the completion rate really is only 53 per cent, that means we have got 47 per cent waste in the system. I do not think anyone wants that. I do not think the government wants that. I am sceptical about whether taxpayers are getting good value for money here when there is clearly so much waste in the system. I would far prefer this to be market driven rather than being driven by the government’s dictates.

I note with some of the other things in this bill about the statements of purpose and this sort of thing that it was brought up by the opposition that this is just creating more paperwork. It remains to be seen. I will be very interested to see what these actual statements of purpose look like. Maybe we will see a documents production order one day in the future, where we can look for these and the government can not provide them – I do not know. We will wait and see what happens with these statements of priorities and what the TAFEs actually do with this. I also concur with what some of the other speakers have been saying here, that the title of the bill is quite deceptive. It does not really entrench any of these things. In fact it is really formalising many of the things, including the funding, that already happen according to the strings that are attached with the federal government funding.

With that said, I am not happy with the way the system works at the moment. I think that there is a lot of room for improvement. I really feel like this is a missed opportunity to reform our TAFE system so that it is more market driven, that there is more buy-in from people who are taking these courses and that the funding model is more appropriate rather than just saying everything is free, like this government likes to do.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:44): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. The TAFE sector is something that we should absolutely value and cherish in this state, and that is something that this Labor government does. Not only do we value it and not only do we cherish it, but we want to protect it, and that is at the heart of the bill that is before us today – locking in the protections and the support that Labor has provided to the TAFE sector, particularly through the form of free TAFE.

Since free TAFE began several years ago we have helped more than 225,000 Victorians to reskill, upskill and secure their dream jobs. We have saved students an average of more than $3000 per course – millions of dollars have been saved in tuition fees. At a time when many in the community are concerned about the rising cost of living and the pressures on families, one thing that they know is that under Labor TAFE will be free. If you want your kid to get a good trade, get skills for good jobs and have the prospect of employment into the future, under Labor TAFE will be free. We have trained nurses, we have trained construction workers and we have filled critical workforce gaps in the care sector and across clean energy. Particularly pleasing is that nearly 130,000 women have accessed training and the workforce opportunities that flow from it. That is what Labor has done. That is what Labor has delivered. That is what Labor is guaranteeing.

But all of this investment support that Labor has given to and for the TAFE sector and to and for those particularly younger Victorians who want a career that TAFE delivers – all of that – is under threat by the prospect of what the Liberal Party will do if they get the chance to enact the policy agenda we know they have for TAFE in this state. The last time the Liberals secured the government benches they took an axe to TAFE. They cut over $1 billion from our TAFE system. They closed TAFE campuses right across Melbourne and right across Victoria. Twenty-two TAFE campuses were closed by the Liberals the last time they were in government. They sacked TAFE teachers and they removed opportunity for thousands of Victorians to grow in their careers and to get the skills that were going to deliver them the sorts of jobs that increasingly become available in the economy of today and tomorrow.

What we need to do as a Parliament and as a Labor Party and as a government is protect the important role that TAFE, and free TAFE, plays in our community – and that is exactly what this bill does. The bill will guarantee access to Victoria’s nation-leading free TAFE system, it will guarantee that TAFE receives a minimum of 70 per cent of vocational education and training funding and it will legislate our TAFE network so that institutions collaborate to benefit students rather than fighting over resources. That is a really important feature of the network of the system that Labor is investing in. It is not setting up a system where institutions compete with each other but investing in a system that is delivering for the state – delivering the skills to students for the state, delivering the skills for the state’s economy and creating jobs. Whether you want to study engineering at Holmesglen, early childhood education at Swinburne or mental health at Melbourne Polytechnic – all brilliant free TAFE providers with campuses in the Southern Metropolitan Region – you know that vocational education and training is protected with Labor.

The bill makes a number of legislative changes to enact the securing of the future of free TAFE, its funding and the network. Last year 37,500 students commenced a free TAFE course, the highest figure since its first year in 2019, so it is very clear that the students are valuing it. And the employers respect it: more than 77 per cent of students who completed a free TAFE course reported finding employment after their training, and free TAFE is providing a workforce for Victoria where it needs it most.

One of the things I want to reflect on is if you look more broadly at the state of the Victorian labour market, you see some pretty remarkable things that are happening. Firstly, labour market participation in this state is at exceptionally high levels, at record high levels – labour force participation by Victorians in the labour market. It is seeing our unemployment rate here in Victoria being considerably lower than the long-term averages that existed over the 20 years pre-pandemic. The long-term average unemployment rate in Victoria prior to the pandemic was about 5.5 per cent. It was upwards of 7 per cent when the Liberals were last in government, but the long-term average was about 5.5 per cent. The average is now down at around 4.5 per cent. I think one of the things you can say is that Labor’s investment in TAFE has given people the skills to get the jobs that are being created in the economy, and I think our labour market figures show that. High participation, lower unemployment rate – it is very clear the health of the Victorian economy and the health of the labour market in Victoria, and free TAFE is no small part of the mix that is creating that environment.

The government has invested at least 70 per cent of training and skills funding into TAFE since 2019, with the figure rising each year. A change in this bill implements an election commitment to enshrine this minimum threshold in legislation. We are backing TAFE as a public institution. We are backing the institutions that deliver the skills that Victorians need. In contrast, what we inherited in 2014 was a system broken by the Liberals – broken by a very short Liberal government that was exceptionally destructive of our TAFE sector, which was decimated by cuts, with less than half of the state’s training budget going into the TAFE network. Since then we have established or upgraded 45 TAFE campuses across the state and rebuilt the training system, providing the sort of certainty and support that the system needs to survive and to thrive. It is the certainty and the support that Labor provides TAFE, knowing that Labor is there to provide the support and funding that is required, that is enabling this sector to thrive and survive, and that is exactly what this bill does by enshrining funding guarantees for the sector in legislation.

The other really important thing it does is reshape the role and vision of TAFE as a network. What the bill does is legislate for the TAFE network objectives, creating a common vision for delivery of TAFE in Victoria. The bill provides the minister with additional powers to establish guidelines for the TAFE network of institutions, and with a new strategic planning framework, the TAFE network statement of priorities, the government will be able to effectively set a strategic direction for TAFE to ensure that the goals and objectives are more clearly defined for a network that works collaboratively, not competitively, with each other, and is absolutely and fundamentally focused on the needs of the Victorian economy and fundamentally focused on the needs of Victorians to get skills to actively participate in the economy through good, well-paying jobs. It provides additional clarity for the allocation of funding. And with TAFEs safe in the knowledge that they will not be asked to compete for funding or market share, they can get on with what they do best: skilling Victorians.

The TAFE network is made up of institutes and participating dual-sector universities, and the bill makes recognition of this in defining what a TAFE network is. By working as a single, unified network of public education and training providers, we can maximise the potential of TAFE, reduce inefficiencies and sector fragmentation and better share resources.

What this bill does, and what Labor has been doing, will futureproof TAFE. We understand the value of TAFE to Victorians. Whether it is switching careers later in life, getting a foot on the ladder of the job market with an apprenticeship, upskilling to maximise your earning potential or realising your dream job, TAFE is there for you, and Labor is there for TAFE. We have been doing it for years, we will continue to do it, and this legislation locks that in.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:54): I am pleased to rise to speak on an important bill today: the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. At the outset I wish to acknowledge the deep and longstanding passion of many on this side but in particular Minister Tierney for her support for this sector and her passion, which we get to see in this place pretty much every single sitting day. Certainly we have come a long way from the dark days of a previous government –

Renee Heath interjected.

