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Speaker 1: Now as we know, the Orcus project is happening, at

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Speaker 1: least at this stage. No one's canceled it yet, so

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Speaker 1: submarines going ahead, and that's a good thing. But I

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Speaker 1: think we're very accustomed to this being as we've had

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Speaker 1: in the past. The ship's been built down at Osborne,

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Speaker 1: the subs, originally the Colins Subs, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: that we have grasped yet that this is more than

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Speaker 1: just a build. This is something completely different with these submarines,

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Speaker 1: and just what it means for Australia's relationship with the

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Speaker 1: UK and the US moving forward and where we end

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Speaker 1: up with all of this. But the issue at the

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Speaker 1: moment not enough skilled workers, and there is pressure on

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Speaker 1: the federal government and the opposition going down this path

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Speaker 1: as well of saying we want to cut migration. It

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Speaker 1: does beg the question because the only people who can

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Speaker 1: work on the subs are Australian citizens of obviously good

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Speaker 1: long standing, as opposed to people who've been in the

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Speaker 1: country for five minutes and might have the skill but

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Speaker 1: perhaps aren't Australian citizens yet or whatever the case is.

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Speaker 1: They're not qualified properly to work on the submarines. But

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Speaker 1: there is a defense clearance that is required and part

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Speaker 1: of that is being a citizen of the country. So

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Speaker 1: if we then attract skilled workers, plumbers, tradees of all

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Speaker 1: sorts of electricians and fitters and everything else needed to

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Speaker 1: work on subs, who's going to backfill the jobs to

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Speaker 1: come and help build the houses we need. We've got

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Speaker 1: an issue and I don't know that we've thought this

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Speaker 1: through quite properly yet. Doctor John Brunie, Founder and CEO

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Speaker 1: Sage International. Morning John, How are you?

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Speaker 2: Oh, not too bad? Matthew?

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Speaker 1: How are you all right? Thank you? So? I mean,

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Speaker 1: is that a fair summary, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It's a pretty fair summary. One of the things that

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Speaker 2: we tend to do when we go into these major

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Speaker 2: projects is that we've put all the infrastructure down and

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Speaker 2: we make the public announcements and the political announcements, and

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Speaker 2: that's to try to excite the base that things come

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Speaker 2: and into South Australia and they're happening in a very

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Speaker 2: positive way and that should be celebrated. Don't get me wrong. However,

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Speaker 2: when it comes to doing the rest of the hard work.

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Speaker 2: The hard work is really about finding the people necessary

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Speaker 2: to actually create the projects themselves. Because these projects are

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Speaker 2: not being run by robots. I mean there's no assembly

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Speaker 2: i'e you know, churning out nuclear powered submarines anywhere. They

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Speaker 2: are manpowering tins of projects. And if you don't have

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Speaker 2: a skilled manpower, you end up having problems. And if

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Speaker 2: I can just say right off the top, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's not just Australia that's having these problems, it's also

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Speaker 2: our orchest partners, the United States and the United Kingdom.

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Speaker 2: The shipyards in both countries are suffering from massive skill shortages.

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Speaker 2: So of course that puts all three countries into a

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Speaker 2: very big pickle basket. If you will, where are we

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Speaker 2: all going to get our respective workers from? And will

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Speaker 2: it mean that if we end up having migrants coming

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Speaker 2: into the countries into our respective ORCS countries, are we

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Speaker 2: going to have to relax those standards in order to,

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Speaker 2: as you say, find the people necessary to backfill the

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Speaker 2: gaping holes in our in our manpower system.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, so we've got to we've got

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Speaker 1: to backfill. That creates some gooing problems then, because obviously

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Speaker 1: we create those those vacancies by attracting existing workers and

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Speaker 1: Australian citizens to go work at submarine and we then

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Speaker 1: need to fill those vacancies. So I guess that's where

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Speaker 1: we still need migration.

