QUEENSLAND OLYMPICS SHORTFALL BUILDING
(c) Taylah Fellows – The Courier Mail
Queensland is on track to be 54,700 construction workers short of what it needs when the Olympic Games building blitz begins next year, with the major gap set to threaten the state’s wider $117bn infrastructure pipeline.
But Deputy Premier and Infrastructure Minister Jarrod Bleijie remains confident a planned productivity overhaul will help the state meet its record capital works program.
Infrastructure Australia data shows, as of July, Queensland has thousands of vacancies across every construction job group except electricians, carpenters, plumbers and architects.
The state is currently 41,100 jobs short, with Infrastructure Australia forecasting 83,300 workers were needed this month to meet public infrastructure demand and just 42,200 tradies available to deliver it.
In March 2026, the state is forecast to reach its worst shortage of 54,700 – right as it prepares to launch Olympic Games construction.
This includes a general construction and labourer shortage of 10,000 workers, a shortage of 17,000 concreters, 1800 structural steel erectors and 2600 civil engineers.
According to the data, which is based off publicly announced infrastructure projects through to 2028, demand would start decreasing from June 2028.
The last time Queensland had enough construction workers to meet demand was March 2021.
Queensland Major Contractors Association chief executive Andrew Chapman said if the state was to deliver $104bn worth of engineering and construction projects as planned over the next five years, it would need to increase its workforce between 50 and 80 per cent.
“If we are able to improve productivity through different delivery approaches, like use of technology, better industrial relations practices on site including flexible RDO schedule in line with the project schedule, managing hot weather impacts better than 28 degrees and work stops … then that peak demand will come down to something that is more manageable,” he said.
The latest Construction Skills Queensland (CSQ) Workforce report forecast demand would peak at 156,000 construction workers in 2026–27, with an average shortfall of 18,200 workers every year for the next eight years. This includes a 50,000 shortfall in 2026-27 – in line with Infrastructure Australia’s projections.
Mr Bleijie said Queensland was unashamedly open for business and would welcome all migrant workers.
“With a laser-like focus on productivity reforms and the biggest infrastructure capital budget in our history, the LNP is pulling all infrastructure levers available,” he said.
CSQ has called for greater apprenticeship support to help with the state’s dropout rates and a thorough long-term workforce plan.
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Queensland has only half the construction workers it needs for a growing infrastructure pipeline, with shortfall increasing in the lead-up to 2032.
(c) Madura McCormack – Courier Mail

In Queensland, 74,000 workers are needed to build the pipeline of infrastructure — from road to rail, renewable energy and hospitals — but the state will be short 35,000 personnel across the five-year program.

Editorial: Attitude toward blue-collar jobs is holding us back
It is a baffling demographic issue that our state – and the nation in general – can’t fill well-paid blue-collar jobs, writes the editor.
The major 2024 Market Capacity Report by Infrastructure Australia has warned that we have only half the construction workers we need for the state’s $47bn infrastructure pipeline.

Equally worrying is the fact that projects in the state’s north are finding it hardest to attract workers.
While the figures do not include work on 2032 Olympic and Paralympic projects, there will no doubt be issues finding workers for venues in such a tight job market.

The rate at which mechanic apprentices are completing trainee programs is already at a worryingly low 49 per cent in Australia. (c) Joe Attanasio

Industry experts are warning that as cost-of-living pressures continue to cripple households, young Australian tradies are moving away from apprenticeships in record numbers, in favour of higher-paying labouring jobs which require little training.

According to ARU, cost-of-living pressure has resulted in a whopping 60 per cent of all automotive apprenticeships in Australia being cancelled.”

Tell us what it is like in your Company and your Industry.