Michael GALEA: Dr Heath, since Ms Lovell decided to take us on a bit of a historical journey, I was surprised what she forgot to mention about her long and illustrious parliamentary career. She was very keen to point out that she has been in this place a very long time – we know that – but funnily enough, in her long historical discussion she forgot to mention the four years in which she was in government, the four years in which she was actually a minister in a government in which we saw the TAFE sector in this state completely savaged – cuts galore. Indeed not too far from my own electorate and very close to yours, Mr Welch, we saw the closure of a campus of Swinburne TAFE. Swinburne in Lilydale closed under the Liberals’ watch because they had so ruthlessly cut it. I do have a campus of Swinburne – not Lilydale, which has now reopened under this Labor government – down in Wantirna South, which does incredible work, that I was able to visit with the minister not too long ago to see the work they do in training allied health workers.

I spoke earlier this morning to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report and some of the improvements we are seeing to some of the workforce shortages across Victoria’s economy. It is good to see those improvements, but where those shortages are still there, free TAFE and the TAFE system as a whole play such an important role, including in allied healthcare, educational support, nursing and the early childhood education and care sector as well. This is a government that recognises that an economy is not just about the headline figures and numbers, it is about the people. It is about providing those opportunities – as Ms Terpstra said, providing opportunities for tunnel-boring machine pilots and operators. Those are the opportunities that you get through free TAFE. Those are the opportunities that help to drive forward Victoria’s economy, and they will no doubt go some way towards seeing Victoria exceeding on those levels when comparing other states with our economic growth. Free TAFE is a fundamental and important part of that.

I would also like to take a moment to do a shout-out to all the educators, support staff and administrators in the TAFE sector who have facilitated this and turned this into actual results for students. I mentioned Wantirna South, but at the complete opposite end of my region as well we have seen a tremendous investment in Chisholm campus in Frankston, with 2000 more students able to study at that campus as a result of the investments that this Labor government has made into the Frankston campus. That includes more than $150 million in funding for two stages of the redevelopment, replacing two of the oldest buildings and creating the Frankston learning and innovation precinct, which is providing the most up-to-date level of training for young people in my region, on the peninsula – Mr McIntosh will be very excited about that – and across the south-east.

These are the investments that we are making. This is what happens when you have a government that is actually invested in the skills and training of young Victorians, as opposed to those who will come and talk to us about what happened in 2009 but cannot tell us about what happened between 2010 and 2014, when they actually had the chance to do something, because we know that when they had the chance to do something, they were ruthless. They cut the sector back. They hammered the sector, so much so that we saw, as I said, that TAFE campus in Lilydale fully shut down as a direct consequence of the Liberal Party’s cuts to TAFE – cuts that were reversed by the incoming Andrews, now Allan, Labor government, which saw the Lilydale campus reopen.

We do see great demand. We do see, as other speakers have gone to as well on both sides, an increased sense of place for TAFE and stature of what TAFE can do. It is in many, many cases life-changing, and that is why it is such an important initiative to see enshrined into this bill today, providing that ongoing certainty of free TAFE.

Members opposite have said, ‘You’re not prescribing how many’, perhaps giving away that they plan to cut that list down savagely if they were to come back in – if they do not just try and repeal the bill. I understand that over the weekend there were various other things that kept the Liberal Party members in this place occupied. I will say, Dr Heath, I did greatly admire your hairdressing skills for Mrs McArthur in her valiant re-election bid amongst her own party members, and it was gracious of you to note that you had not actually plugged the hairdryer in. I would say that that is something that TAFE could teach you. I suspect that is probably something more to do with common sense, but it was a very good effort. At least you were doing something. I felt myself –

Renee Heath interjected.

Michael GALEA: Yes, it needs it. You would need a bit of training for that, Dr Heath. But in watching that photo and enjoying the light-heartedness of it, I also found myself wanting to echo the comments of Ms Lovell and Mrs Hermans in this chamber and saying, ‘Well, where was my invite? Where was my invite to that?’ I mean, I think I could have sharpened Mrs McArthur’s nails for her. She did not need it in the end, but she could have done with that. She might have appreciated that too.

We have seen the rolling chaos of the Liberal Party. I do not know if there is a TAFE course in how to manage a preselection and not completely bungle it. Again it probably comes down to common sense. Maybe there is a TAFE course in food safety that might apply to some of your candidates. There are some people that are maybe beyond help. But even if the Liberal Party is closing off its opportunities for its own MPs or its own candidates, perhaps free TAFE can provide that saving grace for them, perhaps that can provide that second chance. When the Liberal Party closes its doors on its own people, free TAFE is there to help people along. But it is not just Liberal MPs or prospective Liberal MPs or Liberal candidates, it is indeed everybody. All Victorians have the right to free TAFE and to access these courses, because they do make such an important difference for all Victorians. As part of equating the role of TAFE with university or other forms of qualification, it does play that really important role, and it is great to see the investments, whether it is in the allied health services in Wantirna South in my electorate or whether it is in the incredible new facilities down in Frankston that I know the local member Paul Edbrooke has been very active for, both in attaining these improvements for his local campus but also in being very proud to talk about what the new campus offers. We know just from a small couple of examples in my electorate what a difference it can make. I hope that the Liberal Party will embrace this bill for what it actually does, get on board and again, rather than glossing over their last disastrous four years in government, focus on rebuilding themselves so if Victorians ever find themselves with the misfortune of another Liberal government in this state, they are run slightly more competently than the last one, perhaps by a party that can actually run the state and can even run its own preselection process.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (16:02): I am absolutely delighted to stand and support this bill today. It is fantastic, and it speaks volumes about the values of the Labor Party. The values of the Labor Party are about making the quality of life in the day-to-day experience of Victorians, of families and of people in this state better. Like Mr Galea, I want to acknowledge the minister, Minister Tierney, for all the work she has done in the TAFE portfolio, because TAFE is something, thanks to the Labor Party, that this state and indeed the nation – imitation is the best form of flattery – can be absolutely proud of. It is so important that as people leave school, at whatever age that is, or when they make transitions through the workforce, they are able to get the skills they need to earn a good income for them to be able to do whatever they want to do in their lives, whether that is have families or whether it is buy a house, and to make positive contributions in their community and to spend money in their local economies and so that employers are able to find people with the skills they need to make our economy what it is. Employers need to be able to find the people with the right skills, because we have seen what happens historically when you do not invest in workforce skills. Then you do not have the skills to meet the needs of our state, and we saw that when those opposite privatised massive swathes of our state. When they say trainees and apprentices do not matter, what happens? You lose a generation of workers and you lose a generation of the workforce. So I am proud that Labor has upgraded and rebuilt 45 TAFEs. We have invested in our workforce. We have ensured through this legislation today that 70 per cent of funding in this area will go to TAFE. Free TAFE will be something that goes into the future so that we can identify the needs of industry and we can make sure that workers are getting trained up and skilled and out in the workforce, continuing to make Victoria productive.

We know that those opposite have got their 11, 12, 13 – it is probably going to get bigger by the day – billion-dollar black hole and they are going to make cuts. We have seen it in the past when they shut 22 TAFEs, and I think it was 18 in the regions – how cruel, what they did to the regions. We have seen it in transport. We see it in education. We see it in health. Labor invests, builds, backs workforces; the Liberals cut, shut down and decimate. They leave people in the community without opportunities to stay local. I am really proud of things in local communities like public aged care – we are putting that in – so proud about them. I am so proud that our TAFEs are in communities, so as people leave school or as people need to retrain they can get the skills they need to work right there in their community, to provide for their community and provide for their families. But the Liberals do not care about that. They bang on about regional Victoria, but when it comes time to put chips down, they do not deliver, and they have not delivered time and time again across so many areas.