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Speaker 2: Well, but it goes beyond that. There is something that

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Speaker 2: no one's talking about at the moment, and that is

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Speaker 2: that the you know, we do have some you know,

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Speaker 2: in terms of thousands of unemployed here in Australia, which

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Speaker 2: you know would probably many of whom would relish the

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Speaker 2: opportunity to find sustainable work at some point in one

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Speaker 2: of these projects. Now, what that would mean for Australian

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Speaker 2: authorities is that we'd have to actually find a way

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Speaker 2: in which we could scale up training to accommodate these people.

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Speaker 2: But you know, it would kill two with one stone. Firstly,

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Speaker 2: it would mitigate against having to find all these new migrants,

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Speaker 2: all these skilled new migrants who would be able to

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Speaker 2: fulfill the lofty ambitions put forward by the Department of Defense,

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Speaker 2: because they'd be predominantly Australian citizens. And yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't know whether or not anyone's

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Speaker 2: given a great deal of thought to seeing what we

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Speaker 2: could do to fill the hole in our skills by

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Speaker 2: utilizing local resources as opposed to always looking overseas. There

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Speaker 2: is a very strong case for this to be done. Now,

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Speaker 2: this could actually this could actually do one of this

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Speaker 2: could do one major thing I should say, and that

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Speaker 2: is it would actually blow out the cost in terms

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Speaker 2: of training. But then if you blow out the cost

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Speaker 2: in terms of training and you end up having Australian

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Speaker 2: citizens predominantly employed in the jobs that we want to

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Speaker 2: fulfill these projects, then it would have to be a

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Speaker 2: net benefit for those long term projects.

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Speaker 1: Right yeah, Well that's it, okay, So consequences down the line, John, Look,

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Speaker 1: thank you for your time this morning. Appreciate it. No worries, Matthew,

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Speaker 1: Doctor John Rooney there, founder and CEO Sage International. Bruce GJ.

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Speaker 1: Is Say, Executive Director, Property Council of Australia. Bruce, good morning,

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Speaker 1: Good morning. So you can understand the issue here obviously,

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Speaker 1: is it an immigration problem or a housing problem.

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Speaker 3: That's a housing challenge, that's for sure. The Premier is

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Speaker 3: absolutely right, and you know, it's great to see the

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Speaker 3: South Australian premier in Canberra talking sense in terms of

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Speaker 3: you know, we've got a policy issue that's been turned

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Speaker 3: into a political one. I mean, dog whistling about migration

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Speaker 3: is not the way that the country is going to

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Speaker 3: fulfill its potential. Let alone South Australia, These ORCHEST projects

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Speaker 3: will require some fifteen thousand people over a period of

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Speaker 3: time and you have to be an Australian citizen to

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Speaker 3: work on those projects, So you know, don't worry about tunnels.

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Speaker 3: Infrastructure which pays quite highly. Then you've got commercial projects

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Speaker 3: which will be difficult to get off the ground left

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Speaker 3: alone residential building, which is one of the lower paid

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Speaker 3: when you compare those forms of work. So infrastructure always

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Speaker 3: pays more. If you look at South Australia specifically Orcus

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Speaker 3: Hydrogen Tunnels, Women's and Children's Hospital. I mean, if you

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Speaker 3: look at Queensland, it's a great example of what not

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Speaker 3: to do, and they're finding it extremely difficult to get

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Speaker 3: people to build dwellings, let alone commercial projects because they

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Speaker 3: have the Olympics coming and there's a hell of a

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Speaker 3: lot of infrastructure building going on there all at the

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Speaker 3: same time. I think they've got five medical precincts going

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Speaker 3: on at the same time, So it's a challenge. No

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Speaker 3: one's talking about it. Do need thousands and thousands and

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Speaker 3: thousands more people here, but we will need migrants and

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Speaker 3: it won't just be migrants, but we will need migrants

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Speaker 3: in large parts to backfield the jobs that Australians will

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Speaker 3: leave to get onto those defense projects.

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Speaker 1: So both major parties cent at a federal level going

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Speaker 1: in the wrong direction with migration policies.

