Tradie shortage and slothful building approval process could sink Albanese housing plan, warns Brickworks boss

A lack of bricklayers and other trades among a generation more interested in screens than working outside will make building 30,000 new homes tough, says the Brickworks boss who can’t run his factory at full capacity.

The boss of Australia’s largest brickmaker has warned a severe shortage of key tradies such as bricklayers and plumbers, as well as the slothful pace of land and home approvals, will act as a sizeable roadblock to the Albanese government’s hopes of building 30,000 rental homes in the next five years.

Brickworks chief executive Lindsay Partridge told The Australian on Tuesday, after the Greens gave their support to the federal government’s $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund, that there was no use importing nurses and aged care workers if they had nowhere to live – and that a priority needed to be made to encourage tradesmen to immigrate here to build homes and alleviate the housing crisis.

He added parents advising their children to not take up a trade and instead go to university as well as a generation of young people stuck in front of their smartphones and screens, and not interested in going outside, was making the shortages of trades vital for building new homes even worse.

Mr Partridge, whose Brickworks plants produce 750 million bricks a year and is the second-largest manufacturer of roofing tiles and masonry, welcomed the Albanese government’s new Housing Australia Future Fund that will target the construction of 30,000 social and affordable rental housing.

However, labour shortages and the planning system needed to be fixed first to streamline the path for building those 30,000 homes and truly alleviate the nation’s housing crisis.

“The one issue that the federal government has got control over, that’s immigration, and they’ve got to (bring) tradespeople here.
“There is no use (bringing in) nurses or doctors or anybody else because they have got nowhere to live,” Mr Partridge told The Australian.

“They have got to (look at more) immigration of people who can build these houses because the trades aren’t here.”

A shortage of key trades such as bricklayers and electricians could threaten the federal government’s target to build 30,000 new affordable homes over the next five years. Picture: iStock

He said another issue was many young people were more keen on university or playing on smartphones than taking up a trade to become a plumber, tiler, bricklayer or electrician.

“Young Australians are convinced by their parents not to be a trades person,” he said.

“The parents convinced them to go to university and the iPad generation has had their whole life inside playing with the iPad, and they don’t want to be outside.

“So the people that we need are immigrants that like working outside, like doing hard work, great tradesmen, and they’re the people we need to bring into the country.”

Mr Partridge said trades shortages were so acute in Australia he couldn’t run his brick manufacturing plants at full capacity.

“At the moment, it’s all tight, yes it’s bricklayers, it’s plasterers, yes it is plumbers and electricians. We can’t run our factories because we can get the trades, electricians and fitters, we need all trades.”

Overnight, the Greens gave their support for the Albanese government’s Housing Australia Future Fund that will divert as much as $10bn to fund the building of 30,000 affordable homes around Australia.

Mr Partridge said at the moment there was a shortage of bricklayers in South Australia, it remained tough too in Victoria.

Meanwhile, the Brickworks boss said the housing crisis and affordability issue was being made worse by state bureaucracies that were incredibly slow in approving land and housing developments.

“The bureaucracy and planning system isn’t helping the situation. They are making it worse, it is way too long to get approvals. In New Zealand, it takes around 21 days to get a house approved, and it can take six to nine months, going well, in Australia.

“Land can take 10 years to get approved, and someone has to pay that holding cost for 10 years while the bureaucracy mucks around. That needs a lot of effort to streamline, and is a state issue.”

Originally published as Tradie shortage and slothful building approval process could sink Albanese housing plan, warns Brickworks boss