I went to TAFE, and it gave me the opportunity to get out into the workforce. Those opposite – most of them do not even know what a TAFE is. I have offered to them in the past that we will get them on a bus and we will take them around to see it, because when you can touch, see and smell something – understand it – you might be less likely to cut it. I would really, really encourage you to get out in your community and understand a TAFE. But because we cannot trust the Liberals with TAFE, that is exactly why we have brought this legislation today: to ensure that the TAFE that we have rebuilt for Victorians will be here into the future, because for our kids that are coming through and with whatever workforce transitions that need to occur across various sectors as we go forth and reskill and keep our economy absolutely productive, we will make sure that TAFE is there for Victorians to get the training and skills they need. I will leave my contribution there. Thank you very much.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:07): I was not going to speak until I heard my good friends but political enemies saying some things that were completely unfounded and, well, untrue – again. Once again Labor have used their opportunity to speak in this place not to talk about the Victorian people but to talk about their favourite topic and their biggest obsession – you got it – the Liberal Party. They used most of the time – I actually think we should go back and find a percentage and hear how much of it was spent not on talking about the substance of the bill, because you probably do not actually know what it is –

Tom McIntosh: On a point of order, Acting President, my entire contribution was about Victorians and what TAFE does for them. In fact, if you look at the papers –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you, Mr McIntosh. That is not a point of order.

Renee HEATH: Not even close, but you have got to shoot your shot, don’t you? They have been talking about their latest obsession – well, it is actually probably not the latest – the Liberal Party. But interestingly enough, he spent a lot of time, again, speaking about education and speaking about cuts.

Last week I had the opportunity to actually put some facts that do not stack up to their narrative at all and speak about cuts and talk about the fact that in the last –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, last week Dr Heath failed to actually attend the hearings on public school funding, so I would like to know how she was able to put those points forward.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you, Mr Galea. That is not a point of order.

Renee HEATH: I will point out that there have been two points of order called and zero upheld, so I will just say that maybe you should have a read. Regardless, he used the opportunity to speak about education and cuts. I was able to set the record straight slightly last week because just as they were calling the Liberal Party the cuts party – talking about how when we got into government we would cut a program that, funnily enough, they have not funded – I pointed out the fact that it is very hard to cut something that is not funded.

But anyway, this time I am going to talk about education. Victoria is called the Education State. I remember the first day I met Mr Galea, and I thought, ‘What a lovely guy.’ We were in Pakenham. We were both candidates. We had not yet come into this place. I got talking to him, and I said to him, ‘You actually seem quite normal and lovely. Why the heck are you a member of the Labor Party?’ And he said this: ‘Because I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.’

Michael Galea interjected.

Renee HEATH: True?

And I said, ‘What the heck, Mr Galea?’ I called him Michael at the time, quite frankly. I said, ‘That is a Liberal value.’ That is what we believe in on this side of the house. And the best way that you can cause equality of opportunity is if children can read and write. That is the very best thing. It is the pathway for education; it lays the foundation. However, in the state of Victoria under the Labor government one in three children cannot read and write proficiently, and when we go into areas like those that Mr Galea and I represent, that number goes to one in two. Interestingly enough, we know from research that the biggest indicator of whether somebody will be able to reach their potential and get a qualification, like at TAFE, or whether they will not get into a life of crime is whether or not they can read and write. That is what is needed for people to thrive in any higher education, be it TAFE, university or whatever it is. However, under the Labor government we are not getting those outcomes in Victoria, and that is an absolute crying shame. What we know is that children must learn to read properly in the first few years of their education, because if they do not learn how to read properly, you cannot flip it, and then they cannot read to learn.

Michael Galea: I am greatly enjoying this contribution, especially when Dr Heath referred to me as normal. However, on a point of order, Acting President, even by the standards of this debate, I fear that Dr Heath has stretched slightly outside the realm of TAFE.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): I think all the contributions I have heard since I have been in the chair, Mr Galea, have stretched way outside. You may or may not have spent most of your contribution on the Liberal Party. I feel Dr Heath can make the same effort. As you were.

Renee HEATH: That is now three. They have tried three times, with zero upheld, but that is okay. We will keep going. Have another shot; you have got a few minutes.

The other thing I want to say is I believe in TAFE. I love TAFE. I think it is absolutely fantastic that people can come and they can have a choice as to what they want to do in their future. One of the things I absolutely love about this country is that the reality is that education is a universal opportunity. It is education that unlocks the cage, that breaks the cycle. It is something I believe in, and I love free TAFE. I think that is so important. But what we stand for here is that we want people to have choice. We want kids to be able to have the foundation of their learning so that whatever it is those children want to do, they have the ability to achieve their dreams. Recently I caught up with a couple of kids that had come into contact with the justice system. I said to them: ‘Guys, what’s going on here? Surely this wasn’t what you dreamt for your life?’ They said, ‘No, it wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t.’ I said, ‘Well, what did you want to do?’ One of them wanted to be a mechanic; one of them wanted to be a doctor. I said to both of them, ‘Why aren’t you doing that?’ What they told me was devastating. They said, ‘We’re not smart enough.’ That is so shattering. How is it that a child born in a country like Australia does not have the opportunity to reach their dreams, to go and do a TAFE course or to do these things because they have not learned how to read and write properly. And because of that, they cannot flip it. Then they cannot read to learn. That is a crying shame.

It is something that I am so excited about when I think about the next generation. We have to come back to the science of learning. We have to come back to making sure these kids are being taught the proper ways, using the proper methods, so they can actually come and achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve. I think it is sad to stand here and hear people talking about how they think that we on this side hate TAFE. No, we do not. If there is a TAFE course that is helping anybody – man, woman, boy, girl – reach their dreams, we absolutely love it.

There is another thing that I want to point out. Mr McIntosh is not in here at the moment. I love Mr McIntosh; he has a bit of spark. But the other thing about him is that he certainly does not let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I am going to have to correct one of his other assertions or judgements, I guess. He said something like ‘Those opposite would not even have a clue what TAFE is.’ Well, guess what, I am a TAFE graduate, guys. I went to TAFE. I love TAFE. I got two qualifications from TAFE, and I am so proud of it.

I think it is wonderful that people can come, and they can –

Members interjecting.

Renee HEATH: I can see people are getting a little bit excited here; they generally do when they cannot get it on facts; they will try to knock you down in other ways. But that is the reality, and I am sure that I am not the only one. I know many people in the lower house, my colleagues, who have completed TAFE, had amazing careers and have amazing lives. It is an extremely snobbish thing to say that people on this side do not love TAFE – we absolutely do. How on earth has a topic like a bill about free TAFE become a sledge motion, essentially, on the opposition? That is just bizarre to me.

I want to just straighten out a few things and let you know that what you said about all the cuts last week was absolutely ridiculous, because I was able to then stand up and talk about 20 cuts – I did not get through all of them because I ran out of time – that the Allan Labor government had passed through this chamber less than 24 hours before you went on asserting that sort of stuff. Today, when you are talking about education, I just want to set the record straight: we on this side absolutely love education. It is one of the biggest passions of mine. It is the key that unlocks disadvantage, that allows people to break the cycle of whatever it is that has held people bound, and it is something we appreciate, so go TAFE.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (16:17): I join so many before me in making a contribution to the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. This bill is simply about making sure that Victorians have the chance to get the skills they need for the jobs they want. By enshrining the free TAFE guarantee into law we are ensuring that this pathway is protected for generations to come. In the Northern Metropolitan Region and across our state, TAFE is a powerful resource for upskilling and for opportunity, and these campuses are where our locals go to transform their lives. This bill amends the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 to safeguard that opportunity, making it a requirement that TAFEs receive a minimum of 70 per cent of vocational education and training funding.