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Speaker 3: One hundred percent going in the wrong direction. Of course,

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Speaker 3: we're not saying that, you know, we should just bring

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Speaker 3: in a million people a year or seven hundred thousand

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Speaker 3: a year. We're not putting a number on it. But

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Speaker 3: what we need is the right mix of skilled migrants coming.

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Speaker 3: For example, I think it's one point six percent of

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Speaker 3: skilled migrants work in the construction industry, but that that

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Speaker 3: completely is misaligned when you have a one point two

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Speaker 3: million homes target over a five year period. So the

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Speaker 3: calibration of the visa system and what skills we're attracting

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Speaker 3: needs to be really well sought out. And for us,

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Speaker 3: we can't understand why the federal government wouldn't be focusing

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Speaker 3: on attracting the skills that will help them meet the

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Speaker 3: targets that they've set themselves, especially when it comes to housing.

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Speaker 3: There's not a more hot button political issue than housing.

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Speaker 1: All right, So the right skills obviously things like brick laying, plumbing,

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Speaker 1: electrical that type of.

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Speaker 3: Thing, definitely, And we also need to be more innovative

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Speaker 3: in the way that we build our dwellings. So we

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Speaker 3: need more medium and high density done well. You know,

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Speaker 3: we need to look up modular housing because to build

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Speaker 3: a house takes a year. Okay, that's if you're going

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Speaker 3: to take a year to house one family or nine

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Speaker 3: months to house the family. When you consider the run

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Speaker 3: rate of Migraine at the moment, that doesn't stack up.

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Speaker 3: We need to look at more medium, high identity living

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Speaker 3: options in the right places, done the right way. Likewise,

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Speaker 3: you know, we need to look at other forms of building,

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Speaker 3: think modular to get more houses on the ground quicker.

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Speaker 3: And to be honest, we need to take the politics

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Speaker 3: out of development and get bipartisan support on building more houses,

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Speaker 3: not scare mongering and screaming when a development is proposed

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Speaker 3: in a particular electorate.

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Speaker 1: It's a hypothetical thing now and not one for the

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Speaker 1: property council, I guess. But you do wonder where we'd

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Speaker 1: be in all of this if we had decided to

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Speaker 1: buy subs off the shelf. I mean, it's great, we

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Speaker 1: want to build them and develop the skills and everything else,

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Speaker 1: but if we as for instance, the Abbott government was

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Speaker 1: seen almost poised to do, and that is to buy

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Speaker 1: them off the shelf from Japan. You just wonder if

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Speaker 1: that wouldn't have been a better a solution to all

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Speaker 1: of this.

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Speaker 3: Oh look, what I would say is that ucsteel is

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Speaker 3: phenomenal for the Australian economy at whole, let alone the

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Speaker 3: South Australian one. We're one of the greatest beneficiaries because

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Speaker 3: whilst growing pains come with their own challenges, they're positive challenges.

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Speaker 3: You know, not having enough skills is a positive challenge

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Speaker 3: which much preferred than having attempts at unemployment rate.

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Speaker 2: Now, for example, absolutely right, what the government will.

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Speaker 3: Get back in taxes and capital attraction, et cetera, It

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Speaker 3: actually stacks up quite well. And for the younger generations

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Speaker 3: there's a pipeline of jobs, great jobs, and you can

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Speaker 3: be welding and all that sort of stuff. Likewise, you

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Speaker 3: can be in cyber and other innovative ways. So there's

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Speaker 3: other innovative streams of work. So there is a whole

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Speaker 3: economy that will spin off on the back of aucus

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Speaker 3: in high tech AI and a whole range of jobs

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Speaker 3: that aren't even created yet. Aren't even been thought about yet,

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Speaker 3: so you know it is a net positive for us

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Speaker 3: to be able to do it ourselves.

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Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, and we certainly will develop skills as a result.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Bruce, really appreciate your time.

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Speaker 3: Thank you Matt, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 1: Bruce Uta, their Property Counsel of Australia. Here an essay