Target TAFE policy to make meaningful difference, ALP told

Industry urges Labor to properly target its new TAFE policy after Anthony Albanese says he would make 465,000 places free.

Labor’s plan for free TAFE places is to help industries hardest hit by the pandemic including hospitality and tourism.

Industry has urged Labor to properly target its new TAFE policy after Anthony Albanese announced he would make 465,000 places free as part of a $1.2bn plan to plug skills shortages and help drive the economic recovery.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said a commitment to more TAFE places was a “positive step, but they need to be properly funded, targeted and resourced over the long term to make a meaningful difference”.

“Industry is really struggling with skills shortages and labour mismatches, which is hampering growth and productivity. More TAFE places and a better resourced vocational training sector is just one thing we need,” he said.

“To be successful, students need to spend time in real businesses to understand what is expected in workplaces when they graduate.

“Another national challenge is to find ways to train more engineers because right now we aren’t even close to graduating enough students to meet needs.”

The Opposition Leader also promised to create an extra 20,000 university places, with Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson saying the announcement would help provide greater opportunities for the next generation. “By 2024-25, the young adults of the mid-2000s baby boom will be ready to begin their studies, and more places will be needed to ensure they have that life-changing opportunity,” she said.

“Over the next five years, the National Skills Commission predicts more than 500,000 new jobs will be created that require a bachelor’s degree or higher.”

National Tertiary Education Union national president Alison Barnes welcomed the plan to fund new university and TAFE places but said greater assistance was required in the wake of the pandemic.

The plan for free TAFE places is to help industries hardest hit by the pandemic including hospitality and tourism as well as meeting needs in the “care economy” in sectors like childcare, aged-care, disability care, nursing and community services.

Scott Morrison on Sunday accused Labor of taking “100,000 apprentices out of work and out of the system” when they were in government.

“Labor are going to say a lot of things between now and the next election. They said they weren’t going to have a carbon tax last time, and they ended up putting one in.”

Opposition national reconstruction spokesman Richard Marles on Sunday said Australia was suffering from a “skills crisis”.

“Cutting $3bn out of TAFE, which is what this government has done over the last eight years, has come at the cost of developing the skills of Australians,” he told Sky News.

“Australian businesses are struggling to find the people that they need. So what we are proposing is this: if you are going to study a course at TAFE, which gives you a skill which is in need, in shortage, you will do that for free.”

TAFE graduates earn an average of $19,000 a year more than those without qualifications and add billions to the economy, including $85bn in just 2019.

Employment Minister Stuart Robert said Labor slashed employer incentives by $1.2bn when they last in government.