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The employment of casual staff in the [vocational education and training] VET sector has steadily grown over recent years and now constitutes nearly one half of the total Australian TAFE teaching staff numbers. However, the growing casual teacher numbers coupled with both the qualification requirements and ongoing professional development opportunities for casual TAFE teachers raises questions around the potential impact on teaching quality. This research seeks to better understand how policies, frameworks and practices support the development of effective casual teachers in TAFE. The research study focused on document analysis from the federal, state and local levels and focused on two major emerging themes. The first was the use of language; that defined the application of learning and assessment within the TAFE sector, demonstrated the invisibility of underpinning learning and teaching principles within the qualification and used language to both include and exclude casual TAFE teachers from the institution's culture and professional development opportunities. The second emerging theme was identification; how it impacts on the casual TAFE teachers' visibility with the institution, professional identity and ability to access a range of professional development activities.