Australian Skills Guarantee
The Australian Skills Guarantee is a government commitment to ensuring 1-in-10 workers on major Commonwealth-funded projects is an apprentice, trainee or paid cadet. The Guarantee also proposes to establish targets for female participation in construction. These are key issues that go to the heart of our industry’s long-term sustainability.
While these schemes are commonplace in States and Territories, the devil is in the detail and the risk of a policy misstep is substantial. In our submission we lay out the key pitfalls the Commonwealth must navigate to land a model that is both effective and realistic.
Our key points:
- Beware Goodhart’s Law—when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
- Simplistic, narrow targets aren’t enough—we need holistic solutions that address the problem from all angles.
- We can’t continue to outsource social policy to industry—governments need to provide more scaffolding to support contractors to meet targets.
- There is much more work to be done to define a model that is both effective and workable for industry.
We look forward to continuing to work with government as it develops this important initiative.
