THE HON SUSSAN LEY MP
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY, SKILLS AND TRAINING
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SMALL AND FAMILY BUSINESS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR FARRER
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil is out today again levelling accusations about credibility and blame as she trumpets the funding of housing projects 848 days into the Albanese Government’s term.
Australians deserve some honesty in the debate about housing.
Australia is building fewer houses because of bad decisions made by Minister O’Neil and the now Skills Minister Andrew Giles when they were in charge of migration.
Those decisions will make it harder to build the housing projects funded today as well.
Minister O’Neil herself has acknowledged Australia is short of at least 90,000 skilled workers “to get the houses built that we need”.
Minister O’Neil and Minister Giles must accept responsibility for failing to take action on construction skills shortages today.
Minister O’Neil was given the opportunity to take action on skills shortages when she was Home Affairs Minister. She was warned by Jobs and Skills Australia, the official workforce planning agency of the Albanese Government, that all construction trades were in shortage and that it was having a direct impact on the capacity of Australia to build houses.
Instead of responding to the acute skills shortages identified by Jobs and Skills Australia, Clare O’Neil specifically excluded tradies from the Specialist Skills Pathway, the highest priority visa. This decision was made against the express advice of migration experts, construction organisations and business groups at the time. Then the Albanese Government doubled down, with its draft skilled migration list placing yoga instructors as getting priority skills processing ahead of construction workers.
Instead of sheeting blame, Minister O’Neil should take responsibility for her decisions today.
She is trumpeting the allocation of funding to projects. But who will build them? When will they be ready for Australians?
Minister O’Neil and Minister Giles are right, Australia is facing an acute shortage of tradies.
The problem for this pair of failing ministers is that the decisions they have made to date have made the situation worse, not better.