SKILLS SHORTAGES ARE UNDERMINING AUSTRALIA’S ENERGY TRANSITION

Australia’s clean energy transition is accelerating, but a critical bottleneck threatens to derail progress: a severe and growing shortage of skilled workers across the trades needed to build, connect and maintain renewable energy infrastructure. In this piece, Ray Newland, Founder of the Youth Climate Policy Centre and an Economics student at Macquarie University, draws on his experience working in policy for the Electrical Trades Union to explore why workforce reform, rather than funding alone, must sit at the centre of Australia’s decarbonisation strategy.