Australia’s Skills in Demand visa list is a three-tiered system aiming at bolstering roles and industries that are currently dramatically understaffed in the Australian jobs landscape. While work is done to ensure the country has a strong supply of local talent in these roles, attracting international talent to bolster the shortfall is crucial in ensuring these specific sectors don’t fall behind.
Under the new system, which was implemented in December 2024, skills shortages will now need to be independently verified, and employers will be given more incentive to attract and retain skilled workers in these crucial fields.
In total, there are over 450 different roles listed on the Core Skills Occupation List (CSOL) from which these visas are awarded. Automotive trades feature heavily, with the likes of general motor mechanic, diesel motor mechanic, motorcycle mechanic and panelbeater among the nine to feature on the wider list.
But for the automotive trades featuring on the list there is one glaring omission. Heavy diesel mechanic.
While many of the headlines surrounding the worker shortage in Australia’s heavy vehicle sector are centred around the lack of drivers – that particular shortfall is estimated to be roughly 26,000 people – there is also a current severe lack of individuals able and qualified to repair the heavy vehicles on which all Australians have come to rely on.
Like almost all professions in the modern world, the heavy diesel mechanic sector has internationally qualified workers bringing their skillsets to Australia, but adding the role to the CSOL could have held the potential to bolster the industry further while inroads are made into attracting the next generation of Australians to the sector.
Air Brake Systems National EBS Training Manager Shane Pendergast is witnessing this heavy diesel mechanic shortfall firsthand, and he says while there is currently a well-skilled international presence in the industry, there needs to be a clear focus on making the trade an attractive career prospect for young Australians moving forward.
“A lot of truck workshops are struggling under the weight of lack of staff,” Pendergast says. “I believe the transport and trucking repair industry is just not an attractive option, but I don’t know how we turn that around.
“Some of the most successful truck workshops and trailer builders I know in Australia are utilising a strong Filipino workforce and seeing incredible results. They don’t drink, they don’t smoke, and they have an immense love of life and family – and working hard only strengthens that.
“But I don’t believe those trades being added to the skills list would have offered much relief to the industry. We need to somehow make it attractive to people, because I know a lot of people who are making very, very good average hourly rates – but that still doesn’t interest them to bring them to this trade.”
Pendergast has led an incredibly varied career in his 40-year tenure in the transport sector, and it’s taken him to almost all corners of the country. From small business owner operating in the heavy vehicle repair space, to interstate truck driver, bulk commodities fuel, gas and chemicals and then a return his trade in 2000, he’s seen almost everything this industry can throw at any one person.
If there is someone who knows the key to revitalising these crucial yet understaffed roles in the transport sector, it’s someone like Pendergast, and he believes – in its simplest form – stoking a passion in trucks and transport in the next generation of workers holds the key to driving people back into the industry.
“If there is a cure, it’s going to be finding young girls and boys who have a passion for trucks and transport,” he says.
“My passion was drawn from my father’s influence. He had his own small trucks – fertiliser spreaders – and back in the day he had to do everything himself.
“I watched a man not only drive a truck for a living, but also fix everything himself, and organise everything himself. I thought that was amazing.
“How you make transport attractive to a kid in school who is at that age where they start to consider a trade is the trucks themselves. Growing up in a small country town I was surrounded by John Deeres, Caterpillar, Internationals, Kenworths, Peterbilts, Macks, Freightliners, everything that was loud and noisy and smelt so strongly that you noticed when it went past.
“How do you make transport and trucking attractive? It has to be the trucks, that’s what stokes the passion and gives kids a desire to get under them and start fixing them.
“Your kids aren’t allowed to come into the yards anymore because of insurance restrictions but that needs to change. Sitting up in the passenger seat of a Kenworth is what will really invigorate a kid and turn that light on inside them.
“That passion for transport should cover everything, it should cover the repairs, the maintenance, looking after tyres, it should cover it all.
“It is very, very important for young people to not just be sitting up in a workshop sweeping a floor or doing rudimentary work like relining brakes.
“Get them in the trucks, send them on away trips if you’re allowed. Help them get their truck licence so they can better understand how a truck works, then they can road test them and drive them and they have a better idea of what drivers are telling them.
“Send them to industry events like truck shows as representatives of the company. Make them feel valued and loved within the organisation.
“Share them amongst other transport companies so they spend some time with a fridge van operator, a flat top operator, heavy haulage, concrete mixers, logging etc.
“Introduce that variety so they can find their biggest passion in the industry.”
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