Toowoomba’s Big Build gets Big Boost with training for 1 million Queenslanders

ATTENTION MEDIA: radio grabs HERE

• New Miles Government plan delivers one million subsidised training places for Queenslanders to access good high paying jobs.
• Plan extends Free TAFE cost of living measure with 70,000 Free TAFE places.
• Toowoomba and Darling Downs-Maranoa region predicted to employ more than 155,000 workers by 2025-26.

In the biggest skills and training reform in almost a decade, the Miles Labor Government will fund one million training places for Queenslanders – easing cost-of-living pressures for those who want to train, upskill, reskill, and pursue careers in the state’s priority industries.

The Good Jobs, Great Training: Queensland Skills Strategy 2024 – 2028 will help address local skills and workforce priorities in the Toowoomba and the Darling Downs region including in the care, nursing, agriculture, and construction sectors with more free and subsidised training for locals.

The strategy extends the Queensland Government’s Free TAFE program, funding up to 70,000 Free TAFE places – including 30,000 new places – to bring down costs for Queenslanders to get into better paid jobs or start a career in high-demand industries.

It will also fund one million publicly subsidised training places in health, social services, hospitality, clean energy, construction and more.

It will build on the success of Labor’s Free TAFE initiative, which has provided free training for more than 5,000 students across Toowoomba and the Darling Downs since the start of 2023.

Across five focus areas and five years, the strategy sets out to maximise productivity and participation, unlocking billions in annual skills investment – including a $370 million funding uplift to help kickstart the new strategy.

Quotes attributable to Individual Support graduate Tamieka Brett

“I'm going to look after people like me because I know how hard it is — every day is a challenge. But I love, love learning.

“It's been years because I've had a family — I've always just concentrated on my family but now in the last year, and this year, it's about me doing something for me and my goals and what I want in life.

“I want to inspire my own people.

“I want to encourage people to get out there and achieve their career goals and especially too with the government's Free TAFE, the cost of learning doesn't have to be a barrier.”

ATTENTION MEDIA: Please click here for a photo of Tamieka.

Quotes attributable to the Minister for Training and Skills Development Lance McCallum: 

“The Queensland Skills Strategy from the new Miles Labor Government will ensure more locals from regional and remote areas in Toowoomba and the Darling Downs can train and upskill closer to home.

“This training will be critical to meet the demand triggered by the $1.1 billion investment for Toowoomba and the Darling Downs in the Big Build, which alone is creating an estimated 3,000 jobs.

"We want Queenslanders at the front of the line for good local jobs in–this investment will ensure we make the most of this golden decade of opportunity.

“This strategy is not just real cost of living relief now, but a chance at a better life, with better pay and a better job, helping grow our economy right across the state.

“Labor’s Free TAFE has changed lives–people who were facing homelessness, mothers returning to work, and young people who haven’t finished high school–have completed free TAFE courses and come out with good jobs.

“There’s no clearer difference between Labor and the LNP who will jack up course fees and make young Queenslanders pay for their apprenticeships–they’ll have to, because they don’t back the coal royalties that pay for it.”

Further information:

• Jobs Queensland data projects that the largest employing industries in Toowoomba and the Darling Downs region in 2025-26 will be:
  1. Health Care and Social Assistance
  2. Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
  3. Education and Training
  4. Retail Trade
  5. Construction
• Higher-level skills are also being sought by employers, with nine out of 10 new jobs requiring post-school qualifications over the 10 years to 2033 according to Jobs and Skills Australia.
• Development of the Good Jobs, Great Training: Queensland Skills Strategy 2024 – 2028 is a key action under the Good people. Good jobs: Queensland Workforce Strategy 2022 – 2032.

For more information and to read the Good Jobs, Great Training: Queensland Skills Strategy 2024 – 2028, visit www.qld.gov.au/SkillsStrategy.

ENDS

Media contact:

Minister McCallum – Andrew Churchill 0472 645 871