Now ya talken Albo.
A vow to fund 465,000 free TAFE courses – including 45,000 new ones – will be central to federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s bid to win office next year.
Two days after he unveiled Labor’s long-awaited climate change policy, the Labor leader on Sunday will launch a $1.2bn policy aimed at fixing Australia’s skills shortages.
On top of the boost in vocational training, if elected Labor will spend $481.7m to fund 20,000 more university places over the next two years.
There will also be $100m pledged towards supporting 10,000 apprentices to be trained in jobs associated with the new energy sector.
At the heart of Labor’s pitch for the education and training vote, to be unveiled at a rally in Sydney on Sunday, is a promise to offer 465,000 free TAFE courses targeted at the parts of the economy crying out for workers plus the emerging energy and technology sectors.
It will also seek to address worker shortages in the “care economy” such as childcare, aged care, disability care, nursing and community services.
Mr Albanese will tell the rally the plan represents “good policy for jobs, good policy for people looking to train or retrain, and good policy for businesses, which need more skilled workers”.
Labor claims there are 85,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships than when it lost office in 2013.
Labor’s skills spokesman Richard Marles said the plan’s TAFE component was aimed at addressing shortages on the National Skills Commission’s skills priority list.
“We’ve got a skills crisis in Australia at the moment, we need more tradies and care workers, this is the plan that will fix the problem.”
Universities that target students from regional, remote and outer suburban areas and Indigenous people will get the bulk of the extra money being offered by Labor.
There will also be a priority given to universities that offer places to people who come from families where no one has gone to university before.
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