• Urgent reform to Federal Government skills classification system needed to adequately recognise skilled trade-level occupations in civil construction
• Outdated ANZSCO classifications deny civil construction apprentices, and their employers, access to training incentives available to their peers in the building sector
• CCF’s National CEO is meeting with Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King today to push for reform.
• CCF WA has written to State Premier Mark McGowan and Training Minister Sue Ellery seeking their support ahead of the Federal Jobs and Skills Summit.

WA’s peak civil infrastructure body is calling for urgent changes to the Federal Government’s outdated skills classification system, to allow civil apprentices and their employers access to new training incentives available to other sectors with skills shortages.

The Civil Contractors Federation WA (CCF WA), in conjunction with CCF’s National office, wants civil occupations to be formally classified as skilled trades on the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO). This is a pre-requisite for funding under the Federal Government’s new Australian Apprenticeships Incentives System (AAIS).

CCF National CEO Chris Melham will push the need for urgent reform today (August 19) at an infrastructure jobs and skills roundtable hosted by Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit next month.

Mr Melham said reforming ANZSCO to give civil construction apprenticeships fair access to training incentives would be an important step in addressing major skill gaps in the civil infrastructure sector.

“As part of CCF’s 2022 Infrastructure Market Capacity Survey, respondents were asked to rank a number of threats to the delivery of the infrastructure investment pipeline, ranging from the availability of raw materials, through to the availability of skilled and unskilled labour,” Mr Melham said. “In each state and territory, the highest ranked issue was the lack of availability of local skilled tradespeople and professionals to undertake construction projects.”

Mr Melham said access to AAIS subsidies would address this by directly incentivising civil construction employers to take on more apprentices.

CCF WA CEO Andy Graham said he had written to State Premier Mark McGowan and Training Minister Sue Ellery seeking their support ahead of the Federal Jobs and Skills Summit, which they will both be attending next month.

“Thankfully our state government, through the Construction Training Fund and other incentives, recognises that civil construction apprentices in skilled trades such as pipelaying, directional drilling and plant operations deserve to receive the same funding as their counterparts in bricklaying, tiling and plastering,” Mr Graham said.

“But it’s a different story with Federal incentives, where the building trades get AAIS funding and the civil construction trades miss out thanks to the antiquated ANZSCO skill levels.

“The Federal Government is a major funding source for the massive program of transport infrastructure projects that is transforming Western Australia, so they should be well aware of the critical need to incentivise training and skills development in civil construction.”

Mr Graham said other sectors had also been highly critical of the ANZSCO system’s failure to reflect the modern skilled workforce. A recent Federal Parliament Standing Committee Inquiry received dozens of submissions from companies and industry groups calling for ANZSCO to be abandoned as a basis for determining occupational skill levels. The inquiry recommended that ANZSCO should be either scrapped or completely overhauled.

“For the civil construction sector, ANZSCO reform can’t some soon enough,” Mr Graham said. “And in the meantime, the Federal Government should take a common sense approach and include civil construction trades in the AAIS.”