Mr BAYLEY – Minister, you mentioned fee-free courses. I note that TAFE offers some courses and some eligibility in that space. TasTAFE obviously provides a really important education and training opportunities to young Tasmanians and people wanting to get trained up and stay here and work. Obviously, the cost‑of‑living crisis is really biting and it’s hitting young Tasmanians particularly hard. We don’t want to discourage young Tasmanians getting an education and furthering their prospects and fee‑free TAFE and fee‑free education full stop is a positive way to give people a start and give them a helping hand. Will you commit to a fee‑free TAFE across the board or just courses, just select courses?
Mr ELLIS – Sorry, what?
Mr BAYLEY – Would you commit to fee‑free TAFE for all courses, or only some select courses?
Mr ELLIS – Oh, all courses, I’m with you now. Fee‑free TAFE’s a joint initiative of the Australian and Tasmanian governments that provides tuition‑free training places to learners wanting to retrain or to train and upskill. Fee‑free TAFE increase opportunities for workforce participation, for example, for First Nations Australians, young people aged 17 to 24, people out of work or receiving income support, unpaid carers, people with disability and women studying in non‑traditional fields. In 2024, following the announcement of 4600 fee‑free places in Tasmania, 3400 of those were allocated to TasTAFE across 52 products and the fee‑free TasTAFE 2024 campaign has been very successful with 27 products having their allocated places filled. There are 348 places remaining across 25 products and it’s a great opportunity for many Tasmanians looking to upskill.
I suppose the important thing there, Chair, is that we’re investing in areas of need and for people who are in need as well. We want to be addressing areas that are key skill shortages for us. We want to be ensuring that we’re delivering training courses that deliver great job outcomes as well. Skills for jobs is a really high priority for us. We’re also investing so that we can support people who are doing it tough or coming from a disadvantaged background. We also have significant funding to ensure that people can access concessional courses too, so that they’re not bearing the full cost. Now of course, it is important that we’re talking about taxpayer money, that we’re not, for example, providing free courses to people who can well and truly afford it, people on very high incomes or, for example, in courses that don’t necessarily lead to a great job or life outcome, but look, I’ll pass over to –
Mr BAYLEY – So, that’s a no is it, minister, in terms of offering it across the board for courses?
Mr ELLIS – If you want to fund people who are on very high incomes or people who want to do courses that don’t have great life outcomes, then go for it, Mr Bayley. But our focus –
Mr BAYLEY – There’s a strong case for fee‑free education full stop and making it easier for people to get an education, get a trade, get into the workforce and have additional take up is clearly going to have positive benefits.
Mr ELLIS – Yes. I spoke about the kind of reasons why you wouldn’t do fee‑free for everybody and for every course. It would be silly to do, for example, the things that you’ve just proposed that you would do. We want to make sure that we’re targeting our support for people who need it and for jobs that will give them better life chances too. For people on low incomes and disadvantaged backgrounds, regardless of our ongoing commitment with the Commonwealth, we want to make sure that there are significant concessions for those people too, so that your income isn’t a barrier to you taking part in a TAFE course that could help improve your life chances –
Mr BAYLEY – They’re not the only people doing it hard though, minister.
Mr ELLIS – Sorry?
Mr BAYLEY – They’re not the only people doing it hard, concession card holders and the like.
CHAIR – Order.
Mr ELLIS – People who aren’t necessarily doing it hard are not really the people who you want to be giving free TasTAFE courses to.
CHAIR – Order, I remind the committee –
Mr BAYLEY – They’re probably not the ones doing TAFE either.
Mr ELLIS – Look, I think everyone in our community can do TAFE.
CHAIR – Order. I remind the committee that the place for debate is in House. This is for question and answers. Did you have another question, Mr Bayley or we’ll go to Ms Johnston.
Mr BAYLEY – Can I go to the Strong Plan for Safer Roads funding and the prioritisation of learner driver programs in Tasmania? Millions of dollars have been granted over the forward Estimates to develop new driver safety programs. Why is funding for established community programs like the Learner Driver Mentor Program, which already delivers significant outcomes, remain unfunded post December 2024?
Mr ELLIS – In terms of learner driver –
Ms CAIRNEY – Through you minister, that would be a different output group, that would be the Transport minister, is my advice.
Mr ELLIS – I’ll just look to Mr Hollingsworth, is there anything further you want to add?
Mr HOLLINGSWORTH – No, minister. That is for another portfolio, although we do have some programs in the margins.
