The topic has differed depending on the politician involved, but I have concentrated on two main issues – our long standing concerns in relation to procurement and our concerns around the skills issues.
The response has been very positive. For a start it has been refreshing that politicians of all parties are interested in our issues and are talking to us constructively about getting good outcomes. This follows on from the last few conferences where senior decision makers have been keen to come and talk with us.
CCF is now better known where it counts and we have been able to talk to both ministers and opposition spokesmen very quickly when issues of immediate concern have arisen.
Still, there is a considerable way to go for us to achieve our long standing goals. In this article I want to reflect on CCF’s position in relation to skills shortages.
We are all aware that too often there are not enough people in the workforce to do the work required. Additionally, those who are available are often not adequately trained. It is fortunate that all governments now recognise, that substantial reforms are needed to our education and training systems, if we are to respond to the skills issue.
Input challenge
So it is our challenge to ensure that CCF has input into the reform process and can benefit from any improvements. We then need to ensure our individual members benefit through their own workforce planning and development activity.
Our challenge is made more difficult because civil construction skills do not in many aspects enjoy the same support and recognition by government as other traditional construction trades.
The reasons for this are both historical and technical. Historical because formal training and recognition has only recently become a key feature of the industry and technical due to the way in which the so called ANZSCO (Australia and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) deals with our skilled occupations.
There are also issues in the way in which our industry describes its occupations, for example referring to plant operators as labourers in census data.
One of our key concerns has been that civil occupations don’t appear on the National Skills Needs List which provides special support and incentives for occupations deemed to be in skills shortage. Many targeted initiatives rely on this list for eligibility.
Gillard reference
After considerable lobbying last year, we were pleased that deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, gave a reference to Skills Australia to look closely at some of the above concerns. In particular she asked whether short term arrangements could be developed to meet immediate skills needs.
This has been a critical step for us, as we then had a process to really get down to the tin tacks of our concerns, and what could be done about them. The participants in the inquiry have been ourselves, Skills Australia, the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations and SkillsDMC.
In particular I would like to take this opportunity to thank Des Caulfield, Dorothy Rao and Jodie Badcock from SkillsDMC, for the hard work they have been doing with us, particularly in working closely with our members as part of a detailed survey. I would also like to thank Keith McIlwain and Trevor Gosatti for their contributions.
I hope to report in the near future about what progress has been made.
As always I value your input so please let me know if there are issues you think we should be and aren’t working on.( natpresident@civilcontractors.com )
*Skills Australia is an independent statutory body, providing advice to the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations on Australia's current, emerging and future workforce skills needs and workforce development needs.
*SkillsDMC is the national industry skills council for the Resources and Infrastructure sectors.
I wish my nephew would gain some skills, so he’d know what kind of work he was out of. He’s nearly a genius; he can do almost anything except earn a living.
