TAFE SA Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 October 2025.)

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills, Minister for Police) (16:18): I want to thank those who have made contributions, in particular the member for Morialta, who was a former minister responsible for TAFE in the Marshall government. I thank him for his contribution; although we do not agree on everything he said, there were a number of things in there that I do agree with him on. I am sure we will touch upon those in the committee stage, should we venture that way.

As I outlined in my second reading speech, there are probably some overdue changes here. This government has made a lot of investments in TAFE. We made a commitment before the 2022 election to rebuild it, and I think I have been pretty frank in my assessment of decisions that have been made in the past by governments of both persuasions. The member for Morialta touched upon some of those, but this is a chance, at a kind of crucial juncture for our state, where we have had historically low unemployment, historically high job advertisements. There has been a lot of opportunity in terms of projects that are here now and projects that will be coming online.

Whether it is AUKUS, whether it is the new Women's and Children's Hospital, whether it is building thousands of new homes or whatever it might be, the challenge that is the same across all those projects is finding the skilled workforce, not cannibalising the workforces of existing projects just to move them to another project and, of course, wherever we can giving those job opportunities to South Australians.

TAFE, as the public training provider in this state, obviously has a key role to play, including and I might say particularly in regional South Australia, particularly in a state like ours that is, outside the metropolitan area, really a state of thin markets. That is just the nature of our state. We have to deal with that and, because of that, having a strong public provider I think is particularly important in South Australia. In many cases, for those regional communities, the only training provider they have, at least in terms of one that might have a bricks and mortar presence, is TAFE.

Again, I thank Jeannie Rea for her work on the TAFE Roadmap, which has informed a lot of the amendments that we have put as part of this bill. What we are proposing here and what I am proposing as the minister is a sensible meeting halfway of what you could do in terms of rolling back the corporatisation of TAFE and instead giving it the kind of flexibility that it needs to be able to operate in the best interest of the state.

I know we will probably get into a bit more detail with the member for Morialta on that. I thank him and the opposition for signalling their support for the bill. I thank the Hon. Dennis Hood in the upper house, who has just come into the portfolio but has engaged really strongly with me and my staff. I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: We would like to take our full 15 minutes times three on every single clause, if we may.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Odenwalder): I am in your hands, member for Morialta.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Minister, thank you for taking some general questions on clause 1, which may save us some time later. As you are aware, the opposition has expressed an interest in an amendment that might provide for a review of this legislation after three years. I gave some commentary in my second reading speech as to how we might have benefited had such a review been undertaken in 2015. I wonder whether the government has given any consideration to this proposition and/or whether the minister has any concerns with the proposal.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I think it is a sensible suggestion and I am willing to support it.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Has the minister received any advice on whether these legislative changes will have any impact on staff or workforce numbers?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: No advice has been received. In fact, there has been advice received, but that there will be no impact on workforce numbers because of this. In terms of student impact, yes, but my hope and the advice is that that impact will be positive in terms of what TAFE can do for students. But, other than those two things, my answer is no.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: In a similar vein, has the minister had any advice or discussions with officers specifically related to the impact of these changes on industry engagement and industry outcomes as compared with the current act?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Good question, member for Morialta. There are a couple of things I would say to that. There was a lot of industry engagement that went into the Jeannie Rea review, which has then informed the amendments that we are proposing here. So that is one thing, but there are also some changes that we are making around board representation. I think that is clause 9 and we might touch upon it later, so I will not go into too many specifics, but it talks about more direct industry experience and engagement, which is certainly something that I think is needed.

One of the comments you probably have heard me say in regard to our tech colleges and why the tech colleges of years gone past went out of vogue is that I think that kind of nexus between industry, real industry experience on the tools and what is needed by employers, and what was being offered by TAFE and tech colleges got broken, therefore employers did not see as much of a benefit as they perhaps once did in taking graduates of tech colleges or trade schools. We need to keep that tight, otherwise the same thing will happen again, and that applies to TAFE just as much.

