TAFE SA

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:31): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question on TAFE SA.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I am advised that redundancy packages are being offered to staff at TAFE SA campuses in the Riverland. In February of last year, TAFE SA outlined plans to cut 150 jobs from across TAFE SA as a result of increased competition following the introduction of the Skills for All program. In The Weekend Australian last year, it was reported that the state government will slash $83 million, or about 45 per cent, of TAFE SA's budget, initiating a round of redundancies, course closures and a reduction in Skills for All funding in 2014. My questions are:

1. Has the minister been advised that redundancies are now being offered to TAFE staff in the Riverland?

2. Can the minister advise of the number of TAFE redundancies offered this financial year and projected to be offered in the next financial year?

3. Has the minister been advised of any further redundancies to be offered to TAFE staff in regional and metropolitan South Australia?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:32): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. I am aware that the TAFE SA board has approved a number of TVSPs to, I think, the Barmera/Berri region, and the advice I have received is that recently seven were announced. However, I have also been advised that TAFE has indicated that those reductions will not impact on the courses being made available to individuals, so there will not be any changes in that space.

It is obviously important that I make clear that TAFE SA is an independent statutory corporation, independent of the government, and that means that those decisions about its everyday operations, such as courses, redundancies, staffing issues, etc., are all operational matters which are the responsibility of the TAFE board. Obviously, it is not appropriate that I intervene in those sorts of daily operational decisions. I remind honourable members that the TAFE funding over the last five years has remained pretty steady, at around $200 million per annum, and that is also for this financial year.

Also during this same period, $240 million has been invested in new infrastructure and $14 million provided for various student support services. Also under Skills for All, this government has funded a significant increase in training with more than 100,000 extra training places available and, in fact, we reached our target three years earlier than expected. So, there has been a significant increase in training participation right throughout the state. For regional South Australia that is around a 54 per cent increase in training participation. So, we can see a great deal has been achieved through our Skills for All.

We know that there is a tight fiscal environment that this government is faced with and so all of our agencies including TAFE are required to make some tough decisions just like all other government departments and statutory authorities and, yet, TAFE remains one of the most cost-efficient quality training organisations available to students, with large subsidies continuing to be made available to students. Our TAFE system went from being the most cost-inefficient jurisdiction to now being the most efficient and that is because we have a TAFE board that has been willing to make tough decisions to streamline our services whilst maintaining high quality training provisions for our regional students.

In relation to those other operational questions, as I said, they are matters for the board and I would urge the Hon. Stephen Wade to contact the appropriate body to provide answers to those detailed questions.