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Event: Interview with David Bevan, ABC Radio Adelaide
Date: 08 August 2024, 9.20am AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Skilled Migrants; labour shortages.
E&OE
David Bevan, ABC Radio Adelaide: Denita Wawn joins us now, she’s the CEO of the master builders, the National CEO, Good morning, Denita Wawn. Good morning, Denita?
Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Sorry about that. Good morning.
David: Thank you for joining us. I have a statement in front of me from the Master Builders, which says the industry, that’s the building industry, needs an extra 500,000 extra people over the next few years. Is that a typo?
Denita: No, I’m sorry, it’s not. We currently employ about 1.3 million, and when we look at the work that is going to be required over the next five years, with the departures from the industry, plus increase work across infrastructure, commercial building and residential, that is the number we need and that also of course is exacerbated when you look at things like electrification and so forth. So, it’s a huge number, a great opportunity for those wanting to look at working in the industry, but very hard for us to achieve.
David: And when you say electrification, you mean the extra workers that will need to build the infrastructure for the renewable energy that’s planned over the next few years. So that’s on the agenda, as well as building roads and hospitals and homes for people to live in.
Denita: That’s correct. And even just the simple things of converting gas to electrical in many states that have already started that process. That in itself is also a challenge over and above the building and renovations that we’re, we’re forecasting for the next five years. We’ve got to realize that we’ve had we had a huge housing boom in the 1980s and those houses now are either getting knocked down or significantly renovated, which again is, adds to the strain on the sector.
David: Denita Wawn, the first thing these half a million people will need to do is build their own homes.
Denita: Yeah, that’s the chicken and egg, catch 22 situation we’ve got. We have people desperate for homes, and equally we need more people in the country to build them. So that is the reason why we’ve also got to look at ensuring that people can be in the homes they want to be that we’re using homes that are currently not utilized. There’s a large number of vacant properties around the country. So, there are other measures we need to address in housing, over and above focusing on the supply of new homes.
David: But this isn’t going to happen. We just spent the last 15 minutes talking about how the federal government is cutting the number of overseas students. Now these are people who are going to come here, most of which would go back to their country of origin when they finish their degrees, some won’t, but a lot will, and the government is cutting that back because of an immigration debate which has got away from it that can you in what universe will the federal government allow an extra 500,000 people into the country to build stuff?
Denita: Well, we hope that that 500,000 many of them will be Australians here already in the country. Or those on different visa classes that would like to stay in the country. But also, we think at least 100,000 of those eventually would also have to be migrants when you consider the 25% of the current construction workforce are migrants. So, we’ve got to look at how we encourage more people into the industry from Australia. We need more apprentices, we need more apprentices completing their apprenticeship, we need to actually encourage the 100% of the workforce, and that is getting more women into the industry, rather than just the men. And then of course migration is also a component of that as well. If there are going to be restrictions on migration, we say not at the expense of those skills in critical need.
David: In fact, you’re asking for the federal government, over the next few months to, what, construct some sort of visa pathway for these people that’s better than the one we’ve got right now?
Denita: That’s right. The current visa system is cumbersome, it’s costly and it’s time consuming. And when we look at our competitors in this area, which is Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, they all have specialist tradie visas skills class. So, we say that we, when we’re competing in an international market, need to replicate what is happening with our biggest competitors when it comes to trade skills people.
David: One listener suggests that we should put some sort of restriction on where these people can be used. So instead of building high rises in the city, if you import somebody in on a work visa, they can only be used to build homes, because that’s, we need to house people, we need houses for people more than we need office blocks. Is that sort of detail, that sort of nuance possible. Would it even be desirable?
Denita: It’s difficult. Well, the simplistic thing is that at the moment, the large amount of high rises being developed, at the moment, are in residential. Simply because we know the demand is there. There is some still office building going on, but the reality is, the more workers we have, the more buildings we can put up and investment will only occur in building if there is demand for what has been built. And at the moment that is very much in high rise residential, as well as homes throughout our suburbs and then our towns and our cities. So, we need housing at all different types and therefore we need people that are working on large, commercial, vertical residential apartments right through to our houses and our townhouses in the suburbs as well.
David: And Denita Wawn, just before you leave is to be quite clear about these stats, you say we need an extra 500,000 people in the building sector over the next few years. What does the next few years mean?
Denita: Well, the next few years we say is around about the next five years.
David: Five years!? Well, you’re not gonna get, you’re not gonna get half a million apprentices in five years, are you?
Denita: Well, no, I think the Build Skills Australia, which is the agency that looks specifically at these issues, the other day quoted 90,000 tradies extra in 90 days. So, we can start building those 1.2 million homes that the governments around the country have committed to over a five-year period, and we certainly didn’t hit that target before one July. So, we’re already behind, but I think what the reality is, that this is an opportunity for people to go “let’s give building construction a go, there’s massive demand now and into the future.” And maybe, with all due respect to the university guys that were on before me, maybe looking at a trade qualification as opposed to a university qualification is a good career move.
David:Denita Wawn, thanks very much for your time.
Denita: Pleasure. Thank you.
David: For the Master Builders Association, she’s their national CEO.
Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au