Interview with Prue Bentley - ABC Victoria Statewide Drive

PRUE BENTLEY, HOST: Will a $10,000 bonus for apprentices solve the construction workforce shortage? The PM says low training wages and high outlay costs mean fewer apprentices are finishing their trade apprenticeships at a time when we desperately need to build more residential housing. They're pledging a $10,000 sweetener to entice more of them into the sector. So, will it work? Andrew Giles is the Minister for Skills and Training in Australia, and he joined me a short time ago.

Can I start by asking now, is this for existing apprentices or to attract new ones into the system?

MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING ANDREW GILES: The announcement today that the Prime Minister has just made is really about attracting new people into apprenticeships in the housing and construction sector. There's a lot more in the report and that we are doing that will support people who are already learning their trade. But what we're saying today is that there is no better time to pick up the tools and become a tradie, to get $10,000 on top of your wages and help build the homes Australia needs. And there are some particular incentives that we've looked at which go to existing apprentices as well, in terms of dealing with the issue that so many people in the regions experience having to move home to go to where the work is. So, we're upping the Living Away from Home Allowance too, which has remained stagnant for 20 years.

BENTLEY: So, those who maybe started their apprenticeship in the last year, they won't be eligible for this bonus.

GILES: They won't be eligible for this bonus, because what we need to do is to get more tradies, getting the skills that they want to build the houses that we need. For the people who are there now, we've got their back too, in particular in terms of the Living Away from Home Allowance, and more work that we are doing.

BENTLEY: Isn't this just tinkering around the edges of the housing crisis? I mean, your government has pledged to build 1.2 million homes. That is very unlikely in the near term. How is this going to help?

GILES: Well, we are determined to leave absolutely no stone unturned when it comes to dealing with the housing issues that are confronting Australians, but also in recognising that we've inherited a skills crisis. In fact, when we came into government, Australia had the worst skills shortages in 50 years. We have not wasted a minute in dealing with this. And this is another step in ensuring that more Australians get more opportunities to get on with the job of building our houses while earning fantastic skills. And the fantastic thing about the apprenticeship model is, of course, from 1 July, they will be on the ground working as they learn their trade.

BENTLEY: How many do you think you will attract? A similar program aimed at green jobs only attracted just over 2,000 new people. We are being told that we need 90,000 in the construction sector.

GILES: Well, we're very confident that there's real demand out there and you can see that in the extraordinary response to Free TAFE, for example, and the additional construction places that we opened up early are being really jumped at by people right around the country. We think this is a model that will work, and, in fact, it builds on the fantastic work done by our reviewers of the apprenticeship system, who heard from experts and from apprentices and employers right around the country. So, we're very confident that this will be a great incentive and indeed, we've heard that played back to us by a range of stakeholders in the industry today.

BENTLEY: So, you're saying that people who may be considering a career in construction trades or a career, I don't know, computing or teaching, any of those other things, some of these careers are also crying out for workforce participation as well. Are we sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul here?

GILES: No, we're not, because we've got existing incentives that really support people across all of the industries that are priorities for us. Free TAFE programmes are a great means of getting more people into nursing and the care sector and indeed many aspects of construction, the renewables, energy and manufacturing, as well as IT, all of those areas. What we're doing now is saying it really is an imperative for our government to get building the homes and it's also an imperative for us to give more Australians great skills so they can have great careers making a real contribution to building Australia's future. And a great way to do that is, of course, by picking up the tools, becoming a tradie and building homes.

BENTLEY: I'm speaking with Andrew Giles, who is the Minister for Skills and Training in Australia, pledging a $10,000 sweetener to entice more people into construction trades. We have heard, too, from the Civil Contractors Federation, they say that their apprentices should have been included in this, too. They're talking about needing to build the infrastructure around houses, roads, sewage, those sorts of things. Why are they being left out?

GILES: Well, we're very focused on residential housing construction. It's an area of absolute priority for our government because it's something that Australians are talking to us about each and every day. When we go around the wider future of the apprenticeship system and the incentives we have in place, we are committed to ongoing consultation. That's a big part of our response to this very significant and far-reaching review we have here. But today, we are particularly focused on residential housing construction, frankly Prue, because Australians expect us to have a laser-like focus on this challenge.

BENTLEY: Can I turn to another issue today, Minister Giles? We've heard today more than 20 statues of Prime Ministers in Ballarat have been vandalised. Two have had their heads severed and stolen. What's your response to that?

GILES: Look I've seen these reports, and as someone who was just up in Ballarat a few days ago I know how significant the gardens are and how much pride there is associated with the busts, and let me be really clear, there is no place in Australia for that kind of behaviour, no place for anything of that nature. I'm very confident the Victoria police are on the case and will track down the offenders.

BENTLEY: Thank you very much for your time.

GILES: Thanks, Prue. Great to be with you.