Since we introduced free TAFE in 2019, those of us on this side know that the impact has been nothing short of transformative. With over 225,000 students having benefited, they have saved over $700 million worth of tuition fees for 80 qualifications and short courses. We need to make sure that an affordable public education system is something that can be relied on. We have seen in the past how vocational education has been gutted and campuses have been closed when the wrong priorities take hold. This legislation puts a stop to that risk by guaranteeing that the door to this education remains open, providing the certainty that our students and our TAFE institutions deserve.

To understand why this bill is necessary we have to look at the history of vocational education in the state. For far too long TAFE was treated as a secondary option to university. We remember those opposite and what we inherited, which was a broken training system – thanks to them – and a system where less than half of the state’s training budget went to public TAFE. It was a system where we saw funding stripped away, campuses closed down and teachers stood down in their thousands. When we came to government we reimagined fully and with an open heart what the public vocational training system could look like. We understood that if we wanted more skilled workers in our industries, we needed a strong TAFE system. Free TAFE was the cornerstone of that vision. Victoria is the birthplace of free TAFE. It has been so successful that the Albanese Labor government has rolled it out across the country, removing the tuition fees for priority courses. With that we removed the single, biggest hurdle for many, many Victorians.

I have visited a range of TAFEs, often with the minister. I visited the Kangan Institute in my electorate, and I saw students who are the future for nursing, construction, education and so much more. At Melbourne Polytechnic careers are being built for hospitality, IT, agriculture and of course Auslan. Can I just say, seeing Auslan students absolutely thriving in that absolutely thriving course at Melbourne Polytechnic – that fills you up. You know that somewhere in the future someone will have access to information that they need in times of desperate need because someone standing out in front of them is giving them the information they need, and they learned it right there at Melbourne Polytechnic. It is an exceptional course that deserves all the spotlight and love everywhere, and to hear that it has been cut, that people did not see the value in ensuring access and equity for people with a disability, well, it just speaks to the values that we hold dear that are clearly so different to those opposite.

Can I just say that the free TAFE guarantee means that pathways are not dependent on the ability to pay thousands of dollars. It means hard work is what counts. It is so good to see that so many of the beneficiaries of free TAFE are women, and there are significant regional student enrolment numbers as well as people living with a disability. Of course what pleases me is seeing massive infrastructure projects across our state, and they need skilled tradespersons trained at these institutes to build them. Removing the financial barriers to these courses enables more Victorians to step into high-demand careers in health care, construction, the clean economy, early childhood education and digital technology.

I will just say that a very dear friend’s nephew recently started at Holmesglen. A shout-out to Elijah; all the very best with your tunnelling course. I know you are absolutely going to break ground – yes, I said it. It makes life so much easier for him to know that he is supported with his course, and it makes it easier for others like him to participate in affordable training that means that they can reskill, upskill and get home at night at a decent hour from the hospo hours that were causing his mum much distress, because TAFE can lead to a well-paid job that leads to an amazingly rewarding career.

I can talk about the bill and what it does. Of course what it does, with its operation, is allow there to be changes to how TAFE is handled by government, and the fundamental access to training will be in law. I have spoken about it many times before. I actually worked for a group training organisation before I entered Parliament, and I worked with a range of TAFEs across the state to unlock opportunities for young people to participate in apprenticeships in all sorts of things. In fact one of the last apprentices that I ever placed in that role was in the refinery out at Viva in Geelong, and right now they are helping secure Australia’s energy future. That young woman, who never saw herself having a job in a refinery, is now securing Australia’s energy future, and I could not be prouder. She participated in the training element of her apprenticeship at the TAFE out there – how good are they out there.

Can I just say that this bill ensures the centrality of TAFE at the very heart of our skills system and makes it sustainable by ensuring the TAFE funding guarantee. It is critical protection. We are amending the act, as I have said, to give that baseline of 70 per cent of training and skills funding. It is not just to the TAFEs but it is also to those dual-sector universities. And having gone out to Swinburne, RMIT and Victoria University – and there is one more in that– I tell you, they are all just so incredible. Did I say VU, Swinburne, RMIT –

Members interjecting.

Sheena WATT: and Federation Uni. Okay, I will be honest: that is one that I have not seen their full dual-sector skills at work, but I know that they are an incredible outfit out there. This fulfils a commitment made in 2022 to give the sector the financial security it needs to plan for the long term. For far too many years they were forced to compete in a broken marketplace that devalues public education, forcing them to compete for scraps of funding and market share, which is enormously challenging.

This guarantee of 70 per cent funding ends uncertainty and ensures our public TAFEs have the resources to remain really high-quality, well-respected, deeply loved institutions. It secures a permanent legacy for public vocational education by formally enshrining the TAFE network’s value, role and purpose within the act, recognising Victoria’s unique TAFE network as a collective of TAFE institutes and participating dual-sector universities.

I have just got to say, I have had the good fortune of working with RMIT quite a lot over the last 5½ years of being in Parliament, and one of the very profound things about RMIT is how much they operate as a unified and strengthened dual-sector university. They really leverage their expertise right across the education system to give hope and opportunity to the students that come through the doors, including the son of one of my electorate officers who just loves and adores his time at RMIT and can now imagine a bigger, brighter future for himself.

I could not make an entire contribution on TAFE without telling one of my favourite stories to the chamber, and that is of the time that I went to visit the absolutely outstanding and unstoppable team at the Automotive Centre of Excellence down in Docklands. I loved it because I was hearing all about their industry partnerships, which are world-leading. They have partnerships with car companies from all over the world, so the students that come out of the Automotive Centre of Excellence are trained to work on all sorts of cars – there were Citroens and BMW and Fords and all types of cars coming through there. I also saw some of the work with spray painting that was happening in there to do some of the work around the repairs.

I saw the minister at perhaps her very happiest when she was meeting apprentices at the Automotive Centre of Excellence, meeting young men and many, many women who were getting into careers in automotive excellence. It was an experience that has stuck with me for a long time, Minister, and one that I know we should be amazingly proud of, because whilst we have a technological revolution happening under the hoods of cars coming into this country, we are not meeting that, in other parts of the country, with a real investment in the training and skills required to keep those cars on the road. Other states are sending students down here to Victoria because they know that the very best education is happening here in Victoria. To hear that time and time again from all the leaders and executives there at the TAFE did certainly fill me up, because the truth is those industry partnerships are globally leading and they mean that you can get your car back on the road here if there is an accident or a bingle or you just need a service faster than anywhere else in the country, because of the excellence of TAFE education right here in Victoria.

A whole bunch of people are now thinking about the global fuel crisis and saying, ‘Hold up, you know what I want to do? I want to get myself an EV.’ I will tell you what, it is here in Victoria, through education down in Docklands, that students will know how to look after those cars and how to keep them on the road. This is something we are uniquely placed for and that other states cannot take credit for. I give some assurance to all those Victorians who are thinking about going out and buying an EV that if your EV has any troubles on the roads, there are TAFE students right now working on educating themselves for long careers in automotive repairs and maintenance that can only be delivered through exceptional industry partnerships like those that exist in Docklands.

