ALL the Hunter's TAFE NSW campuses would remain open under a Labor government, which would not use the existence of Connected Learning Centres [CLCs] as an "excuse" to sell facilities.
That's according to Shadow Minister for Skills and TAFE Jihad Dib, who spoke at Scone RSL on Monday night about the government's recent sale of the town's TAFE NSW campus to Racing NSW, which has said it will expand the site into an equine industry training academy.
Mr Dib said he had asked the NSW Auditor General to look into the sale. He said the government should have worked harder to ensure the campus remained a public educational facility.
"If it wasn't running well for TAFE because industry said they wanted to do other things, why wouldn't we work with industry to make it better, make it something we could do together, say 'What courses do you want us to run, how do you want us to run the courses, do you want to supply the teachers?' " Mr Dib said.
"The whole idea of TAFE is to support industry, in terms of providing it with people who have got the skills required for the workforce."
As previously reported, the government listed the Scone campus for sale in January.
Minister for Skills and Tertiary Education Geoff Lee told a Budget Estimates hearing on March 1 he couldn't recall discussing the campus at a meeting with Racing NSW on August 6 last year.
Racing NSW confirmed mere hours after the hearing it had made a bid for the site.
Dr Lee told the hearing TAFE NSW had recommended the site be sold.
TAFE NSW managing director Steffen Faurby said the recommendation was based on its evaluation of the campus being "heavily under-utilised" and only three of the 12 buildings were used for training. The Scone CLC opened in 2019.
Mr Dib said there were concerns the government would sell campuses in other towns that also had CLCs.
"We've committed we're not going to be selling TAFE campuses where there is a CLC," Mr Dib said.
"For us, the CLC is an enhancement to TAFE, it's not a replacement for TAFE."
He said Labor was not opposed to opening CLCs in towns where there was no existing TAFE NSW presence.
"But where there is already TAFE, why would you not add the bits missing from that TAFE [instead of building a CLC]?"
TAFE NSW will lease back part of Scone campus for three years.
The government has announced a $3 million multi-trades workshop and mobile training storage facility to complement Scone CLC.
