Opening Statement Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee – Free TAFE Bill 2024

Event: Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee – Free TAFE Bill 2024
Date: 7 February 2025, 1:00pm AEDT
Speakers: Alex Waldren, National Director Industry Policy, Master Builders Australia
Topics: Fee free TAFE, labour shortages, housing crisis, vocational education and training
E&OE

Alex Waldren, National Director Industry Policy, Master Builders Australia: Hi, thanks for the opportunity to present to the committee. Like what HIA has said, you know, the construction industry faces the enormous task of building enough homes, commercial, community, utilities and transport infrastructure to meet an increasing demand and growing population.

Labour shortage is one of the biggest sources of the pressure in the industry at the moment. Bringing more apprentices into building construction trades is an important way to relieve that pressure, and anything that can be done to ease the financial burden on Australian apprentices and bring more people to the industry is welcome.

We know that many people are feeling the pinch of cost of living, and it’s a huge pressure point for many, whether it be students or business. Master Builders strongly supports federal government funding into VET. It’s a critical component to meet skills demands for our industry. That is why we support fee free TAFE as one of a number of important funding mechanisms.

But we’re concerned that the proposed next step to legislate free TAFE is a step too far at this point in time, and we have two primary concerns.

Our first concern is that free TAFE was introduced relatively recently, a couple of years ago, and we need more time to measure the performance of the initiative before legislating. There are still areas that need to be tested to determine how free TAFE adds to boosting apprentice commencements and completions.

The fee free TAFE initiative has not increased apprentice numbers or held them steady since it was introduced two years ago.

Not enough time has elapsed to evaluate a full cycle of learning for building and construction trades. For example, certificate four is a four year construction program. We’ve only been two years into the free trade, free TAFE, sorry, initiative.

Nor is the data, comprehensively available to support legislating the program at this point in time.

The TAFE initiative so far has had the effect of reshuffling the deck from the RTOs to TAFE.

Numbers for private RTOS have fallen from 33 to 30 per cent and increased by the same number from 60 to 63 per cent for TAFE.

Our other concern is that the legislation is going to restrict learning options and constrain competitiveness in the market at the expense of many of our member associations who run highly successful not for profit RTOS, or are partners with TAFE and group training organisations.

There are six non profit RTOs and four GTOs in the Master Builders network that deliver valuable industry run, informed training across diverse courses and study types, including apprenticeships.

Industry, not for profit RTOs and GTO partnerships complement TAFE and add to industry and government collective efforts to lift the number of people completing apprenticeships and taking up careers in construction.

We have instances at our member organisations where students have come to study at Master Builders RTOs because they could not get into TAFE in a timely manner.

Similarly, TAFEs run semester enrollments, whereas some Master Builder RTOs can offer any time enrollment options to suit the student’s needs.

Some of our member associations have formal partnerships, as I’ve touched on before, with TAFE through the GTO model that connects up learning, student support, and placements with construction businesses.

Whilst the legislation appears to leave the door open for the Bill to not be tied only to TAFE, we hold concerns about the intention of clause 8(1) and the way other VET providers have been dealt with in that clause.

The draft legislation makes an allowance for a proportion of financial assistance to other VET providers but lacks clarity on which providers may qualify, or what kind of course or student type would be eligible.

An option to improve this is proportioning funding to industry, not for profit RTOs in the construction industry, for example, given construction, jobs are a priority for Australia’s social and economic prosperity. So there’s a strong case for priority to be given to these training pathways.

If this bill is to progress, the capacity for private non-profit industry run RTOs to obtain a portion of the financial assistance is vital.

Master Builders acknowledges an important role of TAFE, who, in many instances, partner with MBA RTOs, as I’ve touched on already, and this is not an attack on TAFE.

Instead, we are criticising the baking in of free TAFE when the performance of the initiative remains untested.

The current shape of the draft legislation is likely to constrain market competition and limit student choices, and it’s rushed and poorly drafted at this point in time.

And that’s our concluding opening remarks. Thank you.

Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au