By Kylie Stevens For Daily Mail Australia
23:39 24 Mar 2024, updated 01:25 25 Mar 2024
Australia needs 90,000 more tradies in the next 90 days in order to meet the Albanese government’s ‘impossible’ new goal to build 1.2million new homes in five years, the building industry has warned.
Major building industry groups have called out the Federal government’s plan – which would see the country construct 60,000 new homes each quarter from July 1 – as unrealistic.
One solution would be for Australia to boost immigration and fast-track skilled tradespeople, Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn suggested.
Ms Wawn said she was concerned ‘there is no way … we can get 90,000 (workers) in three months, unless we had a radical change in the way which we are looking at our migration system’.
Recognising tradies’ qualifications from other countries should be easier and cheaper, Ms Wawn said.
‘We know that there are a large number of tradies in this country that can’t get their licences recognised as it’s too expensive and too cumbersome for them,’ she said in an interview with Sunrise.
‘We have to focus on those who are currently in the country by their skills aren’t recognised.’
Ms Wawn also said there needs to be a massive push to skill up Australians and encourage them to work in the trades industry.
‘We really are focusing on school levers particularly but also those who want a career change to look at trade,’ Ms Wawn said.
‘Thirdly, as an industry, we need to retain the current tradies and call back the ones that have decided enough is enough.’
But she acknowledged finding 90,000 tradies in the next 90 days is unrealistic.
‘I think this figure reflects the difficulty that we’re going to have if we don’t resolve the tradie shortage in meeting the agreed target of 1.2 million homes over five years,’ she said.
‘The clock starts ticking on July 1 and we’ve got a huge, huge issue to resolve.’
Ms Wawn remained hopeful the government’s target of 1.2m new homes by 2029 can be achieved, despite only 170,215 new homes being built in the 12 months to September last year for 548,800 newly-arrived migrants.
‘We need to focus on how we can actually get there,’ she said. ‘The issue really is: how do we actually encourage more people into our sector?’
BuildSkills Australia executive director of research and planning Robert Sobyra said finding skilled labour will be the biggest supply-side barrier to addressing the housing supply crisis.
‘Returning the housing market to a healthy state will require a significant uplift in the national dwelling completion rate,’ he said.
‘While there are plenty of hurdles to overcome in achieving this goal, labour will be the single biggest supply-side barrier.’
Housing Minister Julie Collins said that while the government’s housing target was ambitious, it was getting on with the job.
‘We know we’ve got a lot of work to do,’ she told Sky News.
‘We’re working right across government – I know the skills ministers had a meeting just over two weeks ago, where they talked about the skills required to meet the housing demand in Australia and the challenges we currently have.’
A rise in modular housing or pre-fabricated homes common in Japan and Germany could see the housing supply fast-tracked.
Australian housing giant Mirvac is among the developers trialling modular housing construction in response to the crisis.
‘We’ve been able to reduce the construction of those homes to be watertight within 12 weeks,’ Mirvac chief executive of development Stuart Penklis told Nine News.
He added that modular housing doesn’t come with some of the challenges of a traditional build, such as supply chain shortages and severe weather disruptions.
Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic added that governments were working together ‘to take a serious look’ at modular housing.
‘Other countries have got their act together on modular housing and are seeing great jobs and great new homes – we want to be able to do that right here on shore,’ Mr Husic said.
