Radio interview - Ellen Fanning, ABC Brisbane Drive
ELLEN FANNING, HOST: Now, Queensland will be short on average 19,000 construction workers each year for the next seven years. Get that, 19,000 each year for the next seven years. It'll peak at a shortage of 35,000 in the ’27, ‘28 financial year. So, we're going to have to turn to the girls. There's a thought. And how to keep them in the construction industry is the challenge. Andrew Giles is the Minister for Skills and Training. You're in town today to launch the Male Allies Challenge because you not only need to get women into the trades, you need to keep them in construction. So what's the Male Allies Challenge, Minister?
ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: Well, it's about recognising that we want to see more women in construction and we need them. At the moment, women make up about 12 per cent of the workforce but only three per cent of the trades workforce. We need to think about why this has been the case and make sure that everyone can see themselves doing, well, frankly, any job, but particularly those roles in construction. We know in the past, we've not only struggled to get people in, but women have tended to drop out quite quickly, not through any fault of their own, but because the culture and the structure of the industry hasn't been fit-for-purpose. And that's why, as a government, we've committed $60 million to this Building Women's Careers project. And in this project, we're focusing not on how women are behaving, but how men on site can think about how their actions can make the environment either comfortable or less comfortable for women they're working with.
FANNING: And it's a three-month challenge. Who are the male allies and what do they do over the three months?
GILES: Well, we'd like every man in construction to think about being a male ally. And I heard some really terrific stories at the event I was at Loganlea High School at a construction project there, where the business, ADCO, has really lent into this and got their own goals to make sure that men across every aspect of the business are looking at this training module, which is about, I guess, asking each of us to think about how our behaviours in our workplace impact on others. And I got some really strong feedback from men who had completed the program.
FANNING: What did they say to you?
GILES: Well, it made them think about some of the small ways in which we conduct ourselves, how they might impact on someone who doesn't see the workplace exactly as I do. And to hear them thinking about how we've got to make sure that every one of our workplaces is actually inclusive, I found quite inspiring, and to hear that echoed by some of, particularly the younger women in the room, was really great to hear.
FANNING: Any stories stick in your mind? Any anecdotes stick in your mind?
GILES: We heard a number of in-person contributions, but also on a video. And I think people being challenged to look at their, how we conduct ourselves, not in a way that suggests any guilt, but just thinking about how they had conducted themselves, and particularly being encouraged to have the confidence to stand up now when behaviour doesn't meet appropriate standards when perhaps they might have let something go as a joke.
FANNING: Women make up 13 per cent, as you say, of Australia's building and construction workforce. Sometimes it's as silly and profound as ending up with a urinary tract infection because there's not a suitable toilet to use on site.
GILES: I've had a lot of discussions about toilets in this job, probably more than just about anything else. And I think that's one symptom of a wider cause, making sure that everyone's got appropriate facilities to be comfortable and have dignity in a workplace. There was a shocking story about a young apprentice in Tasmania just a couple of weeks ago who was dealing with exactly this issue about not having appropriate toilet facilities. These are things that should be non-negotiable in 2026.
FANNING: Yeah. Also, the employer is spending money on every apprentice and trainee, whether they complete or not, for the sake of a porta-loo with a W on the side of it. It seems like quite the issue to solve, doesn't it, if we're at that level at this stage with these shortages.
GILES: Well, that's exactly right. And I don't want to suggest that there hasn't been real progress. We are seeing things turn around, and I don't want to suggest to any of your listeners that every workplace is like that. We are seeing real change. But we've got to recognise there's more to go. The progress we're making, the numbers at the moment are about three per cent on trades. I looked at the recent stats, we’re looking at six or seven per cent in terms of apprentices through our current program –
FANNING: Just got to keep them.
GILES: So we are seeing an impact, but we've got to get them in and we've got to keep them, Ellen.
FANNING: Andrew Giles is the Minister for Skills and Training in town today to talk about this online training program – male workers come off the tools to do the course. It's called the Male Allies Challenge. Last week, we spent a lot of time, Minister, talking about a statistic called NEET, which is a terrifying statistic. It's about young people, 15 to 24, not in education, employment or training. So they don't have a job. They're not at school. They're not at uni. They're not at TAFE. They're not working. And that figure in Brisbane is 10.9 per cent of young people. I was absolutely astonished by that number.
At the same time, in the part of the world you were in, I was hearing from employers who were saying, not only are we going to bring in employees from overseas, sometimes we need to have translators on the factory floor in places where workplace health and safety is an issue to ensure that everybody is kept safe. What on earth are the barriers and what can be done about them?
