Press conference, Seacombe Gardens Adelaide

LOUISE MILLER-FROST: I have with me the Federal Minister, Andrew Giles; State Minister, Blair Boyer; Sarah Andrews, the member for Gibson; Scott Salisbury – the Scott Salisbury – and Stephen Knight from the Housing Industry Association. And we need so much more housing and housing like this, which is both affordable but also attractive and a great first homeowners option. And, of course, one of the challenges we have is to make sure that we have enough skilled labour to actually build these and build them at the rate we need. So, we’re here today for a fantastic announcement from Minister Giles about our Fee‑Free TAFE, which is really about driving jobs for Australians, good‑quality skilled jobs for Australians. So, I will hand over to the minister for the announcement.

MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING ANDREW GILES: Thanks very much, Louise. It’s great to be here with you and Sarah, two fantastic local members in this part of Adelaide, with my great mate Minister Blair Boyer, with Scott – the Scott; I should say the Blair as well – and Stephen is from the Housing Industry Association. Where we are here really symbolises what we need to do more of, which is building more homes and particularly more affordable homes, and the key to that is workforce. And after a decade of neglect, the Albanese Government, working with the Malinauskas Government, has been addressing some key issues in skills and training.

Today I want to make an announcement here in South Australia that builds on that. It is about a commitment of $5.9 million to enable 1,340 additional Fee‑Free TAFE places directed at construction. This builds on an enormous success, huge take‑up, exceeding expectations, of Fee‑Free TAFE around the country where Australians have been getting the skills they want in the areas we need, particularly residential housing construction where there’s been huge take‑up in South Australia. Of the 17,000 Fee‑Free TAFE places taken up by South Australians, around 3,000 have been in construction. So, we know that there’s huge demand out there – young people and not so young people. These places that we’re talking about today will enable people to get really critical skills across a variety of trades and it will also enable people, through pre-apprenticeship places, to learn about the exciting opportunities to fill a trade in housing construction so that they can play a role in doing something really tangible, building the homes that South Australians need.

All of this is about partnership, the partnership the Albanese Government has with the Malinauskas Government. I’m particularly pleased with work closely with Blair Boyer, a minister who’s doing fantastic work. I’ll hand over to you now, Blair.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, TRAINING AND SKILLS BLAIR BOYER: Thank you very much, Andrew. It’s fantastic to have Andrew here in South Australia again after only being in his portfolios for a few months. He’s showing here today that he’s listened in his role as the Federal Minister for Skills and Training to what South Australia is saying about where our need is. And we know that because of the Malinauskas Government’s plans to build thousands and thousands of new homes in South Australia, we need a pipeline of all those traditional trades that are necessary to build the homes. We’re talking about carpenters, about sparkies, about plumbers, about bricklayers. They are the workers that we need if we are to deliver on our commitment to build those thousands of new homes. We know how important it is. We have heard Louise talk about it. Sarah talks about it in Parliament all the time, issues of housing availability and housing affordability and we need to increase supply. To increase supply we’ve got to have those tradespeople to do the work – the carpenters, the brickies, the sparkies, the chippies – and that’s what this is all about. And these 1,340 additional places under Fee‑Free TAFE are going to make sure we’re going to actually do that.

Fee‑Free TAFE has been such a success here in South Australia. We’ve seen 17,000 enrolments and it was only at the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 that we actually commenced Fee‑Free TAFE in our state. We’ve had 17,000 people enrolled already and, pleasingly, where we’re seeing a lot of those enrolments are in some of the areas of our state with lower incomes where people might not have the money to be able to afford a full-fee or even a subsidised-fee training place. They are accessing fee‑free courses to make sure they have the qualifications they need to get the jobs that are there. And, most importantly, we want them to get jobs in the priority areas for our state: construction, home building, defence, education for a second year of preschool. All these big projects that South Australia is trying to deliver now, great opportunities for our state, they all share the one key challenge and that is actually having the workforce we need to deliver those projects.

