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Date: 24 January 2025, 7:30am AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Key Apprentices Program; housing crisis; skilled migration; economy; federal election
E&OE
Sarah Morris, host ABC NewsRadio: First, let’s talk about the apprenticeship deal that the Prime Minister is offering today. He’s going to be appealing to tradies as part of his pre-election campaign pitch, and he’s going to announce that if re-elected, his government will give a $10,000 bonus to apprentices to work in housing construction. Now, the government wants to encourage more electricians, plumbers and carpenters to get on the tools and help the government achieve its target of building 200,000 new homes annually over the next five years. In the year to September in 2024, only 165,000 new homes began construction, and that’s according to data from the Master Builders Association. So that’s about 20 per cent short of the government target. So will this bonus be enough to lure tradies into building more homes? Let’s speak now with Denita Wawn, the CEO of the Master Builders Australia. Denita, good morning.
Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Good morning.
Sarah: What do you think of this idea, 10,000 bucks for apprentices? Will it encourage them to start building more homes?
Denita: Absolutely. We certainly think this is a really good start in resolving our apprentice shortage. And I also stress that the big issue for us at the moment is not only encouraging apprentices, but it’s the completion rate. Only 50 per cent of apprentices that start an apprenticeship actually complete. So the great thing about this $10,000 is it’s not front-loaded. It is paid through the duration of your apprenticeship, including when you complete. So, there’s an added incentive there to complete, but there is a range of other reasons why we need to spend more time on encouraging and incentivising people. This is an exceptionally good start, and it’s an extension of the existing New Energy Apprenticeship scheme that the government have got in to attract more people into building and construction more broadly.
Sarah: It’s interesting that it will only apply to those who work in the residential sector, is my understanding of that. Is that because tradies are paid more to work on commercial infrastructure projects?
Denita: Certainly for commercial and particularly public infrastructure projects. Yes, the pay is higher. You generally see the higher wages being attracted to those large civil projects, those large commercial projects. With the vast bulk of our housing residential market, it’s a highly competitive environment, very low yields, and as such, it’s tighter. But we certainly, you’ll see that apprenticeships, it’s not necessarily about wages. It’s about all the costs associated, particularly for our young people who are entering in, you know, just simply getting to a work site if you don’t have your license yet, setting up tools for the job, which is part of being a trade. So, all of these incentives really add to that opportunity for us to get people into the industry and then build those 1.2 million homes over five years. This is not an aspirational target that the government has set. This is a target that we need to have to ensure that we’re housing all Australians.
Sarah: And talking there of some of the costs that apprentices face when they’re starting out that they might not be able to afford, and some of the barriers, I guess, to being an apprentice. I notice the payment for living away from home is going to be boosted as well. Is that? a big help for them?
Denita: Yes, it is. It’s a huge help. Any incentive to apprentices, but also to employers, particularly SME employers, is critical because of the cost implications. I was only having a chat earlier today, you know, with the tickets that you need things like white cards and so forth, before you even get onto a building site, which is incredibly important from a safety perspective. Again, that’s upfront costs that some people simply can’t afford. So there’s a range of measures that the government already has in place. This $10,000, in addition, is very, very welcome to the sector. And certainly, we now need to sit down with the government and look at additional mechanisms to encourage people to work into an apprenticeship, and, of course, stay in there and stay in the industry for the long term. We have a massive amount of pipeline of work we need to get through for this country with the population stress that we have. And so these are going to be critical things in the lead up to the federal election, of what are the parties putting on the table to ensure that we’re meeting and resolving our housing crisis in this country.
Sarah: We’re talking there about looking at some other measures that might lure people into the job. Obviously, it’s very tricky starting off as an apprentice, for the reasons we’ve just explained, but once you become a tradie, the pay is pretty good, to be fair. What is it outside pay then that would encourage more people to join the industry?
Denita: Well, I think the big issue has been for decades in this country, we’ve treated our tradies, bit like second class citizens. You know this push that everyone must go to university as your priority preference when you finish school is something that has been established into the psyche of Australian culture for a long period of time. And you know when you really stack it up and you say, I do an apprenticeship in an industry where there is massive long term career opportunities, and as you say, great salary. Do I want to finish training with money in my bank and no debt, or go to university with potentially a lower salary and a massive debt? And I think that’s the conversation that parents have to have with their children. Or if people are thinking about changing careers, going here is an opportunity to train with a huge array of the upfront costs gone, and there’ll be no debt hanging around my head. So I really encourage people to take a long hard think, and we’re very excited that we’ll soon be shortly publishing a guide of every single job in the industry and what it takes to consider those jobs.
Sarah: I often think so many of the jobs that university graduates are doing may be taken over by AI, but you know, AI can’t unblock the loo, can it? If you’re a plumber, there seems to be a good future for you there.
Denita: That’s absolutely right. There’s a great building in London that says AI didn’t build this, and I think that’s a really interesting thing. What do our careers of the future look like? And we know that building and construction, will be here to stay, and that there is massive opportunities now, but more importantly, massive opportunities in the future. And so this $10,000 it’s fantastic, but the industry itself needs to work hard in terms of attracting and retaining people. And we need help by government to ensure that we have the right opportunity for people to enter, because the future is bright.
Sarah: This is not just about this $10,000 bonus about winning tradie votes, although I’m sure that plays a big part of it for Prime Minister Albanese. But he does need to get more people in the country, skills to be build these houses that we do need. And on that note, do we need to start thinking about bringing in more skilled migrants to help us build all these houses which are built, rather than just depending on the local force?
Denita: Absolutely, we know from our data that we can’t rely on existing skilled people in the country. We need skilled migration. The government has made a series of announcements around their new migration system. We’ve been disappointed in some aspects of that, of not fast tracking skilled building construction workers. When you look at the international marketplace, our competitors, such as the UK and Canada and New Zealand all have a fast tracked, focused tradie visa and as such, we’re at a disadvantage in terms of that competition. So we continue to have constructive dialogue with the government. Equally, we have made the issue around skilled migration as part of our workforce ask for the election, a key priority. But of course, we need a good economy, and at the moment, we’re seeing a decline in private investment in building and construction, particularly for high end departments and also medium sized dwellings, because the money just does not stack up. We can’t get returns. So our ask about the election is not just about skilled migration, but it’s making sure our economic settings are actually conducive to investment.
Sarah: Great to chat to you this morning, Denita, as always, thanks for your time.
Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au