Interview with Kieran Gilbert, News 24

Event: Interview with Kieran Gilbert, News 24

Date: 6 October 2026, 1.30pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: Coalition’s migration policy, ATO credit card ban, Government decisions impacting small business.

E&OE

Kieran Gilbert, News 24 host: I want to get some more reaction now to the Coalition’s migration policy. With me is Master Builders Australia CEO Denita Wawn, thanks for your time. The spokesperson John Duniam saying that they are going to prioritise skilled visas in construction specifically.  That’s good news to you. Are you worried though about some of the requirements where someone might be in training, they go offshore, they have to go offshore to get a different visa. Is that a problem?

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Well, first and foremost, great that they’re focusing on skilled migration and particularly on building and construction. We have been calling for a long period of time for the migration settings to be far more focused on skilled migration, particularly in the trades for building and construction. Of course, there’ll be some practical issues there around how best do we engage people on the ground as quickly as possible. To put this into perspective, we employ about 1.4 million people in our industry, but we are about 140,000 odd people short today, and we know that’s going to increase by about 85,000 each and every year, if we don’t change our policy.

Host: Would you like a carveout completely of some of these requirements? Like John Duniam confirmed to me that even if you’ve got a sponsored visa, one of your members sponsor someone, they’ve still got to go offshore to get that visa.

Denita: It seems crazy doesn’t it to think that people would need to go offshore. We appreciate the concern around visa hopping, but I would have thought where you’ve got priority issues and priority industries, and you want to get projects and houses built as quickly as possible, you would not delay that. So, we will be talking to the Coalition about how we can streamline this and make it as quick and easy as possible for people wanting to stay in this country and focus on the skills that we need.

Host: Because one of the fundamental things underpinning this whole argument is housing?

Denita: That’s right.

Host: And who provides that housing?

Denita: Well, we know that we’ve got not only houses to build, but schools, hospitals, roads…

Host: Data centres.

Denita: Data centres, Olympic stadiums, you name it, we need to build it, and we need more people. So, let’s make sure that we get the right people at the right time. We are a little concerned about the significant cut in temporary workers. We rely a lot on unskilled labour as well, including international students…

Host: With labour hire?

Denita: …with labour hire, with people working up to their 20-hour max, so we are going to look at that a bit further, just to see whether or not that’s going to have a detrimental impact on the industry when it comes to unskilled workers.

Host: I spoke to one of your members yesterday, Tarrsha Watkins from Protek, a building company in WA. She was just ropeable at some of the decisions, including this most recent one, where the ATO has blocked small business, construction businesses as well, from using credit cards to pay their bills. She says it’s a cash flow tool, management tool. It sounds like in some respects, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Denita: It’s quite incredulous. And I look at my 30 years working in this place at Parliament House, of the lack of practical understanding of the impact of decisions being made by this Government. If we look at the ATO decision, if we look at the decision on changing trusts with a retrospective application that could cost a small business up to $150,000, if we look at the changes in capital gains tax, there is industrial relations changes, there’s modern slavery changes. The list goes on. Who would want to be a small business operator in this country at the moment. We want to get on with the job of building, but every builder I talk to at the moment says we are getting slammed with administration, and it’s getting worse and worse. And that is part of the reason why construction has gone up so high, because of this ongoing compounding regulatory burden and changing the rules of engagement all the time.

Host: And being told, I mean, separate to the fact that it seems like an unfair and double standard, really,that the ATO has whacked this on small business. But to give them two months to say you’ve got to change your whole approach with a month before Christmas is sort of, that it’s not only unfair, it’s cruel.

Denita: It just does not make sense for these decisions to be made without consultation, but more importantly, a lack of total understanding of what decisions and the impact it has on small businesses. Work through the practicalities of what that means in a business, and there’s got to be a reality wake-up call in Canberra.

Host: So, you think they’re making some of these, the cumulative effect, some of these policies, or a lot of them, are just made in a vacuum, almost?

Denita: They are made in vacuum. They do not consult. Suggests that perhaps the ministers and some of the bureaucrats need to start getting out and talking to small business operators and really understanding the impact these decisions are making on their business.

Host: Master Builders CEO Denita Wawn, thank you as always. Appreciate you making the time.

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

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