Jobs bonanza at Gold Coast boat builder Riviera
Dozens of new apprenticeships are being offered by Gold Coast luxury motor yacht builder Riviera as it continues to ramp up production, many for export to the US.
Dozens of new apprenticeships are being offered by Gold Coast luxury motor yacht builder Riviera as it continues to ramp up production.
Riviera is looking for about 90 talented, young craftsmen and women to join its already 950 strong team – 40 school-based apprentices, 20 full time apprentices plus 30 general hands and full time trade positions.
There are 10 individual trades on offer - marine craft construction, composites, cabinetmaking, engineering fabrication, diesel fitting, fabrication trade welding, electrical, timber composites machining, french polishing and upholstery.
The talent hunt comes only months after Riviera chairman Rodney Longhurst launched the company’s 6000th motor yacht at its Coomera boatyard.
Riviera apprentice and training manager Keira Badke says the company is encouraging females to strongly consider a career in the boat building industry.
“We had a record intake of 12 females in January so we’re hoping to grow on that success again in 2025,” Badke says.
“Historically, boat building has been seen to be a male-dominated industry but with the broad range of apprenticeships we now offer, that has very much changed. A career in boat building can even take you around the world, as Riviera exports around 60 per cent of our annual production and has an operations base in Florida in the US.”
Housing home
The Housing Industry Association’s Queensland team is making a move from South Brisbane to Newstead. Changed development conditions in South Brisbane in recent years created the opportunity to invest in upgrading HIA’s digs, and will provide much improved facilities for staff supporting home building businesses. High-rise development closing in around HIA’s Edmondstone Street site, and the additional Kurilpa-zone uplift announced by Brisbane City council last year meant the time was right to sell HIA’s ageing office building.
A newer office building in Byres Street at Newstead was secured, and the move is happening this week. HIA Queensland executive director Michael Roberts says South Brisbane has been good to the housing peak body. “Some of our thirty-odd staff have been with us longer than we’ve been at South Brisbane – more than a quarter of a century,” says Roberts.
HIA’s latest move takes place twenty-six years after the organisation moved to its current South Brisbane location, officially opened on July 7 1998.
Real deal
Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) non-member director Eddie Chung is retiring and handing the baton to Kerri-Ann Smee.
REIQ chairman Peter Brewer says that during many years of dedicated service to the peak body, Chung has made an enormous contribution. “We are deeply grateful to Eddie for his invaluable guidance and financial expertise, which proved pivotal during critical junctures in the REIQ’s history,” Brewer says. Smee, a business services partner at BDO, has more than 20 years’ experience as a taxation and business advisory specialist.
Heavy metal
The fight is up at silica sand operation Metallica with the company’s independent board committee recommending shareholders accept the takeover offer from rival Diatreme. Diatreme now holds about 82 per cent of Metallica after launching a hostile takeover earlier this year. The acceptance comes after Metallica executive chair Theo Psaros and director Mark Bojanjac resigned to more “closely reflect Diatreme’s ownership interests in Metallica”, replaced by Greg Starr and Michael Chapman. Psaros, a former boss of Queensland Rugby, had led board opposition to the Diatreme offer after an independent expert said it undervalued Metallica and penalised minority shareholders
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