SA premier Jay Weatherill promises a $100m TAFE boost and a guarantee of 70 per cent of publicly funded places for the state systems if he wins Saturday’s election. This is something of a standard for his government; back in 2015 then training minister Gail Gago quarantined 60 000 of 80 000 training places to TAFE; “while it transitions to more innovative and flexible training provision that better responds to community and industry needs and is more sustainable in a competitive market,” (CMM May 26 2016).

As regulator ASQA’s scathing assessments of TAFE SA courses has recently found didn’t that work well.