The Greens always have and always will stand for publicly owned and operated and publicly funded vocational training colleges and TAFEs. The two major parties have used vocational training and TAFE as a political football for way too long. We have had enough. Through their bipartisan commitment to so-called contestability funding, public TAFE has been gutted. The closure of these two colleges by the Queensland Labor government should be condemned.

I brought this motion forward to draw the parliament's and the minister's attention to this important issue. Changes to the subsidy to the hourly rate of in-home child care now means that high-needs families are unable to get the child care they need to attend medical appointments, receive respite and go to work. Service providers are leaving the industry and carers are losing their jobs. As noted in the motion, we should recognise that although there are problems with the in-home childcare program some families with complex needs are facing a childcare crisis as a result of the changes.

Australian Greens Senator for NSW and Spokesperson for Education, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has welcomed the 

Australian Greens Senator for NSW and Spokesperson for Education, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has said both the Liberal and Labor Parties lack the courage to take on overfunded private schools.

Australian Greens Senator for NSW and Spokesperson for Education, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has said that Catholic and private schools will continue to be showered in taxpayer dollars under both the Liberals and Labor Parties. 

Australian Greens Senator for NSW and Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has said free higher education is the key to ensuring equitable access to jobs of the future. An Alphabeta ‘Future Skills Report’ has found that Australians will need new skills to adjust to the future of work and will need to spend an additional three hours a week in education and training and that the average Australian worker will likely change jobs 2.4 times over the next two decades. Details of the Greens free higher education package for universities and TAFEs can be found here.

Australian Greens Education Spokesperson, Senator Mehreen Faruqi, has condemned the Liberal Government’s punitive $328.5m cuts to University Block Grants.

Senator Faruqi said:

“The Liberal Government has continued their war on universities with the $328.5m cut to Research Block Grants announced in the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

“These punitive cuts demonstrate the Liberal government’s disrespect for the higher education sector and the vital research work conducted in our universities.

Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the Australian Greens spokesperson for Education and a former academic, reacted to this morning’s news that the University of Wollongong has accepted the John Howard-led Ramsay Centre’s funding for a degree in ‘Western Civilisation’.

She said:

“Today’s news is a blow to academic freedom in Australia.

“As a former academic, I can unequivocally say that allowing any organisation to influence curriculum, let alone one as shady as this centre, is a huge mistake.

The national interest test proposed by Minister Tehan is straight out of Yes Minister. The farcical proposal is a Liberal tactic of inventing a problem and then trying to solve it. Academics and researchers see right through it. The test's whole purpose is to allow ministers to further interfere in the already independent, rigorous, peer reviewed process for narrow political reasons. The Australian Research Council already requires researchers to demonstrate the benefits and impacts of their research.