Interview with Thomas Oriti, ABC Sydney Drive Radio

Event: Interview with Thomas Oriti, ABC Sydney Drive Radio

Date: 17 September 2026, 4.05pm AEST
Speakers: Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO

Topics: Skilled migration, workforce shortages, Tony Burke MP’s National Press Club

E&OE

Thomas Oriti, ABC Sydney Drive Radio host: There’s a lot of reaction this afternoon to the Government’s migration plan announced by Tony Burke earlier today and one group welcoming the plan is the Master Builders Association. The Minister announced earlier that construction must be prioritised when it comes to skilled migrant visa applications. So, we thought we’d catch up with the builders this afternoon. Denita Wawn is the CEO of the Master Builders Association, who is here. Good afternoon.

Denita Wawn, Master Builders Australia CEO: Good afternoon.

Host: Have you been pushing for this?

Denita: We have, relentlessly, for a long period of time. We know that immediately now we need 140,000 odd extra workers in the building and construction industry to undertake the work that we need to do, including building more homes, and skilled migration is part of that solution. We had to see a greater prioritisation of building and construction skilled migration in this country.

Host: Okay, can you give us an insight into where workers in construction are prioritised at the moment in the system to give us a sense of how things are going to change?

Denita: Yes, they have been given sort of halfway house priority status in the past. They’ve now been given number one priority amongst another four or five key industries when it comes to temporary skilled migration, including things such as childcare, health, and law enforcement. We say that is a critical part of the solution, but also, importantly, the government has allocated trade qualifications in construction to have the same number of points as university qualifications, and that again is recognising that we should not be looking at skills purely from a university sector prism, but also from the desperately needed trades we need in this country. So, those two things are a critical prioritisation of construction that has been desperately needed.

Host: Yeah, on that. So the desperately needed trades. Let’s break that down a bit Denita Wawn, because the Government says anyone with a housing trade qualification will be treated the same as anyone with a university degree when it comes to a skilled worker visa. So, once this comes in, breaking it down, who do we need most? Carpenters, bricklayers. Who should be the priority in there? Now, now this is a challenge to give more love to it to one trade over another. And I guess who’s included when we say people with a housing trade qualification?

Denita: Well, you’d be surprised. There’s something like 40 odd trades that work on a house in any one given time, and it’s all of the above. It is carpenters, it is plumbers, it’s electricians, it’s bricklayers, it’s plasterers, it’s tilers, it’s roofers. The list goes on. We simply do not have enough people in Australia to undertake those tasks. So, the skilled priority list in our industry is all inclusive of all those trades that we need to ensure that we’re not only housing Australians, but we’re also making sure that we’re building our roads and our hospitals, and of course in Queensland things like our Olympic stadiums. So, we’ve got a huge amount of building to do, but simply not enough people to do it.

Host: So, is there a particular trade that we need to prioritise amongst those 40?

Denita: No, it is everything. Unfortunately, we know we’re short in all trades. It slightly differs depending on where you are in Australia, but it’s all trades that we need to be focused on, and that is certainly where we will now say to the Government: don’t pick and choose winners. Just make sure you’ve prioritised building and construction trades. Let’s attract as many skilled workers to this country as possible. This to us, should be a bit like what we did with the Snowy Mountains scheme. We need to attract the best in the world. We have been competing with the likes of the UK, Canada, and New Zealand, who have prioritised trades. We are now at least on par with them when we’re trying to attract the best in the world to come to our country.

Host: How do you do that, Denita Wawn? How do you then try to get those skilled workers here? Have you got to launch an awareness campaign in other countries or something like that?

Denita: Well, a lot of people have been attracted to Australia, but the problem is our system has been cumbersome, slow, and costly, and so the decisions by Government today mean that we at least can make things fast-tracked. We’ve now got to make sure, working with Home Affairs, that it is not so costly or cumbersome when it comes to the paperwork. So, more needs to be done, but nevertheless, this is important because the prioritisation given by those other three countries in a highly competitive international market means at least, we are at par with them.

Host: Practically speaking though, all right, you launch some sort of campaign. They come over here. Can they actually afford to live here?

Denita: Well, it’s a chicken and egg situation. We know that to have affordable housing in this country, to whether it is renting or to purchase, we need to build more homes, and we are simply not going to be able to build enough homes with the domestic supply. So, it is going to be an issue. Of course, it is affecting all Australians already when it comes to housing supply. But if you look at some of the other measures that the Government have made around migration, you would hope that that alleviates a little bit of pressure on housing supply. But we will simply not build enough homes to make housing more affordable in this country if we don’t have enough people, and we need skilled migration as part of that solution.

Host: Can you quantify that for me? How many workers do we need in the building industry at the moment to be at that level that we need to be to build the housing that we need?

Denita: We know from our Blueprint released last week that we need 140,000 now, and if we didn’t change any of the policy levers, that was going to increase by an additional 85,000 each and every year. Build Skills Australia has said that we need 120,000 odd for residential building alone. We’re not going to necessarily see all of those numbers in skilled migration, but if we can take away between skilled migration, getting more people into apprenticeships, and getting more people to return back into the building and construction industry, then we will start seeing a decline in those shortages that we’re currently experiencing. Those shortages are part of the reason why construction has increased in cost by over 50 per cent. in the last five years.

Host: Okay, Denita, we appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much.

Denita: Thank you,

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

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