Clause passed.

Clauses 2 to 5 passed.

Clause 6.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Clause 6 relates to the functions, and indeed it is a fairly broad clause. I think the minister, in the description of the bill, explained that when the board is operating as they run TAFE, obviously they are responsible to the minister for—I forget the name of the statement, but the one that replaces the charter and the performance statement. There is a new version of that where the government can set the directions for the TAFE board.

The essential premise of the bill is that, rather than relying on operating in the best interests of TAFE SA as a corporation, which is the current situation, the board's running orders, in the absence of specific direction, will be the functions in the act. I am wondering in particular about the situation with the way that TAFE engages with non-government training providers. Particularly, I note the function at clause 6(2)(c):

(c) authorise the use of land, buildings, equipment, facilities or services used for technical and further education for commercial, community or other purposes for a fee or otherwise…

As far as I can tell, that gives a passive power to TAFE SA in which they can engage with non-government providers. Clause 6(4)(b), on page 7 at the top, provides that TAFE must perform its functions:

(b) in an efficient and effective manner, including (if practicable) through shared use of its services, facilities and resources…

I am wondering if the minister can reflect on the matter. We understand that, as is not unusual for any training provider, it has infrastructure but it is not every day that infrastructure is used. Historically—and I think this is reflected in the comments of the Skills Commission in the Rea report, if I am correct—there has been a bias towards TAFE middle management potentially saying no to non-government providers or community or industry bodies seeking to access that.

I am wondering whether the minister has considered more explicitly including in the functions guidance to the board and the organisation to seek those opportunities or to lean to yes rather than no. I am not proposing a specific amendment here, and I realise that this can in some ways be defined by the government's directions and encouragements to TAFE. But between the houses, I think it is certainly the opposition's interest to explore whether it is possible to more proactively articulate encouragement for the TAFE SA organisation, to take what Associate Professor Rea and, I think, the minister have described as his leadership role in TAFE matters in South Australia to the extent of actively supporting the public good that can come out of training being provided by non-government providers.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I think there are good points that are made there and I agree with almost everything that you have said, to be perfectly frank. As to the statement of priorities, which I think is the document you allude to that will replace some of the existing documents, I can set those things out and I think I can say safely in this place that I intend to do that. I have been quite strong on that in my 3½ years as minister and I continue to do that.

You correctly referred to something that Jeannie said in her report about promoting the use of TAFE facilities with non-TAFE providers where they are not being used by TAFE. I think we would be silly not to do that, particularly at a time when we have a huge skills challenge in front of us. We do not have the luxury of having skills facilities, TAFE or otherwise, sitting around not being used when there is another provider, government or otherwise, that would be keen to use them.

I note you said you were not proposing an amendment. For what it is worth, I think that is the right thing because we considered it and I do not think it is necessary, but I can speak to that in my statement of priorities, and I intend to do that should this bill be successful.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I will not ask a question; I will just offer a quick appreciation of the minister's response and the commitment of what he proposes to do in the statement of priorities and indicate that the opposition will give further consideration as to whether we believe an amendment would be helpful here. As I think the minister has indicated, I know the Hon. Dennis Hood will be seeking to engage constructively with the government between the houses and so I am sure this may form part of those suggestions. I am happy to move on.

Clause passed.

Clauses 7 and 8 passed.

Clause 9.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Clause 9 relates to the board appointments and responsibilities, and the opposition's view is that, broadly, this clause is well constructed and appropriate. I am usually not of the view that you want to be too prescriptive unless necessary on specific appointments, but I do think that there is potentially an opportunity for one amendment that the opposition is considering, and I would be keen to get the minister's consideration of it, if not a response immediately, or at least, potentially, an indication of whether there is anything we have missed or whether the government might consider it between the houses, and I particularly refer to regional representation.

