The ETU Apprentice of the Year 2025, Layla, spent two days in Canberra at Parliament House, talking to pollies about what it means to be an electrical apprentice, and the changes that we need to make to get more young people starting – and finishing – electrical apprenticeships.
Layla has been a fierce advocate for apprentices on the worksite, fighting for improved arrangements for workers travelling long distances, and better conditions with enterprise bargaining decisions.
Layla did not shy away from telling Members of Parliament what it is really like for apprentices. She spoke to MPs and Ministers, including Minister for Energy Chris Bowen, and Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles, making it clear that more needs to be done to accommodate and encourage people to enter trades, and complete them.
With a projected 42,000 shortage of trained electricians by 2030, we urgently need more apprentices in order to keep advancing our energy and housing infrastructure projects. If we don’t fix the shortage, we are going to end up with projects unable to be completed, or done by untrained and unskilled workers, resulting in safety risks for both workers and the projects themselves. Existing workers will be put under the pump to fill the vacant roles.
The shortage is something that we can’t just ignore and hope it goes away. And no-one leaves an apprenticeship cause they’re having too much fun. We need the Federal Government to listen to stories, like Laylas, and understand what the barriers are to entering a trade, and then the barriers to complete them, and provide holistic support.