There are other technical amendments that I can speak to and the change of the board, but truthfully this bill is a real credit to the minister. It is a true credit to the Labor government, and it is a true credit to the many, many thousands of students right across the state that took up the enormous opportunity of free TAFE.

We want to send a clear message that not only will TAFE continue to be valued, particularly by those on this side, we expect our TAFE leadership to offer profound access, excellence and sustainability in what they do, and we are supporting that through legislation before us today. We are providing a system of support to those TAFEs right across the state that need it. It is a framework that allows us to bridge the gap between a classroom qualification and a high-wage career, ensuring that our training delivery is perfectly synced with real-world needs and our growing economy. And how more real world can you get right now than the massive influx of people heading to car yards across the state looking to purchase themselves an EV car and wanting some assurance that when that car needs a service there is going to be someone there to do it. It can only be done here in Victoria because of the excellence of our TAFE system to partner with industry. There is a very real-world experience right there.

This shift is what happens when you have a government that sees the value in vocational education instead of leaving it to rot and gutting it. We have moved past the era of neglect of our TAFEs; that is over. We are into an era of unprecedented building, unprecedented renewal and unprecedented respect. You can see it in every corner of the state, and we are putting the funding where it matters – into the workshops, the labs and the high-tech centres that are defining the future of Victorian industry. This is a government that understands that to get a world-class workforce you need world-class facilities. I am incredibly proud to be a part of the Allan Labor government, and I commend this bill to the chamber.

 John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:32): I rise today to contribute to the debate on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026. Since first coming into government in 2014 this government has delivered more than $16 billion in new and base funding for TAFE and training systems. This funding has delivered more campuses, better facilities and a system which is better integrated with industry. In this state, TAFE is all about helping people get the skills they need to have a fulfilling career. Having a strong, accessible and affordable TAFE system is critical to building a society in which people have choice over their own lives. It gives them power to make the big decisions over their own destinies. Choice is important, because not every young person who graduates from high school wants to go to university. Some will have interests, skills and aspirations which lie in other areas. Here in Victoria, we are the state in which we do not need to go to university to get a good job, because our TAFE system can help you gain the skills you need to find meaningful, well-paying work in areas such as trades, the care economy and many others. Giving people choice in what career they want to go into is one of the best ways to allow people to take control of their own lives and take responsibility for making something of themselves.

Back in 2019, when the first students were starting free TAFE courses, the program only covered 30 TAFE courses and 18 pre-apprenticeship courses. Of course this was still a significant number of courses, and it covered some of the most important and in-demand skills we have in our economy. It was a big achievement at the time, but we did not settle there, because we wanted more work to be done to improve the TAFE system. Later reforms expanded on the number of courses covered under free TAFE, so it now totals 80 courses across 90 campuses. Today’s free TAFE system means that every Victorian in every part of the state has access to training which can prepare them for jobs which our economy needs to fill.

The benefits are being felt right across the state. Obviously, recent school leavers are one major group which benefits from free TAFE – young people looking to set themselves up for a productive career in an industry of their choice. But there are other groups who are benefiting from free TAFE who also deserve to be mentioned. One group of people who have benefited significantly from this have been people already in work who have sought a career change and have used it as a direct pathway from one industry into another. Another group of people who have benefited from it have been university graduates who have struggled to find work in their fields after completing their degrees and who decided to pursue study in another field at TAFE.

Another important aspect of our TAFE system is how it is one of the strongest catalysts for social mobility that we have. One of the reasons why we made a wide range of TAFE courses free was because we knew that the aspirations of young people are not determined by how wealthy their parents are. That is why we follow the principle that opportunities available to young Victorians should not be limited by how wealthy their parents are. Free TAFE means that anybody can afford to start training to get the in-demand skills they need to find work in some of the most important industries, which brings me to another reason why making TAFE free for 80 courses was the right decision and which explains why systems have been so successful. The courses which were made free were in those industries with skill shortages and which desperately needed new skilled workers to enter the industry. Businesses in Victoria rely on highly skilled workers to be able to operate, and when businesses cannot find those highly skilled workers. the economy suffers. This is an area in which it is important that government works closely with business in order to bring about outcomes which benefit everybody. Workers get good-paying jobs, businesses get the skilled workforces they need and everybody benefits from a more productive economy. Nobody would suggest that free TAFE is the only solution we need when dealing with unemployment, skill shortages and economic productivity, but it is an important one which directly helps us to address all three of these issues.

We on this side of the chamber know that you do not fix unemployment, skills shortages or economic productivity by cutting TAFE. Previous Victorian governments made the decision to cut funding for TAFE. We all know the results of those policies: making it harder for people to train up and get the skills they need makes it harder to grow the economy. It gives people less choice and less control of their own lives because it closes off pathways and opportunities.

To directly address the provisions contained in this bill, the bill would make amendments to the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 with the purpose of providing for the objectives of the TAFE system; guaranteeing the delivery of certain courses and vocational education and training free of tuition fees, alongside the TAFE funding guarantee; through granting certain powers to the minister responsible in relation to the TAFE system; and establishing a framework for a new strategic planning system for TAFE providers in the context of the TAFE funding guarantee and the delivery of free TAFE courses. To put it simply, this bill will guarantee the continuation of free TAFE for years to come, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (16:37): I would first like to acknowledge the important contributions from members in this chamber on the bill. This bill marks a significant milestone in the Allan Labor government’s commitment to put TAFE at the centre of Victoria’s vocational education and training system and provide enduring stability and confidence for students, teachers, industry and the community. Through this bill we are delivering a TAFE funding guarantee to secure 70 per cent of VET funding for TAFE and dual-sector universities and a free TAFE guarantee to cement the role of TAFE as a core pillar of our education system, ensuring more Victorians can afford to train for the jobs they want. These reforms strengthen the TAFE network, embed its role in law and provide long-term certainty so we can focus on quality, innovation and consistency right across the system. Together these amendments aim to enable clear purpose and certainty in legislation and provide us with an opportunity to focus collectively on quality, innovation and consistency.

Today the opposition have shown yet again that they cannot be trusted with TAFE. Before this bill, any time a member of the opposition spoke about TAFE, it was a criticism of the program. Their leader Jess Wilson’s only reference to TAFE was to call free TAFE ‘wasted taxpayers money’.

Renee Heath: On a point of order, Acting President, I just noticed that the minister is reading off a document that was obviously written before we started this debate. I ask if that is the case, that she tables the document.

Gayle TIERNEY: On the point of order, that is not a point of order. I believe I understand what the basis of that point of order might be, and I am about to mention your name.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): There is no point of order.

Gayle TIERNEY: Thank you. Their leader Jess Wilson’s only reference to TAFE was to call free TAFE ‘wasted taxpayers money’ and ‘not free, because government doesn’t have a magic money tree’. There are those who, through gritted teeth, today pretended to support the bill, but all they did was criticise the program, apart from Dr Heath, who talked about her experiences but also was very positive about TAFE. I would encourage others on the opposite benches to have the conversations not just in terms of government members and TAFE but also to have conversations with their local TAFEs and students – their constituents – about all of the things that have been happening in the TAFE system, because most of the contributions I have heard today indicate that that communication and that knowledge and that experience is not there.

Victorians do remember the shambles when the Liberals were last in power, how they shut 22 TAFE campuses – 18 of those were in regional areas – and savagely ripped out $1 billion from TAFE. Of course, that is why we are moving this bill: to ensure that that cannot happen again.

