I want to turn to another key initiative in the budget: fee-free TAFE. More than 65,000 students in New South Wales have enrolled in fee-free TAFE so far this year. The joint Commonwealth-state initiative is encouraginga wide range of applicants, especially women, who make up up to 60 per cent of all enrolments. Some are
studying in traditionally male dominated fields. Enrollees also include young people, jobseekers, people living with disabilities and First Nations people. Almost a third of enrolments have been in courses related to the care sector: child care, aged care, nursing and disability support care—all areas of high priority. But we're also seeing cybersecurity and construction being taken up in large numbers.

This uptake is part of the 180,000 fee-free places we delivered for 2023, recognising last year the urgency of the skills crisis that we'd been left with, and we'll keep doing it, to broaden access to education and to fix skills shortages. There are another 300,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places available in high-skill-needs areas from next year, and I would really urge young people and people who want to retrain to go and look at what is available. We have incredible TAFEs in Wentworth Falls and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains and in Richmond in the Hawkesbury. Between them, they offer a wide range of courses, but we're also close to so many of the other TAFE campuses.

TAFE is an area that is fundamental to developing the skill set that we need in our future workers. It's a very different way of studying from what I know kids experience at school, and I really commend my local schools, who work hard to encourage students to investigate TAFE. For some people in my community, it's an easy step to take. They have family members who've been to TAFE and done VET studies. For others, it's something different for their families. But what I see when I look at what's available, whether it's on our campuses or on neighbouring campuses, is a whole range of professional qualifications that put you in really good stead for the jobs of the future, and that's the sort of focus that this government has. We want to look at people accessing that fee-free TAFE.

We also want people to think about the university courses where we've identified that there are opportunities. One of the things I'm working hard to see is greater collaboration between the Western Sydney University campus we have locally and the TAFE students. A perfect example of where the skills provided by both are needed is the agribusiness tech hub that we are building there. This was one of my election commitments. It's being delivered in the budget. The funding is in the budget. What it means is that we need people—some with science qualifications, as well as engineers and the people who can construct t