Page 10 - Climate Control News May 2022

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Federal budget roundup: Winners and losers
ONCE AGAIN TRADIES were the biggest winners in this year’s federal budget with the government investing $2.8 billion to support Australian apprenticeships.
This figure builds on the $13.3 billion spent on apprenticeships and traineeships since 2013.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the multi-bil- lion dollar investment, spread out over the next five years, will seek to upskill apprentices, re- ward employers for hiring them, and simplify the current system of incentives, which the govern- ment believes is too complex.
“We have already invested $13 billion in skills and training, with a record 220,000 Australians now in a trade apprenticeship – the highest level since records began in 1963,” Frydenberg said.
“We will provide $5000 payments to new ap- prentices and up to $15,000 in wage subsidies for employers who take them on.”
The government will introduce a new, “streamlined” Australian apprenticeships in- centive system to develop apprentices in “pri- ority trades” which includes refrigeration and air conditioning.
The biggest loser in this year’s budget was cli- mate change.
According to the Institute for Energy Eco- nomics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) the gov- ernment has committed $1.3 billion to energy and emissions reduction measures in the 2022- 23 budget.
However, IEEFA LNG gas analyst, Bruce Rob- ertson, said putting these two categories togeth- er is problematic as a lot of the spending is going to high emitting energy projects.
“This funding allocation shows a strong focus on gas, carbon capture and storage (CCS), car- bon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), and hydrogen, all of which add to Australia’s emis- sions, it doesn’t reduce them,” he said.
At the same time climate spending in the budget dropped from $2 billion in 2021-22 to $1.9 billion in 2023-24, $1.5 billion in 2024-25 and $1.3 billion in 2025-26.
The budget contains more than $10.5 billion in fossil fuel subsidies.
Climate Councillor Emeritus Professor Will Stef- fen, said the cuts to climate science under this gov-
L-R: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said trade apprenticeships are at record numbers. Gas analyst, Bruce Robertson, said a lot of spending has gone to high emitting energy projects. Climate Councillor, Will Steffen, said fossil fuel production has expanded 19 per cent under this government.
ernment have been very damaging. “Significant cuts were made in 2014 to Australia's climate sci- ence capacity, crippling our abil- ity to understand the risks and impacts of climate change to Australia, and diminishing our contribution to the global cli- mate science effort,” Steffen said. "And on the other hand, Austral- ia’s fossil fuel production has ex- panded 19 per cent over the last
three terms of this government.”
CLIMATECONTROLNEWS.COM.AU
Acute
engineering
shortfall
THE AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY Group (Ai Group) has joined forces with the Australi- an Technology Network of Universities (ATN) calling on the federal government to take a tripartite approach to solving Aus- tralia’s skills crisis.
They have identified four priority areas with engineering at the top of the list. In a statement they said: “Together, we are home to over 300,000 students and 23,000 full and part-time university staff and represent the interests of more than 60,000 businesses employing more than one million staff. Ai Group and ATN are driven by a commit- ment to quality across all levels of educa- tion, skills and training.”
It is estimated that over the next few years Australia will need 11,000 new engineers an- nually which is around 2,400 more than the domestic undergraduate engineering com- pletions each year.
A portion of this shortfall could be filled by the more than 6,000 overseas undergrad- uate engineering students who graduate from Australian universities each year to address the skills gap more quickly, accord- ing to Engineering Australia CEO, Dr Bron- wyn Evans.
“Australia has an engineering skills shortage exacerbated by COVID-19, an en- gineering job vacancy rate that has gone up 97 per cent in just 12 months, and an eco- nomic recovery hinging on major infra- structure projects,” Evans said.
“Productive employment of migrant en- gineers is vital to our national engineering capability and unless changes are made our future economic growth is at risk.” ✺
Engineering Australia CEO, Bronwyn Evans.
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