Australia has set bold ambitions for what it makes and builds, in defence, in advanced manufacturing, and in the industries it wants to grow at home. Whether the country reaches them comes down to a question that is easy to overlook and hard to answer: who will do the work. That question has drawn industry, government, unions, educators and workers to the State Library Victoria today for the National Manufacturing Workforce Forum, hosted by the Manufacturing Industry Skills Alliance (Manufacturing Alliance), the Jobs and Skills Council for the sector.
The premise of the day is a direct one. A skilled workforce, not technology or strategy alone, is what turns manufacturing ambition into capability. The push to make more in Australia, to grow advanced manufacturing and to build sovereign capability all rest on the same foundation: having the people to do the work, and a training system quick enough to keep pace with how that work is changing.
Federal Minister for Skills and Training, the Hon Andrew Giles MP, opened the Forum, setting the sector’s workforce challenge against the scale of what manufacturing contributes to the national economy.
“Australian manufacturing is critical to so much of what we’re working to achieve as a nation, including our transition to a clean energy economy and building our sovereign capability. We need to grow our workforce with the highly trained, skilled workers that enable us to meet the challenges and opportunities of our national priorities.”
The Minister pointed to the foundations now in place to meet that challenge, from Jobs and Skills Australia and the Jobs and Skills Councils to the national network of skills support, alongside industry-led efforts such as Pathways Plus and the Make it ManuFACTuring campaign.
“As one of Australia’s ten Jobs and Skills Councils, the Manufacturing Industry Skills Alliance will continue to play an essential role in this work. The Alliance is leading the way in building partnerships that will create the solutions Australia needs.”
Independent economist Saul Eslake followed with a keynote on how far the ground beneath Australian manufacturing has shifted, and why that change makes the workforce question even more pressing.
“The rules-based international order which has underwritten Australia’s prosperity over the past four decades or so is disintegrating.”
He argued that the same disruption also opens real opportunity, provided the country can build and keep the workforce to seize it.
“Australia’s greatest potential for re-building manufacturing is likely to be founded on our long-standing advantages and expertise in mining and agriculture, an emerging comparative advantage in clean energy and our expertise and innovation.”
Manufacturing Alliance Chief Executive Officer Sharon Robertson said the Forum was built to turn a shared challenge into shared action.
“For all the attention on what Australia wants to make, the harder question is who will make it, and whether we are giving those people the skills to do it. That is a workforce question, and it is one that industry, government and the training system can only answer by working together. The Alliance brought the sector together today to do exactly that.”
Across the day, the Forum will work through how Australia opens more pathways into the sector and reaches the workers manufacturing has too often missed, and what it will take to build the workforce capability the next decade demands. The priorities to emerge will shape the ongoing priorities of the sector.
