Interview with Steve Austin - ABC Brisbane
STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Andrew Giles is the federal Minister for Skills and Training. Welcome to the studio. Thanks for coming in.
ANDREW GILES MP, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Great to be with you, Steve.
AUSTIN: What’s your most important priority as the minister?
GILES: Well, we’ve got to turn around a skills crisis that was a long time in the making. When we came into government three years ago Australia had a worst skills crisis in 50 years, the second worst across every advanced economy. And this was impacting just about every element of the Australian economy and adding to cost of living pressures. So turning that around is what I’m concerned about, what I wake up to do every day.
AUSTIN: Skills are normally handled by groups like TAFE – Technical And Further Education – here in Queensland, which is a state responsibility. So you are criticising the previous Labor state government.
GILES: No, not at all –
AUSTIN: They were in power for a decade.
GILES: Well, what we didn’t have over that decade was a National Skills Agreement. This is a shared responsibility. Everything we do when it comes to skills is a partnership – a partnership between the national government and all the states. I’m actually catching up with my state counterparts here in Brisbane later on today.
What we didn’t have for the whole period of the former federal government was an agreement. That was something that was signed up by my predecessor, Brendan O’Connor, a couple of years ago, which has enabled us to turn things around, through thing like free TAFE, which have been absolutely instrumental. More than 600,000 enrolments in free TAFE alone. So we are really turning had ship around.
AUSTIN: Has the new state government told you what they want or need for Queensland?
GILES: Well, look, I’ve had a couple of discussions with Minister Bates, and I’ll be catching up with her again this afternoon. We recognise that there are some particular challenges in Queensland. Obviously house building is an issue right around the nation, but the Olympics obviously adds another level to that challenge. And it just renews my determination to make sure that we are doing absolutely everything possible to deliver that pipeline of skilled workers.
AUSTIN: As you know, in today’s Australian Financial Review they’ve quoted analysis that’s looking at Queensland’s skilled worker shortfall and specifically just for building we need 18,500 skilled workers now. How are you going to tackle it?
GILES: Well, there isn’t a silver bullet; it’s about doing a lot of things and recognising this is a long-run challenge that requires concerted effort from all levels of government and industry, too. Over the road there is the World Skills Convention where we’re celebrating the best in trades from right around Australia. And today 8,000 school students will wander past. And that’s going to be a big part of it, because we need to make sure that more people in Australia are attracted to these skilled trades.
In the short term there are a couple of things that I can point to. In the election we announced a really exciting proposal, very much targeting housing construction, to make sure that people who have got skills already that haven’t been formally recognised can have those qualifications recognised so they can play a bigger role. Six thousand more tradies building houses and building other –
AUSTIN: You’re talking about people from overseas?
GILES: No, this is people in Australia.
AUSTIN: In Australia.
GILES: People who are in Australia –
AUSTIN: So they have skills but they’re not recognised? How can that be?
GILES: Well, this might be someone –
AUSTIN: If they’re Australian trained?
GILES: Well it’s the training that’s the issue here, Steve. We’ve got a lot of people who may, for example, have been working as a trades assistant for a long period of time and developed a range of skills but not through a formal pathway. What we’re doing here is making sure through very representable providers like TAFE that we can have someone’s qualifications to do something that’s recognised as a trade – like carpentry, for example – assessed so they can have a quicker pathway than having at a later stage in their life to undertake that four year apprenticeship. So it’s about getting the balance right between the legitimate expectations of the community that we respect the trades – particularly licensed trades like plumbing and electrical – but we also make sure that we’re doing absolutely everything to get people working to their potential more quickly.
AUSTIN: My guest is the federal Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles. He’s here for a range of reasons, particularly the work skills event over the road at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. It’s on today. If you want to go along it’s absolutely free. So if you or your family member, a child, is looking to do a trades apprenticeship or just wants to find out about it, you can go there. It’s a good time to actually get a look at what you can get a handle on.