GILES: These are complex and long-running challenges, but you're right to say that it simply shouldn't be acceptable to have that number of young people so disengaged. There's obviously a range of ways in which we're trying to deal with that, principally, obviously, in the school system to prevent it from happening. But things like Free TAFE, for example, have been a real way in which we've opened doors to people that otherwise would have stayed shut. Thinking about also how the Australian Government's programs around adult education can help people who had perhaps disengaged from education at one level and just need that little bit of help, whether it's literacy and numeracy. Increasingly, people who might be comfortable with their traditional literacy but are really struggling with digital literacy requirements of roles. And that employability as well. It's really important to make sure that people have that sense of how it is to be in a workplace, whether it's about safety, whether it's about working with your co-workers. So it's about thinking about all the programs we have that either stop people, ideally in the first place, from disengaging or making that bridge back into formal education, formal training, and ultimately to work much easier and more responsive to local labour markets.
FANNING: I have Andrew Giles, who's the Minister for Skills and Training, with you this afternoon. Any advice for grandparents or parents listening who've got a young person in their lives who's that disengaged, that they're worried about? They're not at school, they're not training or uni, and they don't have a job.
GILES: Yeah, well, look, I probably shouldn't be giving careers advice formally, but I want to say to that grandparent, that carer, that parent, that we are committed to providing pathways. We want to make sure that every Australian has every opportunity to get the skills they want to do the jobs that we need. We've got a really tight labour market now. You talked a little bit about the shortfall in construction here in Queensland. That's something that's really on my mind, as you might imagine. We've got to make sure that more people can see, feel, and touch access to those really good secure jobs. As I say, Free TAFE has been an absolute game-changer. It's really enabled a lot of people to have that risk-free re-engagement with training on terms that work for them. We've got the SEE Program, Skills for Education and Employment, another free program which has been really important and impactful at helping someone who hasn't had a great experience in formal schooling to reconnect, to build their confidence, and to think about taking that next step towards a qualification.
FANNING: Would it be fair to say that if it's a Free TAFE course, it's an area the Government has identified as being in a skills shortage, in a labour shortage area, whether it's care work, construction? If it's on your list for Free TAFE, you can pretty much be guaranteed there's employers crying out for workers in that area.
GILES: That's exactly right. We're not making every course at TAFE free. What we are doing through our agreement with the states, Queensland in this case, is to work together to identify a list of courses relevant to the Queensland labour market that will lead to good jobs.
FANNING: Just on the text line, and Mark says, public toilets are for men and women, why is a building site different? Do you have an answer for that, Andrew Giles?
GILES: Well, I think there's a couple of things to say about that. Public toilets are not accessible everywhere, they're not often accessible at the times that construction workers might be able to use them. We were just at a building site at a public high school, and I think it's easy to understand why there need to be discrete toilet facilities for the workers that are separate from the students and the staff and which convey dignity and respect to every worker there.
FANNING: There's no possible reason, Mark on the text line, that a woman's not going to go wee in a port-a-loo just because there's a bit of urine on the floor if she hasn't got access to a loo, right?
GILES: That has been the issue, yeah.
FANNING: Okay, moving right along. We're talking about Fee-Free TAFE - what to study, what gives you the greatest bang for your buck? The economists talk about what gives you the greatest uplift in income when you do a certain course.
Now, Jobs and Skills Australia, which provides all the independent research data and advice on future workforce skills and training needs, has identified the five qualifications – the top five that line up with areas of sustained or growing workforce demand – they've been really clear about that. And essentially they're in business, individual support, early childhood education and care, those sorts of, security, to become a security guard. They give you the quickest bang for your buck. And if we look at the top three most popular courses in Victoria and New South Wales Minister, students are gravitating to those courses. It's almost like they know what they're doing; they're going for the courses that'll give them the job.
Queensland is the exception. The second most popular vocational education and training course in this state in 2024 was a Cert III in Fitness, which qualifies you as an exercise instructor. Nearly 6,000 people did that training. Here's Michelle Farquhar, the Queensland Head of the Australian Industry Group who says, particularly for students in school, Minister, that is a waste of time.
[Excerpt]
MICHELLE FARQUHAR, AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY GROUP QUEENSLAND: But what we know is, we've got a certain bucket of money to invest in getting the skills that we need in our communities. At the moment what we would say is, that money isn't being focused where it's needed. We have a lot of students doing Cert I and II in things like fitness and training and hospitality that they will never translate to being a career or even generating an income for them.
FANNING: So in your view, that's way of time?
FARQUHAR: Yes. It’s taxpayer money being invested in an education system that, really at this point in time, needs to be very focused on generating the skills that are needed by our community. And that is very much a priority around construction and there are many other sectors, and I'd throw care in there as well.
[Excerpt ends]
FANNING: The Australian Industry Group, that's Michelle Farquhar, their Queensland Head. Minister, I guess she's talking to you, you're the Federal Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles. What do you say?
