Press Conference - Essendon Fields, Melbourne

The new Centre of Excellence in Victoria, encouraging innovation in housing construction, TAFE training programs for upskilling.

LABOR CANDIDATE FOR MARIBYRNONG JO BRISKEY: It’s great to be here in the heart of Maribyrnong at Essendon Field, at this wonderful company, Modscapes, who are doing incredible work in the manufacturing, housing industry. And to be here with Minister Giles and our Victorian comrades, who today join the initiative of State and Federal government on how we build the skills and jobs of the future. So, over to you, Minister.

MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING ANDREW GILES: Thanks very much, Jo, for having us here in an electorate that you are already doing a good job getting out and about. And you'll make a fantastic representative for this seat. It's incredible to be here at this business and in this wonderful facility to make a very significant announcement with my great friend, Minister Gayle Tierney.

What we're seeing here is Australia's largest social housing project right here near the centre of Melbourne, but to support people in Far North Queensland, because for us in the National Skills Agreement, housing supply is a real priority. And today we are putting meat on the bones of that priority by announcing a joint commitment, $50 million, jointly funded by the Albanese and the Allan government here in Victoria, to establish a Centre of Excellence at Melbourne Polytechnic.

This is a Centre of Excellence which will enable us to take advantage of exactly the type of innovation in housing construction that we are seeing right here, right now, to fundamentally transform the production process in this industry so that we can boost productivity and get more people into homes more quickly. Because we understand when we think about the housing needs of Australians now in the future, simply doing things the same way, isn't enough. We need step changes across the board, as my good friend Minister O'Neil is doing each and every day with her state and territory colleagues.

But right here, right now, we're celebrating a great Victorian business by investing in the skills that will support them and others into the future. I'm so pleased to be working with my good friend Gayle Tierney in the Centre of Excellence, which allow us to upskill and reskill workers to ensure that we take every advantage of modern manufacturing methods when it comes to housing construction.

VICTORIAN MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TAFE GAYLE TIERNEY: Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jo. And thank you, Minister Giles. The fact of the matter is that this is a very exciting day for Victoria and indeed for Australia. This Centre of Excellence is absolutely well deserved, but not only that, it is so much needed.

We need a Centre of Excellence in housing so that we can deliver not just a pipeline of skilled workers, but workers who actually have a real career that wants to progress in that career beyond where they are at the moment. This is about cutting edge technology, it's about innovation, it's about having a more efficient and effective centre so that we can ensure that we have got the right skills at a variety of levels. It's about joining up traditional construction skills with innovative new high-end skills. And that's exactly what is needed because we want to lift productivity in the construction sector and we want quicker and faster and quality-driven product that enters the market as soon as possible so that Victorians can actually live in the housing that is required in this state. This is very exciting, it's innovative and it is absolutely what this state needs. And I thank the Federal government for seeing the right fixture here in terms of Victoria, adding their 25 million to our 25 million and coming up with what is going to be a fantastic centre of excellence.

So, students at Melbourne Poly at Heidelberg in particular who are doing theory, but there will be other, also TAFE students that will be coming here to have live experience, do their theory back in the classroom. But there will also be interactions between the staff that are here and Melbourne Polytechnic and the entire Centre for Housing Construction. So, this is actually a game changer in the way that we deliver training, but it is also about making sure that we embed industry in what we do so that we have got a training system, a public provision TAFE system that is fit for purpose and gets on with the job of what we need to do. Thank you.

SIMON CROFT, HIA CHIEF EXECUTIVE: So, I'm Simon Croft, Chief Executive, Industry and Policy at the Housing Industry Association.

The Housing Industry Association welcomes today's announcement. This is an important announcement for industry. The government has set an ambitious target to build 1.2 million homes over the next five years. Business-as-usual solutions isn't going to cut it. The initiative announced today will unlock more innovative forms of construction, modern methods of construction, prefab, modular, potentially 3D homes and train and upskill the industry of the future to build future homes and deliver homes faster, more sustainable and more efficient. It's a really important announcement.

This announcement also will help to unlock our regulatory barriers, our tools that are holding back this form of construction that has an important role in delivery of those much-needed homes.

GILES: I want to acknowledge Modscape for having us here today, talking about what they're doing, their vision for making a big contribution at so many levels, about a workforce that reflects our community. Something we need to make happen in construction as well as in other sectors of the economy. And for thinking about how we can revolutionise delivering the housing supply we need.

We know in Australia we're a long way behind comparable countries when it comes to modern methods of housing construction. What we've seen today speaks to what we can do to bridge that gap and make a difference in the lives of so many Australians right around the country. Possibilities here are close to endless, but they need to be seized by investing in people to do the work, to get the training through, through TAFE, through partnerships with industry and with universities too. So, I want to give a big shout-out to Jan for his vision, his leadership and for having us here today.