#apprenticeships
#tradieshortage

Qld coal industry being taxed to death, literally

(c) Warren Mundine – published Courier-Mail
It’s hard to understand why Queensland Labor wants to destroy the coal industry, writes Warren Mundine.
Queensland wouldn’t have a functioning economy without coal. So it’s hard to understand why Queensland Labor wants to destroy the coal industry.
In 2022 the Queensland Labor government introduced a new coal royalties scheme, with progressive rates that increase with coal prices up to 40 per cent, the highest coal royalty rate in the world. In May this year it enacted laws to entrench high royalty rates, that require any future reductions to be passed by Parliament, but allow future royalty increases to be enacted by the stroke of a minister’s pen.
The royalty hikes delivered Queensland a record surplus of over $12 billion in 2023, the largest ever recorded by an Australian state, which Queensland Labor promptly spent heading into an election cycle, including $19bn over four years to support new wind and solar storage and transmission and on power bill rebates for Queenslanders suffering soaring electricity prices driven by Labor’s energy transition policies.
In 2022-23, the royalties and other state taxes paid by the Queensland resources sector increased by 68.4 per cent on the previous year. And when we talk about the Queensland resources sector, understand that we’re mostly talking about coal.
Coal accounts for around 72 per cent of the $116.8bn in gross value added from the Queensland resource sector; coal and gas together, around 84 per cent. Coal accounts for around 70 per cent of the jobs that the Queensland resources sector supports; coal and gas together, around 81 per cent.
Queensland budget papers noted coal royalties depend on coal prices which may go down. But what I couldn’t find any mention of is that coal royalties depend on there being a coal industry in the first place.
The resources sector operates through long term projects that take decades of planning, operation and remediation. These projects can’t be switched on and off quickly when the conditions for doing business in a particular location change. The immediate effect of the royalty hike was a stunning surplus and a government spending spree. The long term effects will be to drive the coal sector out of the state and damage the Queensland economy and regions.
The Queensland Resources Council says the government’s royalty hikes have seen billions of dollars of projects cancelled or postponed.
BHP announced a few months ago that it will cease further investments in Queensland’s coal industry due to the royalty hikes which, together with income taxes, have them paying an adjusted effective tax rate of 62 per cent.
BHP cited the negative impact on investment economics and the increase in sovereign risk due to the decision to raise royalties without consultation as reasons for its decision.
BHP is one of the biggest investors in Queensland’s resources sector. It owns and operates seven metallurgical coal mines in the Bowen Basin and the Hay Point Coal Terminal near Mackay. BMA (which it co-owns with Mitsubishi) is Australia’s largest producer and supplier of seaborne metallurgical coal. It’s ironic since metallurgical coal is essential for the energy transition Queensland Labor talks so much about.
Queensland Labor promotes its policy as providing economic security to Queenslanders. But economic security comes from a strong economy, one that generates jobs and business creation. And Queensland won’t have a functioning economy without coal.
Coal companies support over 372,000 Queensland jobs (30,000 direct jobs, 196,000 jobs in business supply chains and 140,000 jobs induced by the economic effect of that employment).
That’s 13.5 per cent of total state employment. Regional Queensland is disproportionately dependent on the resources sector, and coal in particular.
In 2022-23 in the Mackay and Fitzroy regions, the resources sector (mostly coal) supported around 80 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively, of all regional employment and coal accounted for over 97 per cent and over 80 per cent, respectively, of the billions in direct resources sector spending there.
Queensland Labor’s attack on coal is another example of city elites deserting the regions and ignoring the needs and aspirations of people who live and work there, where alternative employment opportunities are scarce. This is especially so for Indigenous Australians who are disproportionately represented in regional populations.
The Queensland resources sector is a major employer of Indigenous people, who make up 6.4 per cent of the Queensland resources sector workforce, which is above parity. These are high-paying, high-skilled and rewarding jobs that provide opportunities for Indigenous people to prosper.
For every direct job in a Queensland coal company, there are over six jobs in that company’s business supply chain and another 4.5 jobs that supported by the economic activity of those workers. A decline in coal mining will have a profoundly adverse impact on regional Queensland, destroying jobs and increase welfare dependency.
Unemployment and increased welfare dependency lead to socio-economic decline, including increased crime and social dysfunction, problems that already plague parts of regional Australia.
Queensland Labor’s attack on coal will only make things worse for the people who can least afford it during a cost of living crisis, which is the most important issue for Queenslanders and all Australians right now. Queensland Labor is betraying the regions and the workers who have made this state what it is today.
#supportcoaljobs