Doorstop Interview - Wagga Wagga

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: It's absolutely fantastic to be here in Wagga Wagga today, and on a beautiful spring day with Michael McCormack, the local member, and two incredible young women who are really the heart and soul of why I am here today as the Minister for Skills and Training in the Albanese Government.

So, I'm going to say a few things but I think we're going to hear much more from Mackenna and Morgan, two young women blazing their own trail in careers that are really, really important in this region and in our economy, that for too long, have been dominated by men to the exclusion of women. So, their stories are really important for them, but they're important for how our economy functions and how we can make sure, on the one hand, that every job is open to every member of our community, and that we can build a way in which we can close down those skills gaps that are holding communities back, particularly regional communities like here in the Riverina Murray.

So, today, we're celebrating Rise and Build. This is one of the partnerships that funded under the Albanese Government's Building Women's Careers Project, a critical element of building our Future Made in Australia agenda. This will deliver, through a million dollars, a partnership, Rise and Build, that will transform the way in which male-dominated careers right here in this region [indistinct].

It's about building training blocks, it's about mentoring, it's about listening attentively so that we understand all of the reasons why women, young women, haven't been able to find a pathway for themselves in construction, in clean energy, in manufacturing and technology. It's about bridging those gaps. It’s about listening attentively to experiences.

I'm really proud of the fact that 12 groups have come together, training organisations, businesses and others, to make sure that we can do a bit better here in Wagga Wagga and a bit better right around the country, so that more women can see themselves in the places that Morgan and Mackenna are in now, and build wonderful careers in our beautiful country.

So, I might hand over to whoever wants to go first. Okay, Mackenna, third-year apprentice and a really amazing story. So over to you, Mackenna.

MACKENNA LANGE, APPRENTICE: My name is Mackenna Lange. I'm a third-year metal fabrication apprentice. I work at Abundant Welding and Hydraulics here in Wagga. I started my apprenticeship because school just wasn't for me. I dropped out the end of Year 11, so I went straight into the trades. I did a very similar program like this. It was Girls Can Too, so we went to TAFE, we tried all the trades. I fell in love with welding and I can't say I've ever looked back. I've always been on the tools, always been helping my father growing up, and just, I fell in love with it.

JOURNALIST: We heard from people like Morgan inside and the other panelists that some of the challenges that they face. What are some of the challenges that you face?

LANGE: Yes, there's lots of challenges. You're walking into a very male-dominant world. There will always be a stigma. We are trying very hard to reduce it that it's a male world. But programs like this make it possible to retract that statement and just step forward. It's really nice to see all these programs on offer.

JOURNALIST: When you say you fell in love with welding, what do you love most about that industry?

LANGE: Personally, I love seeing a finished product. I'll see things out on the road all the time that, or you'll drive past a house and you get to actually say ‘I built that. It's up because I had a part in it.’ It's just one of those feelings you can't actually get anywhere else until you build your first thing and you fall in love with it.

JOURNALIST: Obviously, you’ve been very experienced and you're kind of in that more leadership position now. What have you found the most, we heard a bit about the challenges, but can you expand into those and the biggest rewards for you as well?

MORGAN PARRIS, APPRENTICE: Yeah, sure. One of the biggest challenges that maybe I didn't say in there, was actually around the work wear for women. So I almost didn't take one of the best opportunities in my working career because I couldn't find a proper pair of work wear pants that could fit me properly. That in itself is just crazy. I wear unisex overalls now because they're the best of the worst for me. So yes, that is something that is sort of evolving, getting better with time. In terms of other challenges or barriers, the stigma is changing and when I think that the more women that get into these industries, the more it disproves the stigma that women can't physically do these roles. Because we're great at these roles. You know, physically we're not the same as a man so we have to think and do things differently. So sometimes we have to work smarter, which is fabulous, you know, because that gives a different outcome to companies. It sometimes shows a different safety standard; sometimes it shows, you know, different methodologies. So I think the more women that get into these roles, the better it's going to be.

JOURNALIST: Inside, you mentioned about changing the perception more so than the stigma, and your role in changing that perception of how women in the workforce is viewed. How has that changed from the time that you started to now? And how important is the initiatives from this, from the Federal Government to making sure that perception keeps changing [indistinct].

PARRIS: So one of the biggest perceptions that I encountered when I first started was, guys would say to me, ‘oh, I've never worked with a woman before, women don't want to do these roles.’ And I would sort of say, ‘well, that's not true. We just don't know about these roles.’ We haven't had that exposure to have the choice to choose to go into these industries. And that perception was that women maybe can't do these roles because they've never seen a woman do it before, which is why I feel incredibly honoured to be able to be here and to take part in this. Because I don't know how many people would have ever seen a female transmission line worker, and maybe there's somebody out there who this is the right pathway for them and they might look into it after this. It's incredibly important. Without this I don't believe that this is going to move forward as a societal issue, the solution to this issue is not going to move forward either.

JOURNALIST: Thank you. Michael, do you mind if I just ask a quick question? We heard from the Minister about how particularly regional areas are held back by the current status quo. How so? How has places like the River been held back by what we're looking at now?

MICHAEL McCORMACK, MEMBER FOR RIVERINA: Well, there's lots of factors. There's the tyranny of distance. There's any number of factors. It's always harder to achieve the sorts of things that you'd like to in regional Australia, other than a capital city where there's so many more resources. But what I do want to compliment the Government on, and Minister Andrew Giles, is the fact that they are identifying that there needs to be solutions found in manufacturing and construction. And particularly those two, because we need more houses built, we absolutely do, and we need more manufacturing factories.

And regional Australia can provide the answers to those problems that identify certainly in finding the number of employees. Morgan and Mackenna are breaking the mould. And what we want to see, is that phrase about the glass ceiling ended and not even used. We heard so often today about women being the first in this job or the first in that role. But women have a place in the boardroom and on the worksite, and they're showing that.

This program is going to provide a million dollars’ worth of support for, not just Wagga Wagga, but indeed the wider Riverina Murray region. And this has been a region where so many people have been able to be trained over the years. You go to the veterinary course at Charles Sturt University, almost every one of those students is a female. You go to the pilot academy which was out of the airport, but hopefully we'll get it back, so many of those people training to be pilots were women. And you go to the Army or the Air Force base and there are so many women in those jobs which were once dominated by males.

So, there's good programs, obviously, being offered by the Government. I appreciate that, but certainly in the construction and manufacturing phase it's so important. And the Government's identified this, they've identified the gaps and now that they've been doing something to fill that, I’m very pleased about that.

ENDS