Minister, I want to ask you specifically about Queensland. Queensland has a unique national problem. Apart from the fact that we’re doing a massive infrastructure build but also we’re now doing the Olympics in 2032, and this has created a – I don’t know what we call it – a concertina or a bottleneck of construction and we have to find the skills to do it otherwise Australia and Queensland is going to be humiliated on a global scale if the Olympics infrastructure is not built. Is the federal government offering or have you been asked for specific help for the Olympics and the skills needed?
GILES: Well, I haven’t had a specific request, but I think we all understand that there is more to be done, that we need to get the pipeline of tradies progressing more quickly. And that, as I said earlier, requires effort at every level. For me it’s about free TAFE, which has been enacted into law earlier this year.
AUSTIN: Sure.
GILES: We put some additional places fully federally funded – 20,000 – targeted solely at the construction skill set because we know there is so much more to be done. We need to make sure that we are building the 1.2 million houses, making sure that we’ve got the opportunities of the net zero transition –
AUSTIN: We’re not building the houses. In fact, the rate of house building is slowing down. The more you talk about it, the more money is thrown at it, the slower it goes.
GILES: Well, we know that we don’t have the workers because we inherited a massive skills shortage.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
GILES: Compounded by decisions like a $3 billion cut to TAFE and training under the former government.
AUSTIN: I accept that, and that’s great. But let me come back to the issue of Queensland. Does the federal government, does the Albanese cabinet, acknowledge that Queensland faces a unique problem because of the 2032 Olympics?
GILES: Well, the Olympics is something that obviously are critically important to Queenslanders, but it’s something the nation cares deeply about, too. It’s an element of national pride connected to this fantastic event being secured right here in Queensland. So we do need to do this. But, as I say, Steve, there isn’t one intervention; it’s about having a considered pathway to make sure that we are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to building this pathway.
AUSTIN: Okay. But does the Albanese government acknowledge that this place has a specific, unique problem because of the Olympics?
GILES: Well, the Olympics are a particular challenge. Now, I’m not going to speak for the Queensland government. I obviously will –
AUSTIN: Well, just speak for the Albanese government.
GILES: No, no, no, but I’m being very careful in saying that.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
GILES: What we need to do as a national government to recognise that everything in this space, again, is a partnership. We’ve got a landmark agreement to deliver a skills pipeline. That involves the commonwealth playing its role and the states each playing their role, recognising that they’re all in different circumstances but that we have a national interest. And there’s so much that we are doing, whether it’s consistent national licensing in electrical that recognises that we just need to build this pipeline more quickly.
AUSTIN: My guest is the Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles. Release me from my ignorance: you’ve called for a split of students between university and vocational training to be 50-50 – in other words, 50 in higher education and 50 per cent in skills and training. I seem to recall that federal Labor used to have an aim of 80 per cent of Australians having higher education by I think it was 2040 or something like that. Is that policy now dead and buried?
GILES: No, not at all.
AUSTIN: Okay.
GILES: I mean, we’ve got the universities accord which has been led by Jason Clare.
AUSTIN: Have I got my figures right?
GILES: No, your figures a pretty close.
AUSTIN: Okay.
GILES: So the universities accord, which recognises that the Jobs and Skills Australia are telling us that 9 in 10 jobs require a post-school qualification of some description.
AUSTIN: Okay.
GILES: What we are seeing is we’re seeing progress on the university side but we just need to pick up a bit more of the progress on the VET side. More apprentices, for example, more people into TAFE. And I think one of the challenges we face – and it’s not just an Australian challenge; we’re seeing it right around the world – is that fewer people are expressing an interest at school-age level in going into some of those traditional trades which are great, secure jobs where people can make a contribution, including building some of those Olympic facilities we’ve been talking about. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so excited about the fact that we’ve got World Skills here in Brisbane, so we can open up a few people’s eyes and maybe a few of their parents’ eyes to the great jobs that can be secured through vocational education.