I note that at clause 9(4)(b), the broad skill sets required of the board, or at least the skills matrix for the effective performance of TAFE SA's function, have to include—and (b) states:

(b) knowledge or expertise in the education and training of persons who have experienced disadvantage in accessing education, training and work or are from non-metropolitan, regional or remote areas;

In the minister's second reading conclusion speech, and I think he highlighted it in the first one, and it is apparent to anyone, that TAFE as the public provider is going to be the largest provider of training across the state, and that is particularly so in the regions where there is a thinner market of training provision, if you like, and lower margins available that might attract non-government providers or greater costs for the not for profits.

So given the specific and particular priority and requirement for TAFE to serve our regional areas the opposition is very keen to see not just the skills matrix informed as I just described but a specific inclusion of somebody who lives and potentially works in regional South Australia. My recollection is that I appointed Jen Cleary to the board. I imagine that the minister has probably, for all I am aware, included regional representation in his own consideration since. I think that it would be counterintuitive for anyone to take seriously a TAFE SA board skills matrix that did not include somebody living in regional South Australia. With that in mind, I think that it would be an extraordinarily low-risk proposition to a sensible board composition to include it as a requirement.

I might leave it there for the minister to respond to, other than to say that I think subclause (4)(b), as is currently described, does not require that somebody even have the knowledge or expertise of rural and regional and non-metropolitan areas. The sentence is constructed as saying that board nominees either, as far as I can tell, have knowledge or expertise of somebody experiencing disadvantage in accessing education, training and work, or are from regional and remote areas. I am not wanting to downplay the importance of understanding disadvantage, but as far as I can read it, there is no requirement from that clause that somebody even understands or has knowledge of regional South Australia, let alone lives there.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Thank you, member for Morialta. Your observations are correct. That clause in terms of (4)(b) asks that the minister, in nominating members for appointment, 'must ensure that those nominated include persons who together have', so, yes, you are right. We thought long and hard about being more prescriptive in terms of who is on the board. As I am sure you would recall all too well from your time as a minister, it is a bit of a slippery slope once you start doing that. I am conscious that the TAFE board is already a large board. I quite routinely get feedback from chairs of boards in my portfolio areas that that can become quite unwieldy and difficult. I grappled with the idea of doing that, but I found it hard to find a way of doing it without expanding the board, which would create its own problem.

Having said that, you are right about the things you have said in terms of regional South Australia. I have appointed two regional people for that deliberate reason: Helen Strickland, who I think is from Mount Gambier in the South-East, and Andrea Broadfoot from the Upper Spencer Gulf region. I wanted them on there because they not only have regional experience but live in the regions and are well embedded in their communities, so I have certainly made that a priority in my time. The short answer to your question, though, is that we continue to be in discussion with the Hon. Dennis Hood about that, so I am not closed off to it.

Clause passed.

Clause 10.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I was interested in this clause while I was reflecting on the historical context of 2017 in my second reading speech, particularly the mechanism by which the Governor may remove a director from the office on the recommendation of the minister, at clause 10 (3), and the minister may recommend the removal of a director on any ground that the minister thinks fit, at 10(4). I suppose my simple question is: is this the same as in the current act, or is there a change? If there has been a change, why is that the case? In either case, is the minister able to explain how this mechanism would work in practice?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Thank you for the question, member for Morialta. It is the same as it was, except for a small change to subclause (4) and the removal of (e), which were both done by parliamentary counsel on their advice. Apparently, they are updating those in acts as they go, and that is all. Other than that, it will operate as it has already operated in the past. It was not something that I requested or that came about through the Roadmap review.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I thank the minister for that. I appreciate the, I think, correct action that the member for Port Adelaide took in 2017. I do not think there would be too widely diverging views on that in relation to the exercise of this power. I genuinely speak from a place of ignorance. I do not think I ever had it suggested to me during my time as minister that I would be required to remove a director or a chair of a board. There were possibly examples where we did not stress too much when somebody's expiry was coming up, and there were examples where we were desperately trying to convince people to renew. The feedback that I have had from board chairs is similar to what the minister has had in relation to the way that boards operate. I think it is pretty effective in this department, for the most part.

