Interview - Stan Shaw, ABC South West WA

STAN SHAW, HOST: The Prime Minister and his Labor Ministers are in Bunbury today for a Cabinet meeting, including the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, who joins me.

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Good morning, Stan. Great to be chatting with you.

SHAW: Welcome to Bunbury. You've picked a ripper of a day, a top of 30, so enjoy that.

GILES: Well, I'm looking forward to it. I did hear earlier you were suggesting that we should put our shorts on, but my office have said that that's not something that I should consider with a view to, sort of, maintaining community harmony in the South West, so I'm sorry to disappoint you.

SHAW: Fair enough. Bring back suit shorts, I reckon. Now, before we get into why you are here, something very relevant to your current portfolio and your previous portfolio as Immigration Minister is the debate about immigration numbers and getting the balance right in a time when we don't have enough houses but we have a skills shortage. One Nation wants to cap the numbers at 130,000 a year, including foreign students, and the Coalition says they will reduce migration numbers if they were in government. Is it time the Labor Party rolled back the numbers, you think, Andrew Giles?

GILES: We are, Stan. We've brought back the NOM, the Net Overseas Migration numbers, down by 40 per cent. And that followed an obvious boom after COVID when the borders had been shut and when Australians needed to connect, and of course, we needed to get those skilled workers back. But we've put in place, through the Migration Strategy led principally by my colleague Clare O'Neil, a plan that deals with a couple of things that were going on in our migration system under the former government, which really led to big lapses in integrity, a preference on temporary migration instead of skilling Australians, and no real plan for this really important area of public policy. So we are turning it around and it is seeing results. In particular, I'm pleased that we're seeing three times as many construction visas being granted. We're seeing us get the nurses that we need to staff our hospitals. So we are making a real difference and getting those numbers down.

SHAW: I'm just looking at ABS stats. So in the last three years under your government, 1.3 million people, that's a lot of houses. And we get the sense that we're playing catch up now because of those numbers in the last few years.

GILES: I'd make the point here if you go back to the budget forecast under the former government the numbers would have been much bigger. What we saw was a big catch up after COVID with the borders having been shut. Now we're bringing the numbers down, down 40 per cent as I said earlier, and we're getting the focus right, instead of an unregulated approach to temporary migration, looking at better targeting migration, particularly here in the West, so that we can make sure that we're getting the migration program delivering skills we want and working in conjunction with our domestic skilling agenda, which is something that didn't happen for the decade while the Liberal Nationals were in power.

SHAW: 40 per cent reduction. What numbers would that mean for 25-26 in your estimate?

GILES: We're getting those numbers down to the sort of NOM numbers that we have been talking about for some time, to the overall average. So again, there's a lag here, but we want to get those numbers down to something like the long-run average. And that's why our focus has been on making sure that we've got a preference for the pathways to permanency which deals with a lot of the issues that we've had. We've set that number at 185,000 this year and we think that is the way to go about reshaping the system so that it's working for Australians and in conjunction with our domestic skilling and training system. What we're seeing on the other hand is from the Opposition they're really having a conversation with themselves. They're looking for slogans, not plans. We still don't know anything about their approach. When they made an announcement in the lead up to the last election, they couldn't decide whether their cut was to permanent migration or to net overseas migration. They couldn’t talk about any of the visa categories that they would be cutting. So they weren't really interested in having a serious conversation about getting this system working in our national interest, which is what we're focused on.

SHAW: Andrew Giles my guest, Minister for Skills and Training, Labor Minister, and he and other Ministers and the Prime Minister in Bunbury today for a Cabinet meeting. So 185,000 places, estimate for 25-26. I mean, this is all wrapped up in the same thing, but you've been offering Free TAFE since, we're talking about skills shortages here, you've been offering Free TAFE since 2023. In particular courses, you've been offering $10,000 incentives for new apprentices who want to study housing construction and clean energy. Is it working and how do you know?

GILES: Well, there's a range of ways. The short answer is yes, it is working and the data is telling us that. I can say that as of now, the most recent data tells us that 111,000 Western Australians have enrolled in Free TAFE and of those more than 21,000 in regional WA. So we're opening up opportunities to people who were shut out for them and it's not just to do any course, because the Free TAFE list that we've agreed with the Cook Government here in WA is all about courses where we need work done, particularly in the care sector, in technology and areas like construction. You touched on our incentive scheme for apprentices in housing and energy and I'm really excited about this. The housing scheme, we only opened that up on 1 July and there have been 867 apprenticeship commencements in WA since then. So getting people on the tools as carpenters, plumbers, electricians and glaziers. This has built on what's been a really successful incentive scheme in the new energy workforce, which has seen, I think, around 14,000 commencements, and we're seeing really good signs of retention there because the $10,000 isn't paid up front. It's in five lots of $2,000, recognising those cost of living pressures that apprentices face. So this is about making sure that we're doing absolutely everything to bridge those skills gaps that have been holding Australia back.

SHAW: A couple of points here. I'll go to Rachel. She says, ‘please ask the Minister what the plan is to get these skilled workers that are immigrating into their skilled areas, because I've met lots of skilled migrants who can't get the jobs in their skilled areas and do manual jobs.’ And on that, for example, Minister, you need a whole army of electricians online if you roll out full-time renewables in the next couple of decades. You need a lot of electricians. But they are getting trained up. They're finishing their apprenticeship. And then they're chuffing off north to the mines for the money and the shortage remains. In fact, the mines take many of these trades that are trained up. How do you address that? How do you keep them in those jobs we actually need down here?

GILES: That is a really good question, something that occupies a lot of my thinking. Obviously, in the national government, we're not about telling people who they should work for, but we are about trying to better line up people's interests to people's skills and where their opportunity is. That's why, for example, this particular program is targeted at skills that are going to be used in residential housing construction. You also touched on the issue of migrant skills recognition. That's a really important piece that's been neglected for too long, that we've been working on since coming into government three years ago. I guess there's two ways we talk about it. Some people come here with a recognised skill. That's a common pathway. But often people might come perhaps as the partner of another migrant, or come here through another pathway and have issues with working at the level that they would like to and where we need it. It's about getting that balance right between making sure that Australian standards are maintained but also not shutting the door on people being able to fill their potential.

SHAW: We've got to leave it there. Enjoy Bunbury, thanks for your time.

GILES: Shall do, great to chat Stan.