Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Government Services
If you've tried to build a house, find an electrician, or get aged care services for a loved one recently, it won't come as a shock to you that Australia is facing a worker shortage across a number of key industries.
From construction to the care economy, teaching to truck driving, employers can't find the workers they need, causing frustrating wait times and higher prices for services Australians rely on.
Data released today from Jobs and Skills Australia helps explain why we're facing these shortages - and why the outdated and sexist approaches toward women in the workplace on display by the Liberal Party last week will only make this problem worse.
According to JSA's report into gendered jobs, work and pay, only 21 per cent of our occupations in Australia could be considered gender balanced, putting us amongst some of the most gender segregated labour markets in the world.
And when you drill down into this data, there's a clear correlation between this segregation and the worker shortages we're currently facing - with the eight largest male-dominated occupations (including truck drivers, electricians, carpenters and joiners) all facing critical national worker shortages.
These shortages are both large and persistent - with construction industry experts calling skills shortages "the challenge of the decade", while care sector gaps are also projected to worsen over the next ten years too.
In short, the impact of our industry gender segregation is translating into real consequences for Australian families - longer waits to get a house built, expensive tradie bills, and stretched services everywhere from hospitals to aged care facilities.
With evidence like this, addressing workforce segregation should be an economic priority for Government and the parliament more broadly.
Yet last week, we heard contributions from the Liberal Member for Longman, Terry Young, who confidently told the Parliament we should just "accept that men and women have vocations that the majority of each gender is drawn to":
"Men tend to be more drawn to vocations that involve maths, physical exertion like construction and trades. Whereas women tend to be drawn to careers that involve women and care," he claimed.
"Vocations like hairdressers, nursing, social workers and the like will always be more female dominated."
While the Coalition sees gender segregation as nature to accept rather than a problem to solve, we in Labor understand that this attitude isn't just sexist - it's economically destructive.
Because every time politicians like Mr Young peddle these tired stereotypes, they reinforce the very segregation that's creating the worker shortages that are limiting everything from housing to health care in this country.
When they tell young women they're "naturally drawn" to nursing and hairdressing, they're telling them women don't belong or are not welcome on construction sites or in electrical trades. The same goes for young men and the care economy.
And when politicians act like gender segregation is biological destiny rather than a policy choice, they guarantee our skills shortages will get worse, not better.
While the Coalition shrugs its shoulders at workforce segregation and, in turn, the skills shortage our nation faces, the Government is tackling both problems at once.
Through our Building Women's Careers program, we're funding real projects to get women into the industries facing the worst shortages - construction, clean energy, advanced manufacturing.
Our Australian Skills Guarantee is using government purchasing power to break down segregation in major infrastructure projects through gender targets that must be met on these jobsites.
And free TAFE has seen 650,000 Australians enroll to kickstart their journey into jobs we're desperately in need of.
Because Australia's economic future depends on using all our talent, not just the half who the Liberals think is "naturally drawn" to certain jobs.
It's not just about fairness - though that matters too - it's in our best interest economically.
We want more women going into traditionally male jobs and more men going into jobs that have been traditionally held by women because when all Australians can contribute their talents wherever they're needed most, it's better for everyone.
I'm not going to pretend that this is a problem we can solve overnight, but I do know that nothing will change if we adopt the 'it's just nature' attitude of the Liberals.
That's why Labor's in this for the long haul - building the programs, changing the culture and shifting the dial to create the skilled workforce Australia needs now and into the future.
