Steel, Coal And Jobs
Newcastle Herald
Wednesday July 20, 2005
Steel, coal and jobs
IN Newcastle, the BHP-Billiton offshoot OneSteel has shown its confidence in the Hunter's industrial future by spending $15 million on a new wire-rope maker that has already beaten overseas competition for a big contract in Western Australia. In Muswellbrook, Mayor John Colvin says a coalmining services firm promising $7 million a year in wages has turned its back on the shire because it believes there are not enough appropriately qualified tradespeople in the area. Employment specialists say this shortage extends across trades in a range of industries. In many ways, these two examples are opposite sides of a single coin. The industrial and commercial opportunities are there, but more trades-based workers are needed to make the most of the situation.Determined to ease the shortage, Muswellbrook Council will take the results of a "skills audit" to next month's Country Week Expo in Sydney.The council is working with TAFE and other education providers, but as Cr Colvin says, a "cultural change" is needed to remind potential recruits that apprenticeships can lead the way to a good income and a satisfying career. Employers have a role to play here. Casual employment and labour-hire offer flexibility for many companies, but prospective employees can tire of waiting by the phone for the chance of a short-term job.For a generation or more, tertiary education has been seen as a logical progression for high school students, and this has led large numbers of technically minded youngsters to disregard apprenticeships in their search for a career.If the jobs are there, every encouragement should be given to trades-based careers. Pruning time FORMER Newcastle lord mayor John McNaughton has raised some interesting questions in arguing that the city's backyard gardeners are breaking the law if only technically if they prune a tree without lodging a development application. The need for a development application is set out in Newcastle City Council's local environment plan, which describes a tree as being three metres high or having a crown three metres across. Mr McNaughton says the need for council permission, together with a requirement that trees be pruned in accordance with "best practice" according to the relevant Australian standard, effectively takes the routine maintenance of backyard trees out of the hands of the landowner. The council has responded by saying that minor infringements of the law can be ignored, but this then creates a grey area hinging on the interpretation of "minor". Could someone clearing trees in defiance of the council argue, perhaps, that they believed their matter was "minor"? There is no doubting the need to protect trees from indiscriminate removal, but most people would say that householders have the right to carry out basic tree-trimming in their gardens without incurring even a theoretical obligation to obtain government permission.
© 2005 Newcastle Herald