AUSTIN: Labor has been pretty good at encouraging women to go into construction. Labor’s been pretty good at that, both at a state and federal level. But when I speak to women who consider it or have gone into it, one of the things that turns them off is the blokey if not bullying culture of some of the unions involved in building and construction. In fact, some of them are quite scary, quite frankly. Give me your take on that, Andrew Giles. The Labor movement is closely aligned with the union movement, and some of the culture of the union movement really scares some people and it turns them away from building and construction.
GILES: Yeah, look, I think if we look fairly at the leadership of the trade union movement, the sort of comments, the leadership of Sally McManus and Michele O’Neil and the leadership of our government –
AUSTIN: I’m not talking about Sally McManus, though.
GILES: But we’ve made it very clear that there’s got to be zero tolerance for the sort of behaviours that you’ve referred to. We also recognise that particularly in building and construction there’s a big bit of work to be done. I mean, it seems to me pretty basic that if we’ve got a skills shortage and we’re only looking at the half the potential population, we’re probably not going to get there. And that’s why we’ve committed, for example, $60 million to a Building Women’s Careers project, which is largely focused on construction and related areas. And it’s about understanding all of the barriers that are preventing women – young women and not so young women – from getting into some of these trades and for making sure that their experience is everything that it should be in the workplace.
We know that there is work to be done, but we also know we’ve got to listen the women on the ground, the people who are blazing trails and to work through their experiences and to make sure that at every point we’re making it easier and more reflective of the aspirations of young women and, indeed, of course, some not so young women, too.
AUSTIN: Andrew Giles is my guest. I’ll let you go in just a moment. International students and international skilled people coming in, there’s a crackdown, first of all, on international students coming into universities at the moment. I think it’s 23, 24 hours they can only work in a week. I’ve been speaking particularly in hospitality. They had like – students go to hospitality to earn income, but apparently this suppression or this limit on how much they can work is creating major problems for industry here in Queensland. Can you speak to that at all, Andrew Giles?
GILES: Yeah, look, I can. Just a couple of comments on that. I mean, obviously the critical thing with a student visa is you’re coming here to study.
AUSTIN: Yes, but they need to eat while they’re here.
GILES: Indeed. But obviously anyone who’s come here to study has been able to provide some assurances about their ability to support themselves while they’re here. So we just want to firstly say that a student visa is principally for the purpose of studying, and the integrity of our visa system, as I’m sure you’d agree, is absolutely fundamental.
We also recognise that students often need to work and they make a great contribution, particularly in hospitality. So it’s about getting the balance right between enabling people to make that contribution to our labour market and support themselves without getting in the way of the purpose of the visa.
I also make the point that these limits are really only in term times. So outside of term time they can generally work a little bit more. But it’s about getting the balance right, recognising that they make a great contribution, particularly in hospitality, but we need to make sure that a student visa is a visa to come to study.
AUSTIN: Australia has quite a high level of international migrants coming. In theory, under the skills banner that we need the skills, yet most of the international – hardly any of them work in actual building and construction. I think it’s about 2.5 per cent. Is that correct?
GILES: Yeah, look, it has been a challenge for us and for other comparable countries to attract workers with these skill sets. And there are a few reasons for that. One is about, the obviously English language and other requirements. They’re more likely to be found in perhaps the service sector than in the construction economy. It is something that we have been looking at while, again, making sure that the qualification to work, particularly in licensed trades like plumbing and electrical, that we maintain a clear focus on the standards the Australian community expects.
AUSTIN: It’s not because unions here are saying we’re worried about bringing international skilled people from overseas?
GILES: No, I don’t think that’s a fair reflection at all. It’s about making sure that we are meeting all of the requirements. For someone to obviously have a high level of English is really important for their safety and the safety of their co-workers. And for someone to have the right standards of licensing or other qualifications, again, the Australian community expects that and I think the community is entitled to expect that.
AUSTIN: Thanks for coming in the studio.
GILES: Great to be with you, Steve.
AUSTIN: Minister for Skills and Training, federal minister, Andrew Giles.