GILES: Well, I say that in terms of the Commonwealth's decisions that we make in this area or in apprentices and other areas, we are determined to make sure that there's a public dividend from the investment of public money. That's why when we think about the Free TAFE list and we think about the priorities we have under the –
FANNING: Fitness isn't on it?
GILES: It's not on it, no. So, if we think about the courses that we are supporting, it's things like nursing, things like individual support, early childhood education and care, construction skills, technology skills. We want to open the door to access the labour market. That's not about telling someone not to undertake a particular course, that's a matter for them. But in terms of our investment we are determined to focus that on where there are needs in the labour market and to build that bridge between an individual who wants a career but has been held back perhaps by financial or other reasons.
FANNING: I can see that you're walking a fine line. You cannot be a minister in a democracy and coming in here and saying, ‘well, no-one between 15 and 24 should do a Certificate III in Fitness’ – I get that, you can't possibly say that – but when you've got nearly 6,000 people, the second highest course, right, the second. So, the top number in 2024, which was the last year we have numbers for, the top course by people studying in Queensland vocational education was a Certificate III in Business. That'll get you a job in 50 to 80 different industries. Number two was a Certificate III in Fitness – 5,929. And number three was a Certificate II in Health Support Services – 4,700 – that's a great one, that gets you, you're an assistant nurse. I mean, you must have something to say about the fact that we've qualified nearly 6,000 exercise instructors when we're tens of thousands of construction workers short.
GILES: It's a really important thing that we need to do, to have a proper discussion about. There will be a meeting of all the state and territory training ministers on Friday in Melbourne. This is the sort of forum, this is the sort of thing that should be discussed at that forum.
FANNING: But what do you say to parents and grandparents listening today?
GILES: Well, there's a couple of things. As you'd be well aware, it's the state, obviously, that regulates the TAFE system in Queensland. The Federal Government is a partner through the National Skills Agreement and the Fee-Free TAFE Agreement with the Queensland Government. We use that to set up a series of incentives that, hopefully, build a closer connection between someone's aspirations and a course that we know is in demand. That's what the Commonwealth Government is determined to do in this space.
FANNING: So, they're clearly doing it through private, well apparently if it's not Fee-Free TAFE they might be doing it through private providers. Listen to this on the text line. Roe complaining, ‘the penny’s only just dropped in the Government's mind about women in the building industry.’ I'm not sure that's the case, but she goes on – ‘another shocking situation, kids are paying five to eight grand to qualify as pastry chefs coming with a certificate but no skills. These dodgy learning centres are raking it in.’ Is there an issue where people are being encouraged to train as exercise instructors, do their Cert III in Fitness through a private provider, when there aren't 6,000 jobs for them every year? Is that an issue?
GILES: Well, I think we need to be careful about not conflating two things – the point that you make about the level of enrolments in fitness is one thing. We also do know that there have been a range of integrity issues in some aspects of the registered training organisation space and the role that the ASQA, the regulator, has played has been really critical. Because when someone goes to an RTO, they need to be assured that the training they get for whatever qualification it is, entirely fit for purpose. So, I think there may be some relationship between the two, but they are different issues.
FANNING: Okay. But the registered training organisation saying, ‘come and study fitness, it's a great career’, 6,000 people do. I can't imagine a lot of them are employed. Meanwhile, you've got the employers in this state saying we're going to be 35,000 construction workers short, and you've got people with, pretty much some of them at least, that have to have a useless qualification that's cost them money.
GILES: Well, I'd say to those people, think about doing a pre-apprenticeship course on Free TAFE in construction. Think about looking for an apprenticeship in the electrical or the plumbing trades or in other areas. Obviously, there are great opportunities in early childhood education and care. Nursing, obviously, always in demand. There are so many great opportunities, either through Free TAFE options or through some of those apprenticeship pathways that we are supporting through the Key Apprenticeship Program.
FANNING: Andrew Giles, great to see you. You've got a couple of daughters, haven't you? Would any of those girls go into the electrical trade, plumbing trade? Or you wouldn't get that lucky?
GILES: I've got a daughter and a son. And look, it is a challenge thinking about what we want to do across the economy and then translating it to your own kids. Mine are 15 and 13, so starting to think about what they want to do. Sports science, physiotherapy is where my son's at, and my daughter, who's only 13, is just starting to think her way through it in Year 8. But it is really, really important that I think that we start having these conversations at that age, and making sure – not so much that we get someone on a pathway – but we make sure we're not shutting doors. I think that's been a real issue for women in many male-dominated trades. That, from an early age people couldn't see themself doing that job, and making sure that we create that for every member of our community to see themself doing absolutely any job. That's something that I'm passionate about.
FANNING: Passionate dad and Federal Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, thanks for taking the time.
GILES: Great to be with you, Ellen.