I really want to thank Andrew for being back here in such short time to make this announcement today – $6 million towards providing 1,340 additional fee‑free places that I know are going to be really, really popular, and it will make sure that South Australia has the carpenters and the brickies and the plumbers and the sparkies we need to build more of these kinds of homes like the ones we’re looking at now so we can increase supply and we can improve the likelihood of young South Australians being able to afford a family home. I’ll pass over now to perhaps Scott Salisbury or Stephen Knight to add a few more comments around why this program is so important. Who wants to go first?

STEPHEN KNIGHT, HOUSING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: Another fantastic announcement. We need all the apprentices we can get, but I think this is also a very good point that it’s the subcontractors who employ the apprenticeships, so this is great support for small business, and I think that’s a really important point to make. Small business is doing it tough at the moment, just like everyone else. So, any financial assistance we can get to those people to employ more apprentices has got to be a fantastic outcome. Pre-employment programs are part of this as well and I think that’s really important. It gives an opportunity for young people to try a trade first before they actually start in the apprenticeship program. And, of course, we do have dropout rates that are quite significant. So, if we can get them in those pre-employment programs, they’ve had a go at the trade first. We know that’s going to be a very successful outcome for the future. So, fantastic announcement today. Great support for small business.

SCOTT SALISBURY: Hi, I’m Scott. Look, this is a fantastic announcement. The building industry has been doing it really tough lately and I think all South Australians know about how hard it is to get trades at the moment. And, you know, throughout Australia the building industry is finding it really hard and there’s lots of builders going under and contractors going under. South Australia has been really good at the moment. So, it’s a great incentive to get a number of trades back into the game. One thing about the apprentices is that our tradesmen at the moment would earn more than a general practitioner, so whereas it looked like it was blue-collar worker work before, it’s really a professional job now and they get to, you know, work their own hours when they want to work, when they don’t want to work. They get a great income so it’s a great incentive to perhaps talk to your kids about taking up a trade as an apprentice under the new scheme. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Obviously there’s such a big skill shortage in SA at the moment. Is Fee‑Free TAFE the way to go? Is that the way we solve this issue?

BOYER: It’s definitely a very big part of the solution. It’s not going to do it by itself, but I think the fact that in a state our size we’ve had 17,000 enrolments in a very short period of time shows you the demand out there. But, importantly, I think at a time when our states had record‑low unemployment, it is hard for small businesses, you know, builders and construction companies, to find the workforce that they need. So, it’s really important that we actually activate or mobilise that part of our workforce that’s still looking for employment. And often one of the barriers for those people is actually having the qualification and they might not have the income to, you know, pay for a full‑fee training course or even a subsidised one, and that’s where a fully Fee‑Free TAFE course steps in to make sure that that person can get the skills they need to be a chippie or a bricklayer or a plumber or a sparky and take one of the jobs that’s available now. Fee‑Free TAFE has been a revelation for our state.

I have to remind people too there’s a very clear difference of opinion around the importance of Fee‑Free TAFE. The South Australian Liberal Party here has called it a marketing exercise, which I think is an incredibly silly thing to say and shows us how disconnected they really are from the reality on the ground. These courses are really important for us to grow the workforce that we need at a time when we do have a national skills crisis. The fact that we’ve had 17,000 people enrolled in our state alone I think shows, you know, the interest out there from people to take up one of these trades and get into an industry like the one that Scott just described where there are great incomes, the ability to choose your own hours and things like that. So, it’s incredible that we would have an opposition in this state that would actually say that Fee‑Free TAFE is just a marketing exercise. I think we need to keep that in mind as we head towards a federal election and not too far away from a state election – of course, the by‑election this Saturday.

The Labor Party, state and federal, support Fee‑Free TAFE. We want to see it continue. The Albanese Government has said they will legislate to lock Fee‑Free TAFE in, which I think we see now why that is so important because we do have oppositions from the Liberal Party, both federally and state, who seek to cut those fee‑free courses if they had a chance to do so.

JOURNALIST: Perfect. Thank you, everyone.