I guess the second part of my question is: genuinely, has the minister got advice into how this works? It does not describe having to go through cabinet here. Does it have to go through cabinet, or is it just a memo from the minister to the Governor? Is there some other process that would benefit future ministers, if anyone is ever placed in the same position as the member for Port Adelaide was unfortunately placed in in 2018?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: The advice I have is that it would still have to go through cabinet and to the Governor.

Clause passed.

Clauses 11 and 12 passed.

Clause 13.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Is this a new clause?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: It is not. There has been a change in the reference to the Public Sector (Honesty and Accountability) Act, which is a name change, otherwise it is not a new clause.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I thank the minister and seek his advice in terms of operation. I recall—and I am sure the minister had the same experience—when you advertise for positions on the TAFE board, it is seen as an attractive board to be on by many people who want to contribute to the state of South Australia. My recollection is that if a person were a chief executive or a senior officer of an RTO that was not TAFE SA, I struggled to imagine how they would be able to fully contribute to the TAFE SA board without having to remove themselves from a vast number of their items due to conflicts. I imagine that this clause presumably would capture those people.

I was reflecting: I think there is a head of a group training organisation on the TAFE board at the moment. I suspect that they would be the sort of person for whom this clause may be written, just because they have an indirect interest in training and the technical and further education sector as a customer of TAFE and other RTOs. Am I correct in assuming, then, that this is providing clarity that, for somebody with that industry connection, the fact that they use RTOs should not be seen as a barrier to their participation on the TAFE board? That is my understanding; is that a fair assessment?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: That is a good observation. What I can say is that this is not in here, or being maintained, in a bid to prevent people who might run an RTO, or with genuine RTO experience, from being on the board. I would not want that. I think we need to have that for the reasons you understand very well, but it is there to help us navigate what can be tricky areas. CITB can be like that as well. We are conscious of that and just making sure that we manage it well. I would not want to prevent TAFE from having people on its board who have had that genuine experience in running a training provider that is not the public one.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: I thank the minister for that answer and, yes, confirm I believe that it is important for people with training experience to be on it. In my experience, when somebody applied who had past experience of running a training organisation, that made them a very attractive proposition, especially if they no longer were actively working in that area. I appreciate the minister's response.

Clause passed.

Clauses 14 to 22 passed.

Clause 23.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: This relates to barring notices that we have discussed previously in relation to schools, both in recent legislation and in the 2019 education act, when new barring notices and provisions were put in place. In most recent legislation relating to schools, my understanding is that barring notices are appealable to the minister. My understanding from a brief read here, unless I have missed something, is that in this act they are not.

I have a very simple question that I might put in three parts, and the minister can respond to all of them at once or we can see how we go. Why are these different from schools, why can we not have an appeals process to the minister, and would the government consider supporting an amendment to replicate the schools model?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I will try to answer in the three-part format. Thank you for that. We did contemplate this, because obviously it was fresh in our minds due to the changes we have made around schools because of what we are seeing increasingly from parents who are exhibiting abusive behaviour online, exhibiting abusive behaviour in a perimeter around the school, and all those sorts of things. We came to the conclusion that we are not seeing those two examples with TAFE. If that were to change, I have already said in this place that we will support a three-year review. I think that would be a good thing to have in the three-year review, to see how the barring order is going and are we seeing abusive behaviour?

I know from a personal perspective why this is needed, may I say, in regard to TAFE. There was an unfortunate incident and I am sure some of our staff have copped that as well, so it is important that we put it in place. However, I have not seen any evidence of it being perpetrated in the online environment that would necessitate the exact same changes we have made to schools. If that changes, there will be that three-year review in which to contemplate that. Would we contemplate a review or appeals process, as you are familiar with and as the member for Port Adelaide is familiar with, around barring notices? Yes we would.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (24 to 33), schedule and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills, Minister for Police) (16:47): I move:

That this bill now be read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.