Business View Oceania - April 2024

build or how they run their business. So we do advocacy across the areas of industrial relations, the planning and building space and the work health and safety space. Our staff that are involved in member servicing are also involved in our advocacy work. My role is to manage the advocacy work by our staff, not only here in Canberra but across the country. Primarily, I’m mindful of the advocacy work we’re doing with governments. The national policy team is 95 percent advocacy and five percent member servicing; whereas the regional offices are 60 / 40, depending on how busy the regions are. What changes year on year are the issues – the topics of the day come and go, and some come back around again.” BVO: Is the lack of skilled trades an issue for the industry? Brookfield: “Getting skilled trades is definitely an issue. And getting young people out of school and into the industry. It was difficult 10 to 20 years ago and it’s difficult today for different reasons.There has been generational change and we’re doing what we can to encourage young people and show them it’s an industry they should be interested in.Twenty years ago if you were going through technical colleges, you wouldn’t have had any formal conversation about safety on site. In today’s world safety on site is paramount, and there is specific training for that. You need to make sure you use tools properly, and there’s a lot that flows from it. “The other issue with bringing young people into the industry is finding hosts who are willing to mentor them and take them on. Because we are a group training organization, if you are a builder you can hire an apprentice from HIA. The Association is the employer; we do all the paperwork for you. All you have to do is pay for the apprentice. That’s another benefit we offer. For the apprenticeships,we approach schools and promote to young people to knock on our door. Each year we do an intake; going through a process of vetting the young people that want to join the scheme and then finding them a host.We’re looking for both employers and employees at the same time and we will partner them up because it’s much better training on an actual worksite than in the classroom. But if we have 1000 kids and only 500 hosts then all our endeavours are made more difficult.” BVO: What does the landscape look like for the housing industry over the next three to five years? Brookfield: “Statistics-wise, the housing cycle is coming down the other side of a peak. 2017 was our most recent peak and we built just on 230,000 new homes in all shapes and sizes over a 12-month period. That was a new record. Before that, the biggest peak had been around 170,000 homes. It was a massive shift and the bulk of that increase came from the apartment sector. That’s something else that’s influencing the industry right now. For 15 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 06, ISSUE 04 HOUSING INDUSTRY ASSOCIAT ION LTD. (HIA)