Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was the chair of the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee in the last parliament, for a period of it anyway, and we did a very extensive inquiry in relation to housing and homelessness. As you may be aware, I was a builder, a carpenter and joiner by trade, and a barrister who specialised in construction law. Apart from my eight years in this place, I've made a living out of the building industry in one way, shape or form. I know the industry pretty well. And I know that the building and construction industry is on its knees in Queensland and in much of Australia. They're struggling because they can't get materials. They're struggling because they can't get trades. There is absolute a very significant skills shortage at the moment, and it's a skills shortage that has been going on not just through this government or the last government; I'm talking about a skills shortage over the last 20 or even 30 years.

There has been a very significant change in the way this government—in fact, our country—operates, particularly in relation to apprentices. You can't have an industry of the future if you don't train the skills of the future. Sadly, over the last several decades, we've seen a move away from apprenticeship based training in this country. We have seen a real dearth, and, particularly under this government, we've seen an incredible drop-off in the number of apprentices. But I do concede that this has been going on over a long period of decades. When I make my way around and talk to people on building sites and talk to my old mates in the game, there has been a very significant shift in the way that builders operate. There is a real reluctance to put apprentices on these days. As someone who was an apprentice and who also used to employ apprentices, I understand that. It's a big commitment, particularly for a small operation to take on a young person for four years. The old term was 'indentured', and that's exactly what they are. They are indentured to their master or mistress for four years. It's a long time.

We are an industry that is changing daily. It's boom or bust. The building industry has ever been thus—boom or bust. I've seen a few booms. I've certainly seen a few busts. It is a very tough way to make a dollar. What we are seeing now is that those chickens are coming home to roost. The building industry just simply cannot keep up with the number of homes that we need to build. When we were in government we did some valiant work, I have to say, through things like the HomeBuilder program. After COVID hit, the industry was facing a valley of death. I spoke with the then housing minister. It was mainly him, but I fed some information to him, and HomeBuilder was created.

HomeBuilder was a tremendous program that enabled a lot of builders to keep working through the pandemic, because they were facing an economic cliff; there's absolutely no doubt about that. Builders would have failed and gone over that cliff in their thousands, and HomeBuilder saved a great number of them. But what we're seeing now is that the number of insolvencies are increasing out of sight. That is of great concern to me because it's an industry that is very close and dear to my heart. I've seen it time and time again, both as a practitioner and as a builder: these men and women take great pride in their work.

Where I'm going with all of this is that if we don't have builders, if we don't have subcontractors, if we don't have apprentices, we can't build the homes for Australians. What that does is drive up the costs. It's supply and demand. If you have fewer people doing the work, it drives up the costs of building materials and labour, and that makes it even more unaffordable for Australians.

The coalition government did some fantastic work when we were in government. I want to congratulate the former housing minister, because he did some terrific work. (Time expired)

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