Cunningham MP and opposition spokeswoman for vocational education Sharon Bird has rejected a government minister's claim that Labor has "no idea where they stand" on TAFE.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Assistant minister for education and training Senator Simon Birmingham made the remark after an event marking National TAFE Day on Wednesday.
Senator Birmingham said Labor's vocational education and training election policy amounted to a public statement, made "real and meaningful" by a conversation.
The conversation referred to discussions Ms Bird said the federal government needed to have with the state and territories on the issue, via a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process.
"I think it's pretty clear where Labor stands, we've made it very clear over the last 12 months or so in particular ... there's been a range of state governments who were pulling the funding out of TAFE and you are seeing the dramatic impacts of that," Ms Bird said.
"In response to that, [opposition leader] Bill Shorten announced [Wednesday night] that we are determined, if we form government, to use the COAG process to get a commitment and a dedicated funding guarantee in place for TAFE, so that it's not undermined and it's able to continue to do the really important job we think it's been doing for decades."
Ms Bird questioned what Senator Birmingham was doing to secure a strong future for TAFE.
"The government has been completely silent on TAFE, it has no policy out there intended to support it," she said.
"I think it's a bit cheeky for him to criticise us for making an important commitment to how funding will operate when he's saying nothing himself."
Meanwhile, the federal government announced on Thursday it would ban withdrawal fees, making it easier for students to withdraw from courses they have been "inappropriately signed up to".
"From 1 July, if a student wants to withdraw from training on or before the census date, a provider will no longer be able to charge a withdrawal fee or place some other administrative barrier in the way of the student," Senator Birmingham said.
Ms Bird was supportive of the move, praising government actions that clamp down on what she said were "absolutely shonky and unscrupulous practices".
"I've just heard too many stories ... about young people who were clearly unaware of how much they were signing up for in debt or, indeed, ended up with training that was very second-rate."
