Source: Reserve Bank of Australia
15 April 2025
The 2025 Federal Election will set the path for many aspects of the lives of TAFE students, teachers and educators, but none more pressing than the future of TAFE.
We have seen landmark improvements to the sector since Anthony Albanese’s Labor government took office. TAFE once again holds its rightful place as the pre-eminent provider of vocational education in Australia. TAFE as a public institution must be supported and fully funded by state, territory and federal governments.
In the three years since the election of the Albanese government, significant elements of the AEU’s Rebuild with TAFE campaign have been realised:
• Major new sources of guaranteed funding for TAFE have been delivered realising that at least 70 per cent of total government vocational education funding is allocated to TAFE.
• The contestable funding model that had marketised vocational education funding for more than a decade is being dismantled.
• The mammoth task of restoring and investing in the TAFE workforce has begun with new workers employed across Australia and VET Workforce Blueprint projects underway.
• Hundreds of thousands of students now have access to TAFE because of Free TAFE, many of whom would have been excluded from vocational education due to cost.
• TAFE is once again recognised as the anchor of the vocational education system.
• The creation of TAFE Centres of Excellence has recognised the outstanding quality of vocational education provided through TAFE and creates a mechanism for this to be coordinated and shared across Australia.
• In a further recognition of the quality of TAFE, pilot programs are underway to empower TAFE to self-accredit qualifications at AQF level 5 and above.
• TAFE workers are more central to decision making about government policy and actively involved.
• Thousands of TAFE workers have security of employment through industrial relations reform and legislation restricting the indiscriminate use of fixed-term employment.
• New collective bargaining laws have ensured that TAFE workers in several jurisdictions are the beneficiaries of long-overdue salary increases that have begun to address the imbalance between income and the cost of living.
• The AEU has been elevated to a primary role as the voice of teachers and educators in TAFE, with critical roles on major new government bodies charged with setting policy and implementing change in vocational education, including Jobs and Skills Australia and the 10 Jobs and Skills Councils.
The importance of the next government
We have seen strong support in Parliament from the Australian Greens and members of the crossbench for Free TAFE and for progressive policies. But there’s more to be achieved, especially in terms of staff retention and attraction, boosting infrastructure funding, facilities and resources, and strengthening student support, and to achieve this and ensure that all the gains are not dismantled, the next federal government is key.
Labor wants to legislate Free TAFE, recognising the value of TAFE and cementing its long-term future. Hundreds of thousands of people in Australia are enrolling in Free TAFE, they are getting the flexibility they need to study, work and raise families without a financial penalty.
Already, Free TAFE has had a disproportionately positive impact for priority cohorts such as Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander People, women, people with disability, young people and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
Impact and reach of Free TAFE
Data provided by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to the Senate inquiry indicates that more than 568,000 students have so far enrolled in Free TAFE courses, and many of these enrolments have been in national priority industry areas.
In 2023:
• Aboriginal Students and Torres Strait Islander Students represented 6.7 per cent of students in Free TAFE compared with 3.5 per cent in the wider VET sector.
• Students with disability were 7.6 per cent compared with 3.8 per cent.
• Women were 61.8 per cent compared with 46.2 per cent.
• Regional and remote students were 35.9 per cent compared with 26.8 per cent.
This demonstrates that Free TAFE is assisting those that need it most.
Beyond just these cohorts, Free TAFE programs have also enabled many parents and older Australians to re-enter the workforce, or to make a change in their careers towards an in-demand area.
Risks of a Coalition government
Peter Dutton has threatened to end Free TAFE if he’s elected prime minister.
The Coalition cut $3 billion from TAFE last time they were in government and almost 10,000 jobs were lost. When the current Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley says: “TAFE is just the state-government-run trainer, just like public schools. The Liberal Party believes that you do not value something unless you pay for it” and Liberal MP Luke Howarth says: “We’ve said we won’t do Free TAFE, that’s another $1.5bn saved”, the same cuts are again expected.
Dutton has not yet announced any policy but is already hinting at sending more federal funds to private RTOs rather than public TAFE. Australia cannot risk the Coalition getting in and stopping its investment in TAFE like they did last time they were in government.
Also at risk is the suite of industrial reforms won under the Albanese government, which has seen swathes of the TAFE and AMEP workforce transitioned from contract to permanent positions, sector wage increases, allowed multi-employer bargaining, the right to disconnect from work after hours and strengthening workers’ rights across the board. The Coalition has already spoken of dismantling these worker-centred gains in favour of big business.
