Rudd’s $111 million TAFE axe

The Prime Minister has been caught out lecturing State Governments on how they should operate their TAFE systems, while at the same time taking the axe to $111 million worth of TAFE and university infrastructure projects. Reports today suggest that Labor has again raided the Education Investment Fund, this time to pay for the $200 million in small business tax cuts the Prime Minister promised last Sunday. The Prime Minister last week suggested that if State Government did not fund the TAFE system at a level he deemed appropriate then he would start a Federal takeover. This hypocrisy is just outstanding. The fund to support education infrastructure projects was formerly known as the Higher Education Endowment Fund. The former Coalition government left the fund with a capital of $6 billion and the interest to be distributed annually for university infrastructure projects. When the Rudd Government first came to office, they renamed it the Education Investment Fund and promised to put another $5 billion to bring the total to $11 billion. Since that time Labor has not put one cent into the Fund. Kevin Rudd needs to immediately explain to regional education providers why Labor has broken yet another promise in education today. Australians are sick and tired of Labor’s relentless scare campaign on education. We all know now that the person who can’t be trusted to deliver in education is Kevin Rudd. 4 September 2013