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Event: Interview with Mike Jeffreys, 2GB Wake Up Australia
Date: 26 February 2025, 4:20am AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Construct Your Career; skills shortages
E&OE
Mike Jeffreys, host 2GB Wake Up Australia: Master Builders of Australia is proud to announce the launch of Construct Your Career. They describe it as the ultimate guide to jobs in building and construction. To explain it to us, CEO of the Master Builders Australia, Denita Wawn. Morning Denita, thanks for doing this.
Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Pleasure.
Mike: So what’s the aim here? Just to encourage more young people to go into building? More people generally? What are you hoping to achieve?
Denita: I think it became really obvious to us that there wasn’t a one-stop shop of information, not only about what the careers entail, but actually what really happens. And the great thing about this career guide is it looks not only about the jobs, but also case studies about people undertaking those jobs, what has really happened at the job site, what type of things to expect, and it also gives you some really handy hints about the type of career pathways you can choose, whether it’s a school based apprenticeship, apprenticeship through university, direct entry and so forth. So we’ve made it really user friendly, focused at students, but it’s really there for anyone, whether it’s someone changing careers, whether it’s a parent, careers advisor, and, of course, students as well. So it’s free, available for anyone who’s interested in looking at it.
Mike: So do you have to overcome a presumption that working in the building industry is not so much a career, it’s just mainly labouring?
Denita: Yeah, that’s right. Mike, unfortunately, people really underestimate the job opportunities and the breadth of job opportunities in building and construction. We’re one of the largest employers in Australia, where we employ more apprentices than anyone else, more trades people than anyone else. And so we wanted to give a really good overview about the plethora of jobs available in the sector, the multitude of pathways you can choose once you get into the industry. And of course, we have this issue at the moment that we’re still, people, particularly if you’re looking at a trade career in the industry, people look at it as a bit of a second class citizen approach to a career as opposed to university. And we say that is a fundamentally flawed approach to take, and that there are huge opportunities if you want to pursue a trade as opposed to a university qualification.
Mike: How much of that attitude comes from parents?
Denita: Yeah, unfortunately, it comes from parents who have grown up in the era where university was seen as the be all and end all. Yet, when you look at the opportunities now, many of our jobs in the country, and where you have the greatest career prospects, the largest amount of opportunities, from a financial point of view, and are very much in trades, and certainly from our perspective, to get paid to train, as opposed to incurring a massive HECS debt, and still have a huge opportunity for a significant sum of money once you are fully qualified, is something that we totally underestimate in this country, and so the career guide provides an opportunity to actually understand the breadth of those opportunities and equally, what skill shortages there are, which there are many in our sector, where we are very short of people to continue to build for Australia.
Mike: That’s an interesting point you make about the HECS debt. Some of the young people I talk to, particularly young males, see it as a bit hopeless, particularly in the big cities. They think the only way they’re ever going to own a house is if they win the lottery. The sort of money that’s available in the master builders section, is that enough to buy your way into a house in the city?
Denita: Well, certainly we know that tradespeople, qualified trades people, are earning significant sums of money, well in excess of $130,000 – $140,000 a year. You hear of some tradies are earning in excess of $200,000. But the other important thing is we also know that if you’ve got a significant HECS debt, it also hampers your ability to maximise your borrowing as a first home owner. And so where you talk to an apprentice, for example, who may have started through a school-based apprenticeship, started at 16, they’ve completed their trade by the time they’re 21. They come out of it sometimes anywhere between $250,000 to $350,000 better off than their university counterparts by the fact that they have been paid to train, that they have had the opportunity to work in their trade of choice, full time during school holidays, that they have an increase in their pay each year, and of course, they don’t have that debt. And so we find generally that there is a greater level of capacity to pay with people that have completed a trade and than people that have started university. So that is certainly something that we think is seriously needed to be considered. But this is more than just about debt. This is about what is the future of your career and pathway, and we say that building and construction gives you huge opportunities, as opposed to, say, a job in front of a computer that is under threat by, for example, AI. So they’re some of the issues that we’re trying to address at the moment.
Mike: Yeah, that’s good point. AI can’t build a house. Got it.
Denita: No, it can’t. It might be able to design a house one day, but it certainly can’t build it, and that is certainly something that we are conscious of, that we’ve got that longevity of a career where many careers, at the moment, really are under threat about what AI is, and people being concerned about what AI is going to do to their careers. Where building and construction, I think we’re far from that eventuality. And as such, there is a level of comfort to know that there is always a need to build communities for Australians, whether it’s a home, whether it’s a school, whether it’s a road. We always need that. And as such, there will always be a demand for people with those qualifications.
Mike: So Denita, it’s not necessarily all about upper body strength. What are the opportunities for women?
Denita: Absolutely, I think it’s really disappointing as a female leader in this industry, that we still see way few women in the sector. It’s sitting at around about 15 per cent but more alarming, only 4 per cent of our trade qualified people are women. You know, gone are the days where you’ve got to have that physical brute strength in our sector. Work, health and safety laws require that, regardless of who you are, you’ve got to be careful in how you’re dealing with heights, with weights and so forth. We see this as a huge opportunity for women. We’ve been running the Women Building Australia program for a long time to encourage more women. We think there are huge opportunities for women. We’re a highly paid sector, and also importantly that we have a huge array of people that are self employed in our sector. Most self employed people in the country actually work in our sector. And we know that women want great flexibility in their career choices, particularly in the longer term. So you know, there’s some huge opportunities for women. We don’t fully embrace women as a sector. We’ve got some heavy lifting to do as an industry to make them feel welcome, but equally, we also need to encourage them to seriously look at it.
Mike: So Denita, anybody listening to us thinking they might like to explore further at their own speed? Where should they go?
Denita: Thank you, Mike. Master Builders Australia website, there is a link there to Construct Your Career. We strongly encourage people that are interested at all to have a look at it, become more familiar with what the opportunities are in the sector, and go from there.
Mike: Thanks, Denita.
Denita: Pleasure, thank you.
Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au