Listening to those opposite, it is clear that their understanding of the TAFE network is hopelessly outdated. TAFE is expanding rapidly into IT and digital fields, with strong growth areas like cybersecurity. In March I launched the Victorian skills compact, and I talked about that in my ministers statement earlier today. The compact is backed by real investment, including a new digital and AI centre of excellence at Chisholm TAFE. Beyond digital, the Victorian TAFE network holds the national trades training contract for the Commonwealth defence force, and TAFE is also on the front line in supporting the net zero emissions transition by training wind turbine technicians, solar electricians and power grid operators. This is modern TAFE on the cutting edge, not the TAFE that our grandfathers attended.

We hear the opposition give lip-service to TAFE teachers. Their attacks are absolutely astounding. The last time they were in government, as I said, they sacked over 2000 TAFE teachers. Our genuine commitment to TAFE teachers is affirmed by the recent well-deserved pay rise, and our $9 million investment in TAFE teacher scholarships in the recent budget is a testimony to that. Adding the TAFE teacher qualification to the free TAFE list to ensure a strong pipeline of teachers entering the profession is another contribution – and the bill itself, which will protect TAFE funding to ensure TAFE can employ a thriving workforce.

I would also urge those opposite to properly engage with the TAFE public provider role. For so many Victorians, TAFE represents an aspirational lifeline to a decent, secure job and a genuine socio-economic equaliser. The doors of TAFE are open to our migrant communities, to those who require wraparound support to complete and to aspiring apprentices who require foundation skills support with literacy and numeracy. TAFE steps in for higher need cohorts in harder-to-reach areas with quality training equipment, in-person training delivery and wraparound support. This government’s investment in the Gordon TAFE’s Centre of Excellence in Disability Inclusion is a prime example. Promoting access and equity and inclusion may sometimes dampen completion rates. It sometimes requires additional taxpayer investment and additional support for disadvantaged students, and it is absolutely critical that this role is served in our system, one that should be understood, acknowledged and protected.

I also hear the opposition talk time and time again about completion rates. Allow me to quote the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia, the peak body for private providers, in their newsletter dated 30 March, that is, yesterday. ITECA describes the ‘almost obsessive focus on completions’ as ‘probably a bit narrow and often a misleading measure of actual real-world performance’. ITECA encourages a focus on other post-training outcomes like employment, earnings and job satisfaction. That being said, free TAFE continues to support Victorians into employment with strong completion rates. Free TAFE four-year completion rates are 11 points higher than the university equivalent. The way Victoria reports completions also differs from other jurisdictions. By including vocational education and training in schools and in our Victorian prisons – the training that happens there – we are working to resolve this at a national level. Once fixed, we can expect our rates to be, I am advised, around 8 percentage points higher than the national average. To demonstrate our commitment to transparency on completions our government has committed to publishing the four-year free TAFE completion rate in this year’s budget papers and ongoing.

Beyond completions, TAFE is truly trusted by the community. The evidence could not be clearer: Victorians trust our public TAFE network when it comes to reskilling, upskilling and entering vocational education for the first time. The findings of the McCrindle 2024 research, commissioned by the Victorian TAFE Association, show that TAFE remains one of Australia’s most trusted names for practical, industry-ready skills that communities and employers rely on; 86 per cent of Victorian parents agree that TAFE is a beneficial educational pathway for their children; and the majority of Victorian parents would encourage their children to explore a TAFE pathway compared to only 29 per cent for private registered training organisations (RTOs).

In respect to Aboriginal-controlled organisations, it is on this point of public provision that I want to acknowledge the important and unique role of our First Nations RTOs, known as Aboriginal community controlled RTOs, or ACC-RTOs. They provide culturally safe training to First Nations learners, supporting stronger employment outcomes and enhancing the workforces of Aboriginal community controlled organisations and other Victorian employers. I am fully supportive and have been advocating at a national level for the Aboriginal community controlled RTOs to have a formal, unique classification that distinguishes them from other RTO types in the national VET system. At the national level I have secured agreement with other states to work on this classification. I did that at the recent national skills ministers meeting. I am proud that our government has already unlocked $11.85 million in Commonwealth funding for the National Skills Agreement Closing the Gap initiatives, with each ACC-RTO receiving $3 million over the four years of the agreement. I take this opportunity to thank the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc for their engagement right through this process.

Back to TAFE funding, we are certainly investing in TAFE. The Labor government has invested more than $5 billion in new funding and over $16 billion in new and base funding into our TAFE and training systems since 2014. We have invested more than $660 million in 45 new and upgraded TAFE campuses, and this includes more than $237 million in TAFE facilities in regional Victoria. Victorian growth in VET expenditure per hour has outpaced the national average since 2014. It is only Labor that we can absolutely trust to properly fund TAFE.

There are claims by the opposition that there is some sort of power grab going on here. That is simply fanciful and contradictory. We are criticised for doing nothing to change the status quo, and then they are also saying that there is a power grab, so nothing could be further from the truth. The point in fact is that we are legislating a minimum funding guarantee to TAFE, and it is only right and proper that this carry with it higher standards, obligations and reserve powers for intervention. The public provider must set the benchmark for the rest of the sector. TAFE is and should remain the gold standard for quality provision. TAFEs are the recipients of taxpayers money, and we will ensure that the money is spent responsibly.

In terms of the section on the TAFE network, I can clearly say that all TAFEs, including the dual-sector universities, not only were briefed in terms of those clauses but were instrumental in the discussions and the deep consultation in relation to them. It was a case where not only were they happy but they understood the need to have these to be accountable in the important roles that they play as trusted public providers. You can say what you like, but there has been intensive consultation on this bill. In fact all of the TAFE institutes support this, as well as the dual sectors. I know there are people in the gallery today, and I have conferred again, and they were absolutely consulted to death in relation to that fairly large section that is contained in the bill.

In terms of private RTOs, the opposition has claimed that we are prioritising TAFEs over private RTOs, and all I can say is: yes, we are. It is a government policy to put TAFE at the centre of our training system to ensure that Victorian families can access quality public education they can rely on. The government will still fund other providers according to the needs of students, the labour market and the economy. This bill does not limit private RTO delivery in the market. Industry or employers are free to contract directly with private RTOs or TAFEs, provided they are willing to invest in that training. Students are also free to train with private community or industry RTOs or TAFEs of their choice. We know students are increasingly choosing TAFE as the trusted public provider of world-class training. Free TAFE is not ‘window-dressing,’ as it was described by Brad Rowswell in the other house. The more than 229,000 students who have saved an average of $3300 would absolutely contest that it is not window-dressing. Free TAFE makes students’ dreams become real. It fills skills gaps, and it contributes to the economy. It is only an Allan Labor government that will protect and extend TAFE.

Can I also say that what this government is doing is building a system that connects post-secondary education, whether it be community education, TAFE, universities or our private RTOs, and that system is about making sure that everyone is playing their part in terms of dealing with the skills shortages that we face in the labour market. But what we are also doing is making sure that we elevate the importance and the excellence of TAFE by setting up the centres of excellence but also talking up the need for skilled workers that are hands on. We are also making sure that career education is uplifted so that people that do not have a tradie in their family or a tradie background get to understand and know what their pathways are. Of course we have also made sure that foundation skills are and will continue to be a very strong driver in opening up doors for many, many people, and that is why we have also introduced free TAFE skill sets connected to the apprenticeship system, so that more apprentices can complete their apprenticeships.

Can I take this opportunity to thank everyone that has been involved in this very long journey. It has been arduous, but I think what we have done has really turned training and education around, and not only in this state – it is the forerunner of all of the reform that is taking place in this country. We are very proud as a Labor team, and I thank everyone that has been involved in it, whether it has been in policy development or on the ground in the TAFEs.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Clause 1 (16:54)

Aiv PUGLIELLI: While the minister is getting ready, I would like to say thank you from the outset for the constructive conversations between her office and mine with respect to this bill as well as the community more broadly – a number of groups who have been closely interested in the matters pertaining to this bill that is before the Parliament today.

