Interview with Cliffo and Kate - Triple M Townsville Breakfast

KATE JEBOULT, HOST: A new creative arts precinct at Pimlico TAFE opened yesterday morning. To tell us all about this new $4.5 million project is the Federal Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles. Good morning to you.

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Good morning, Kate, and good morning, Cliffo, too. It's great to be in Townsville.

GUY ‘CLIFFO’ CLIFTON, HOST: I was driving past the TAFE in Pimlico a couple of weeks ago, Andrew, and mate, it's a case of the old and the new. It was an old TAFE for a long time. It's come a long way in a relatively short time. And what happened yesterday, really bloody exciting for Townsville, mate.

GILES: I think it's incredibly exciting. This is a $4.5 million investment jointly between the Albanese Government through our TAFE Technology Fund, which is all about making sure our TAFEs are absolutely cutting edge, and also with the partnership with the Queensland Government of course, because we want to make sure that students in Townsville can access the best technology to pursue careers in every industry, and particularly here, creative industries, because we recognise that for too long, people interested in visual arts in particular have had to get away from Townsville if they want to pursue their careers.

JEBOULT: TAFE is awesome, Andrew. I've done a couple of TAFE courses in my time, and I feel like TAFE is having a real resurgence. It almost was the sort of younger, poorer cousin, I feel, of university for so many years. Why is TAFE such an excellent place to start your post-school learning?

GILES: That's a great question, Kate. And I really hope you'll share your story with your listeners too, because those personal stories are so important about how TAFE opens up different ways of learning, really practical ways of building skills that lead to good, secure jobs. But I reckon the game changer has been Free TAFE. Free TAFE courses have been taken up by 125,000 Queenslanders, and that's one of the reasons why the Albanese Government has made Free TAFE permanent, so more people can think about pursuing a career to start off out of school, or increasingly to think about reskilling or upskilling, to become a nurse, to work in early childhood education or to build some of those houses that we desperately need. TAFE is an amazing way to get skills to get ahead.

CLIFTON: Andrew, obviously you opened the new Creative Arts Precinct at Pimlico TAFE yesterday. Mate, have you had a chance to enjoy the spoils of our city? Have you had any nice breakfast down the Strand or, I don't know, walks along Jezzine Barracks or anything yet?

GILES: Well, firstly, an apology, if anyone saw me on the Strand going for a run, I probably didn't look too flash. The conditions are a bit challenging for a Melburnian. So if I upset anyone, put them off their breakfast, my apologies. But yeah, what a beautiful way to start a day. What an incredible place to live in. And for me to come up as a visitor, I was a few months ago, to think about what we can do as a national Government to make sure that people here can stay here if they want to, to pursue all of their opportunities. And I should say, a bit of a shout out, my niece Lily, who's from Mission Beach, is about to start her course at JCU either this week or next week. So my broader family are making a contribution to this community too.

CLIFTON: All right. Hey, what a great bit of infrastructure for Townsville opening yesterday, the new creative arts precinct at Pimlico TAFE. Andrew Giles, Federal Minister for Skills and Training. Mate, thank you for your time.