TAFE SA

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister update the house on TAFE SA courses being returned to metropolitan campuses?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:58): I thank the member for his question, and I of course thank him for his very long advocacy for public training in South Australia. This is a very important topic and one I am very pleased to have the opportunity to stand as the Minister for Education, Training and Skills and address. I think it goes without saying that what we have inherited on this side of the chamber since coming to government is a TAFE system that is on its knees. For the four years of the previous Liberal government we saw courses cut, we saw staff sacked and we saw campuses closed, including the campuses at Port Adelaide—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: —Tea Tree Gully and Parafield. I think I can characterise the former government's attitude towards TAFE as basically ideological warfare.

Fundamentally, this was a government that did not believe in a public training provider. This was a government that spent four years doing everything in its power to cut TAFE off at the knees to make it uncompetitive and reduce it to a niche provider of training services. I tell you what, Mr Speaker, the only thing that stopped them achieving it was the victory that this Malinauskas Labor government had on 19 March, because I can tell members that there were plans afoot for more cuts to follow.

However, I was very pleased on 21 April to join the Premier at the CBD TAFE, where we announced and delivered very early in the piece one of our election commitments to return three of the courses that were cut from metropolitan TAFEs in 2020. Incredibly, those courses included individual support in ageing, individual support in disability and early childhood education and care.

These are the courses which train the workforce which cares for some of this state's most vulnerable people. I know that I speak for everyone on this side of the chamber when I say that it was shocking and it was galling that those opposite chose to cut courses like that mid a national royal commission into aged care, which made, of course, some shocking findings about neglect and mid the terrible case of neglect we saw here of Annie Smith.

Amidst all that, they chose to cut the public training courses that would train the workers to look after people like Annie Smith. We have drawn a line in the sand very early in the piece, and we have delivered already on returning those three courses to metropolitan TAFE campuses. I am pleased to inform the house that from now prospective students are able to enrol for term 2. I encourage all members in this place to tell their constituents that those courses are going to be back at campuses such as the Salisbury campus, Regency Park and Noarlunga.

I alluded before to the fact that there were some other cuts and other attacks on TAFE that were afoot before the most recent state election. In fact, when I sat down with the head of TAFE and the head of the Department for Innovation and Skills to discuss how we could go about delivering on the election commitment we made here, I was informed that there was a secret list. There was another list sitting there with 14 more courses on it that were going to be cut.

If those opposite had been successful at the last election there were more courses that were going to go, but don't worry, Mr Speaker, don't worry. It wasn't as though they were in any kind of areas where we have a boom or a shortage: no, they were just in building and construction, education support and dental assisting. They were going to cut these courses, but I can tell members this: we have delivered already. In the first few weeks of this government, we have drawn a line in the sand. We believe in a public training provider here, and we have already started to work to rebuild TAFE and to repair the damage that you have caused in four short years.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Heysen has the call.