Interview with Cheng Lei, News 24

Event: Interview with Cheng Lei, News 24

Date: 18 September 2026, 1.20pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: Workforce shortages, building targets, skilled migration

E&OE

Cheng Lei, News 24 host: Well, what will the changes to migration mean to the construction industry already facing skilled labour shortages? Joining me live now is Masters Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn. Welcome to the show, Denita. We did see that there are some carve-outs in the migration plan, making visas easier for workers in construction. To what degree is that going to ease the shortage for skilled tradespeople?

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Thank you. Yes, we certainly saw some benefits to the building and construction industry yesterday. We employ currently about 1.4 million people. Our Blueprint that we released last week shows that we are short around about 140,000 odd workers at this present moment in time, and that will get increasingly worse if we don’t make changes. So, yesterday was a good start. They have now prioritised building and construction skilled migrants, which is something we’ve long called for. But more importantly, they’re also recognising that trades, qualified people in building and construction, get the same points as those with university degrees when it comes to showing your bona fides when it comes to coming to this country. We think that more needs to be done, but nevertheless, this is a good start. We cannot build the houses we need, nor our schools, or roads, or our hospitals, unless we are focused on improving skilled migration as well as increasing domestic labour when it comes to building and construction.

Host: Are you pressing for specific numbers? Because right now, people in construction are likely to get priority processing for their applications, but we don’t have a volume.

Denita: No, we don’t know the volume yet either, and that is something that we’ll need to discuss with the Minister’s office and the Department. We need greater efficiencies and effectiveness by the department in streamlining this. We now have our priority, but that’s just a start. As I said, 140,000 odd workers short at the moment. We’re not going to meet that with the decisions of yesterday alone, and we are also concerned about the changes to the working holiday maker visa. We know we do get skilled people in our sector as a consequence of that visa class so some evidence that we will need to contemplate is how that is working for our industry, not just from a horticulture perspective as well.

Host: Is that going to hurt the regions in particular?

Denita: Well, that’s what we’re concerned about. We understand with the working holiday maker visa, you can get your extension for a second year. That’s historically been the case by working in the regions, and our shortages are not just in the capital cities; they are across the country, both city and regional areas. So, that is an issue that we’ll keep a close eye on. But the focus at the moment is: we’ve now got this priority status when it comes to skilled migration. How are we going to use it as effectively as possible to meet the shortages that we have, and we’ve got additional ideas that we want to put to Government. We’ve been pushing hard for the Pacific Island Workers Scheme to be extended to building and construction, and we also think that the international student visa should be extended to apprenticeships, not just university qualified. The Government needs to be focused on where are the key shortages in our economy, and focusing on migration as solutions to those skill shortages, as opposed to looking at other types of visa classes.

Host: Another issue is that we’ve got some 18,000 migrants in Australia already, who are qualified, but they’re working under their skill levels. Are we going to see an easing of the recognition and licensing bottlenecks?

Denita: Absolutely, really good call out in that regard. 18,000 odd people underutilised currently in the country. We have a quagmire of problems when it comes to licensing in this country. The cost of getting your skills recognised and also doing gap training is around about $15,000 to $20,000 and can take up to 18 months to get recognised. We think that there is a recognition and a need for the Federal Government and State Governments to actually assist those 18,000 odd workers to streamline the process and help them financially, so we can get them working in the area that they are qualified to do so.

Host: What do you make of the deeper cuts to migration from the Coalition and especially One Nation, what’s that going to do to trying to meet our housing target?

Denita: We understand that there is political stress in the community at the moment about housing affordability and what migration is doing to housing affordability. From a building and construction industry perspective, we know that the reason why we don’t have affordable housing in this country is not due to migration numbers. It’s got to do with a range of highly costly supply impacts that have meant we have not been building enough homes to meet the population demands of our country for nearly 40 years. We will not resolve housing affordability until we turbocharge supply, and for that we need more workers, both Australians and skilled migrants. We need to reduce the costs of doing business for the building and construction industry. We need more build-ready land, and we also need fit-for-purpose regulation, and we need state and territory governments to actually speed up approval processes and building approval processes. That is what is going to make building and our houses, in particular, more affordable in this country. The issue around migration is really a small component of the strain in the system. We need to resolve the supply, and to do that, we need skilled migration.

Host: Thank you so much for your insights, Denita Wawn, CEO of Masters Builders Australia.

Media contact: Dylan Hafey, Adviser, Media & Government Relations

0497 330 064 |  dylan.hafey@masterbuilders.com.au