Dutton has spent the last three years attacking and undermining teachers. He wants to spend $330 billion on nuclear power stations while investing nothing in building and upgrading public schools and public TAFE.
TAFE needs a government that supports public education.
Party Platform Comparisons
ALP
Climate action
Supports:
• Paris Climate Agreement
• Net zero emissions by 2050
• Just Transition to a clean energy
Actions:
• Has enshrined into law an emissions cut target of 43 per cent by 2030
• A carbon cap for the biggest emitters
• Legislated a Net Zero Authority
• Restored the role of the Climate Change Authority (CCA)
Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander People
• Considering pathways to self-determination
• Supports the states that want to work towards Treaty
• Believes in community consultation
Workplace Relations
• Worker-friendly, inclusive of unions
• Stronger worker protections
• Introduced permanency for many workers, stronger protections for casuals, multi-employer bargaining, the right to disconnect
• Delivered wage increases to ECEC workers
• Supportive of the Fair Work Commission
Schools
• Fully funding public schools
• Addressing teacher shortages and engaging with AEU
• Addressing Aboriginal Teacher and Torres Strait Islander Teacher representation and engaging with Community experts
TAFE
• Supports Free TAFE and making it permanent
• Centres TAFE as the anchor of vocational education in Australia
• Supports Rebuilding TAFE and the TAFE workforce
• Ongoing rollout of TAFE Centres of Excellence
• Plans to establish a National TAFE Network to foster cross-country collaboration and innovation
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
• Three day guarantee – a childcare subsidy for three days a week to all families earning up to $530,000 a year from January 2026
• Scrapped the activity test
• $1 billion Building Early Education Fund, which is the next step in creating a universal Early Childhood Education and Care system in Australia
• 15 per cent pay rises for ECEC teacher and educator wages
COALITION
Workplace Relations
• Unwind Labor’s industrial relations changes
• Revert to a simple definition of a casual worker
• Revoke the laws which provide for multi-employer bargaining
• Remove the “right to disconnect”
• Curtail unions in workplaces
Schools
• Believes government should continue to overfund private schools and that the federal government should only fund private schools
• Says “children taught the basics – reading, writing and maths – through explicit instruction across our primary education system – and ensuring classrooms are places of education, not indoctrination”, which is the same coded language the Trump government used before banning books and threatening teachers in the USA
• Has failed to declare their commitment to fully fund public schools
TAFE
• Opposes Free TAFE Bill and Free TAFE as a whole
ECEC
• Opposes scrapping the activity test
Climate action
Against climate action, instead:
• Make our nation a mining powerhouse
• Defund the Environmental Defenders Office
• Slash resource approval timeframes in half
• Stop the renewable energy roll-out, ramp-up domestic gas production and move to nuclear energy
Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander People
Against self-determination and Truth-telling, instead choosing punitive responses:
• A full audit into spending on Aboriginal programs and Torres Strait Islander programs
• Reintroduce the Cashless Debit Card
• Bolster law and order in crime-heavy communities
• A Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse in Indigenous Communities
GREENS
TAFE
• Increase access and opportunity for people with disability and remove barriers to tertiary education for people with disability
• Abolish all student debt, including HELP, SFSS, and VET, starting 1 July 2025
ECEC
• Fix the current broken system
• Extend free preschool for three-year-olds to at least 15 hours a week
Climate action
• No new coal or gas
• Protect precious water resources
• Expand publicly owned renewable energy
• End the billions in handouts to coal, oil and gas corporations
• End native forest logging
• Save koalas and wildlife from extinction
• Create thousands of jobs during renewable transition
Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islander People
• Truth, Treaty, Justice for Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
• Connect kids to Country by funding school-based programs guided by Elders to learn about culture, language, and Country as a means of holistic healing and growth
• Support language revival and bilingual instruction in schools
Workplace Relations
• Defend workers’ rights, lift wages
Schools
Make public schools free and fully funded:
• Fully fund all public schools to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS)
• Ensure sustainable funding by indexing public school funding to the higher of the Wage Price Index, Consumer Price Index, or SRS indexation factor
• Restore $5 billion to the system by closing Morrison-era loopholes
• Abolish public school fees and charges with an additional allocation of $2.4 billion over the forward estimates
• Establish a new capital grants fund for public schools to invest in capital works of $1.25 billion in its first year, and then $350 million annually
• Develop a National Inclusive Education Transition Plan in collaboration with people with disability, families, unions and experts
• $800 ‘back to school’ payments to parents
Article by Correna Haythorpe, AEU Federal President
Originally published in The Australian TAFE Teacher, Autumn 2025