My questions are further to some of the remarks that were included in the minister’s summing-up speech just now, and I will go through them. There are just a handful. My first one, Minister, is that the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Free TAFE Guarantee) Bill 2026, ensures that:

Of the total amount of training and skills funding paid by the Secretary to TAFE institutes, dual sector universities and any other RTO that provides vocational education and training in a target year, at least 70% must be paid to TAFE institutes and dual sector universities.

My question is: can the minister outline why this bill specifies TAFE and dual-sector universities as the target of the guarantee and not public training providers more generally?

Gayle TIERNEY: This is in relation to Aboriginal community controlled registered organisations in particular? Yes. I want to acknowledge, as I have already put on the record, the unique and valuable role that the Aboriginal community controlled registered organisations play in providing culturally safe training to First Nations learners, supporting stronger employment outcomes and enhancing the workforces of Aboriginal organisations and other Victorian employers. To your question, the free TAFE guarantee bill legislates our government’s commitment at the last election to protect and preserve TAFE. The bill reflects the current role of public providers in the VET system, in that TAFEs and dual-sector universities are the public providers in Victoria. TAFEs and dual-sectors are established under state acts of Parliament, with boards appointed through cabinet and with other clearly defined roles, responsibilities, duties and powers expressed in legislation.

The Aboriginal community controlled registered training organisations are by definition independent of government. They are not-for-profit bodies governed by First Nations people. Over time the definition of ‘public provision’ and the definition of ‘community non-profit provision’ as it relates to public provision I think will definitely evolve. Obviously in my view it should evolve over time. That is why I got that agreement with the skills ministers fairly recently to pick up the pace in relation to discussions around that. But it is our view that those conversations definitely do need to happen at a national level to ensure that we continue to close the gap.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: My next question I think would be an expansion of what you have just provided to the chamber. I understand a version of the 70 per cent funding guarantee can be found in the National Skills Agreement, in which the Commonwealth requires jurisdictions to invest at least 70 per cent of VET funding from the Commonwealth to TAFE and public training providers at clause A42(b). Minister, can you just expand on why the National Skills Agreement includes public training providers while this bill specifically does not?

Gayle TIERNEY: Again, the National Skills Agreement uses – quite correctly, as you have mentioned – ‘public provider’ to accommodate jurisdictions that do not have a TAFE system. For example, there are no TAFEs in the Northern Territory. Charles Darwin University is the public provider of VET in that jurisdiction. In Victoria dual-sectors are included in the Victorian network. Over time the definition of ‘public provision’ and the definition of ‘community not-for-profit provision’ as it relates to public provision, as I said, may evolve, and of course I believe it should evolve.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: It has been raised with me and views have been put that stating specific entities as the target for a guaranteed threshold funding in this bill precludes future training providers from accessing funding if and when they become classified as public training providers. So further to what you have just provided to the chamber, Minister, are you able to state if the possibility of training providers becoming public training providers has been considered in the drafting of this bill?

Gayle TIERNEY: As I said, I have successfully advocated nationally for a policy process to continue the appropriate RTO classification for Aboriginal community controlled RTOs that reflects their unique and distinct status. I have instructed Victorian officials to work with and use this process to propose RTO classification change to appropriately acknowledge Aboriginal community controlled RTOs as a pathway to National Skills Agreement funding. But let me be clear: nothing in this bill will constrain state or Commonwealth funding to Aboriginal community controlled RTOs – quite the contrary. I am proud of our joint work with Aboriginal community controlled RTOs to already enhance outcomes for First Nations learners through the NSA, unlocking $11.85 million in Commonwealth funding for NSA Closing the Gap initiatives. Each Victorian ACCRTO will also, as I mentioned in my summing-up, receive $3 million over four years of the agreement, and I note that Aboriginal community controlled RTOs received $1.835 million in subsidy payments through Skills First in 2025 and $5.692 million under the Skills First Aboriginal access fee waiver for 4685 enrolments since 2024.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: I think you have in part gone potentially into my next question, which is helpful. The Jobs and Skills Australia 2024 RTO Typology Methodology Paper I understand explores alternative ways of grouping and classifying training providers. Specifically the JSA RTO typology states that future typology reports will investigate how the different business models and funding sources of training providers could impact how they are defined. I understand JSA has considerable influence over how training providers are classified. Minister, can you provide some information to the house: if the federal government bodies decide to include more training providers as public training providers, will this legislation be amended to accommodate, and if not, why?

Gayle TIERNEY: Well, the first thing I would say is I think everyone would be in agreement that a good old typology report is the essence of everything, really. But leaving that to one side, the fact of the matter is that this question does go to the heart of the matter, which is that the national process needs to determine the inclusion of more training providers as public training providers. We need a nationally consistent definition and approach to resolve these questions around public versus community provision and funding associated, and Victoria will continue to advocate for a unique and distinct status for Aboriginal community controlled RTOs as a pathway to additional National Skills Agreement funding.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: This one really goes over that same ground, but just for the abundance of clarity, Minister, as you know, Aboriginal community controlled RTOs are currently trying to create their own classification that would group them as one cohort and also see them come under the tent of public providers. Given you have specified TAFE and dual-sector universities rather than public providers in this legislation, will you commit to amending this bill in the future to include Aboriginal community controlled RTOs in the 70 per cent guarantee when they get their specific classification?

Gayle TIERNEY: Look, we will stay current with the national process and review our policies and definitions of providers as they evolve. Victoria will continue, as I have said, to advocate for the unique and distinct recognition and funding for Aboriginal community controlled RTOs. It is a very, very interesting area of public policy. It is obviously interesting in terms of our relationship with First Nations people in this state, but I think it is important that we do try and get as much national consistency as possible. I think most people know my trajectory on this matter and that we will continue to push and to make sure that that evolution is pushed along the way.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: On a different topic, being completion rates, which came up somewhat throughout the debate this afternoon: Minister, can you share with the chamber what work the government is undertaking in relation to improving completion rates at our TAFEs?

Gayle TIERNEY: Before I go into that important work, can I also just mention a couple of things about the completion rates, because I think that the completion rates need to be placed into context. The first thing is that in terms of the four-year completion rate for students at standalone TAFEs, it is 54.9 per cent compared to 53.3 per cent of students who studied at a private training provider. We also in Victoria have this anomaly where students in schools that are undertaking vocational education and training, and those who are in prison undertaking vocational education and training, are captured up into the completion data for Victoria; unfortunately Victoria is the only one that does that. I had face-to-face discussions as recently as Friday week ago with the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), which is the major data provider and collector in this country; they understand the issue and they are working on that. We believe that once those two areas, the schools and the prisons, are taken out of the completion rates, the advice I am receiving is that that will significantly improve the completion rates of those in TAFEs. Indeed I should also mention that in terms of even the completion rate that Victoria has at the moment, with prisoners and with VET, we are still 11 points ahead of the completion rates of domestic students at university. So I just need to rule a line under those facts, because it is forgotten about, the important context in which people just grab hold of completion rates.

The other thing that I would say is that completion rates, for those that have not really engaged with the sector and have not necessarily tracked completion rates, might come as a bit of a surprise. But I remember when I was an undergraduate at university a long time ago that completion rates and indeed retention rates in the first year were really, really low. So I think a lot of work needs to be done generally in the education system across all of the post-school sector right across the country to lift completion rates.

