Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) and (2) as circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (line 10), before "different kinds of occupations", insert "subject to subsection (5A),".

(2) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (after line 11), after subsection 140GB(5), insert:

(5A) None of the following kinds of occupations may be prescribed for the purposes of subparagraph (2)(c)(iii):

(a) trade workers;

(b) machinery operators or drivers;

(c) labourers.

Can I say in the first instance that it's good to see that we are having this debate. This is something that the Leader of the Opposition put on the national agenda in his budget-in-reply speech in May, and it's very good to see that there is a realisation that we have to do something about the shortage of workers that we have in the construction space. What we would like to see is the government addressing the shortage of carpenters and joiners, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers and stonemasons, building inspectors, construction managers, painters and decorators, plasterers, roof tilers, and wall and floor tilers, because if we are to deal with the construction crisis we've got at the moment then we have to make sure that we can complement our domestic workforce.

One of the things—and we've been pointing this out for a very long time—that the government has made an absolute botch of is its migration program. Over one million people have come into this country in the last two years, and we do not have the houses to be able to support that level of population increase. One of the things which are absolutely clear is that those numbers are going to continue because, every time the government has a net overseas migration target, it misses it and it misses it by tens of thousands of people, and it's going to continue to do so. And, while they continue to miss their net overseas migration target, they're not building the houses that we need. This is causing the housing crisis and it's causing a rental crisis, and the government needs to address this.

We are all absolutely in favour of making sure that we have got more people locally doing the trades that we need, but we've also got to make sure that, during this housing crisis and this rental crisis, we are complementing our domestic industry with the skills that they need. Now, we know why this isn't being done at the moment, and that's because of the CFMEU. But we also know that the CFMEU has been put into administration. So the government can work now to make sure that we are complementing the workforce skills that we need in the construction space.

The Assistant Minister for Immigration has talked about a core skills pathway and said that these things should go on the core skills pathway. Well, I would ask the minister this question: at a minimum, why don't construction managers and building inspectors go onto this list? They should be on this list. Construction managers and building inspectors, at a minimum, should go onto this list. I would say to the minister: why are they being excluded?

Now, our view is, as I've made very clear in my amendment, that what we should be doing is putting in trade workers, machinery operators or drivers, and labourers because, given the crisis that we have at the moment, which is so great—and especially when it seems that this government is not going to be able to bring net overseas migration under control and that one million is going to head to 1.5 million rapidly—something needs to be done and it needs to be done urgently. That's why we need trade workers, we need machinery operators and drivers, and we need labourers to be able to complement our existing domestic construction workforce.

If we're going to go back and say, 'The review said this, and the review said that,' I would say to the assistant minister, 'Why aren't construction managers and building inspectors at a minimum on that list?' The whole process that the government has embarked upon—and I give the assistant minister a leave pass because he's part of the new ministers that have come in to try and clean up the mess of the previous ministers, but we need this mess cleaned up quickly. So, Assistant Minister, why won't you agree to our amendments, given what is happening, and why in particular won't construction managers and building inspectors be put on the list?

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