One of the things that we have been doing, to answer the original question, is we have now got free TAFE literacy and numeracy that go hand in glove with the apprenticeship system. We have trialled it to see how it would go. It was a situation where we found that young kids were finding out towards the end of their first year that maybe their numeracy was not where it needed to be. So we have devised a number of ways to pilot it, and I can say that the retention rates have been amazing. In Wodonga, their retention rate is around 98, 99 per cent now, and we also then had that pilot go to the Bendigo Kangan Institute (BKI) and South West TAFE, and other TAFEs have done it too. Because it is working so well, we have now made it a free TAFE component of the apprenticeship system. That is just one example of what we are doing, in terms of it. The other thing of course is that at the TAFEs they have student services; they have got welfare officers and a range of people that are there to do the wraparound.

As I mentioned in my contribution, free TAFE obviously attracts cohorts that do not necessarily have the money to really think about a dream like going to TAFE, and with that, they often carry a number of other matters that are causing difficulties in their lives. That is why it is so important that we do have those support services there. You can see that it works and how tempting it is by the fact that around 60 per cent of enrolments are women and there is a very high proportion – and I can give you the accurate figures later – of people from CALD communities and of course First Nations and people with disabilities. So in many ways this is a social and economic driver of change for a whole range of people right across Victoria, and we are very proud of it. You only need to talk to any of those graduates or those that are still continuing, to get an idea of what free TAFE has meant to them and to their families and of course to getting those jobs.

The other thing is that we have also built up very good relationships with industry and employers, to the point where they ring our TAFEs now waiting for the next round of graduates to work at hospitals, health centres – you name it. I think it was Sheena Watt who mentioned BKI and the automotive industry. That connection with industry that is real is also a measure by which we encourage completions. I could go on.

Can I say that in terms of cert III carpentry there has been a 23 per cent increase. There has been a 13 per cent increase in engineering and mechanical trades, a 12 per cent increase in cert III plumbing and 11 per cent in cert III electrotechnology just from providing that literacy and numeracy support in those apprenticeship areas. So it is good and it is working.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: Thank you, Minister, for a very fulsome answer. This I think should be my last question, but cutting to the chase, with one of the amendments before the house, which I understand is purported to be trying to achieve transparency with respect to completion rates in our TAFE sector, further to the remarks you have already provided to the house this afternoon, how are you planning to ensure that we have better transparency of completion rates in our TAFEs?

Gayle TIERNEY: The Victorian government has accepted the recommendation of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) and will introduce two new free TAFE performance measures through the budget papers commencing in May 2026. The national VET data body NCVER is also looking at introducing free TAFE specific data, reporting nationally. It is appropriate for more granular free TAFE program reporting to occur through the national VET data agency to promote the ability to compare across the jurisdictions. I am happy to talk about that more when the amendment is before us.

Clause agreed to; clauses 2 to 18 agreed to.

Clause 19 (17:14)

Richard WELCH: I move:

1.   Clause 19, after line 19 insert –

“(3A) The Minister must include in a report of the operations of the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions that is prepared under section 45 of the Financial Management Act 1994 the number of students (expressed as a percentage and in whole numbers) who, in the previous calendar year, completed each course of vocational education and training that the Minister determined under subsection (1) was to be provided free of tuition fee.”.

To speak briefly on it, we do not think it is a complicated task. Simply having outcome metrics around a policy of this nature is I think fundamental. It would be de rigueur in any other policy area to have a measurable outcome published. We do not think it will cause any impediment to the implementation of the bill. It is in part 3; it would not come into effect until 2027. So from our point of view – and we have advocated for this for a long time – this is very straightforward and it should not be controversial.

Gayle TIERNEY: The government will be opposing this amendment, and we do so for the following reasons. We believe that it does propose a non-standard one-year completion rate in its methodology. The industry standard applied consistently by NCVER, the national body responsible for VET research and statistics, is to report four-year completion rates to account for varying course durations and to ensure comprehensive data reporting. The Victorian government, as I have just said, has accepted the recommendation of PAEC and will introduce the following two new free TAFE performance measures through the budget papers commencing in May 2026: a four-year Australian Qualifications Framework qualification completion rate for commencements in free TAFE and the proportion of VET completers with an improved employment status after training in free TAFE. These two performance measures are in addition to the existing free TAFE budget measure on the yearly number of enrolments in free TAFE. Reporting completions in the budget papers alongside another meaningful indicator of achievement, namely that of post-training employment outcomes, aligns with the position of NCVER and the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR) that there should be a focus on broader and complementary measures of success, not exclusively completions. Reporting annually in the budget on free TAFE completions delivers on the intent of the opposition’s proposed amendment, with additional transparency and scrutiny through the budget papers, rather than a departmental document.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: In part further to the remarks made by the minister, I think I understand the intent with which the amendment has been brought, but there are, as has been outlined, a number of measures the government is, I understand, adopting with respect to this particular indicator that is seeking to be tracked. I think it is important that we are getting that transparency. I would hope we all agree on that. I think, speaking for myself and my colleagues, it comes down to whether that then warrants legislation if that measurement is going to be provided from May this year onwards, whereas I understand the provision proposed would not come until 2027 anyway, even if legislated. Then that is also begging the question of what other indicators would we also considering legislating if we are putting things into the legislation. In this instance we are not supportive of the amendment, but we appreciate the intent with which it was brought.

Gayle TIERNEY: Can I just add one other thing that might be helpful too, Mr Welch, in that DJSIR has provided some advice around the implementation issues of what you are proposing. They say the free TAFE course list is changed annually to align with industry demand – can I let you know that in terms of the list, it is a list that is provided by the Victorian Skills Authority that does labour market testing where all of the industry bodies, the industry advisory groups, sit under that umbrella and they advise the VSA in terms of where the shortages are and propose free TAFE and VET courses as well as what should be on the list. The fact of the matter is that they believe that the DJSIR annual report is not practical and the utility of the data for each course will vary significantly. This is particularly true of women with family responsibilities, who are some of the most prolific users of free TAFE – they are in and out of the system.

The second implementation issue is that whole numbers of students who in previous calendar years completed free TAFE courses is not a useful measure because (1) free TAFE courses can be longer than one year in duration, even when studied full time, and (2) many students complete free TAFE part time to allow them to continue to work or support their families, which extends the time to complete a free TAFE course. The department has confirmed that NCVER is currently considering the introduction of free TAFE–specific data reporting nationally, and it is appropriate for a more granular free TAFE program reporting regime to occur through the national VET data agency to promote, as I said, comparisons across the states.

Richard WELCH: I cannot understand that. Actual completion rates, regardless of the duration of the course, would be the absolute mathematical, fundamental building block of all the other stats. Reporting on these figures would not create any other workload. You have to do that analysis anyway to create the other stats which you aggregate up from. It would be absolutely extraordinary if the department was saying, ‘We wouldn’t even have to hand the total completions in any one year.’ None of the other measurements that you have mentioned are mutually exclusive to providing this very fundamental building block layer of data.

Gayle TIERNEY: We simply will be opposing the amendment. There are two areas that will now be included in the budget papers, and we are not supportive of a different and new type of methodology when we have got NCVER, which is highly regarded across the political spectrum, Mr Welch.

Richard Welch interjected.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Mr Welch, the minister has the call.

Gayle TIERNEY: We believe that the methodology that is used by NCVER is the correct one and that it serves a purpose to have uniformity across the country.

Council divided on amendment:

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (17:28): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (17:29): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill without amendment.