Jobs & skills

Where we stand

One Nation Tasmania believes work should be expected, respected and rewarded. A job provides more than a pay packet. It provides independence, purpose, skills and the ability to build a future. Government should remove genuine barriers to work, but it should never create a system in which long-term welfare dependency becomes easier than participation for people capable of contributing.

We believe training should lead to real jobs, not just certificates and enrolment statistics. Technical education, apprenticeships and skilled trades deserve the same respect as university. Practical ability and experience should count, employers should have a genuine role in shaping training, and public money spent on skills should produce a workforce Tasmania actually needs.

Tasmania must also stop treating imported labour as the automatic answer to every skills shortage. Skilled migration has a role where genuine gaps cannot reasonably be filled locally, but it must never become a substitute for training Tasmanians, employing young people, recognising experienced workers or paying wages that attract and retain staff. Our first responsibility is to build the capability of our own people.

The issues

Tasmania has employers crying out for workers while too many Tasmanians are locked out of secure, skilled employment. Our workforce participation rate sits at just 60.5 per cent, the lowest in Australia, while 265 occupations are experiencing skills shortages. Something is badly wrong when jobs need filling but Tasmanians are still being left on the sidelines.

For too long, governments have responded to workforce shortages with announcements, programs and imported labour instead of building a strong pipeline of Tasmanian workers. Vocational education has been treated as the poor cousin of university, apprenticeships have weakened, experienced workers face unnecessary credential barriers, and too many young people reach the end of school without a clear path into skilled work.

The result is a state where businesses cannot find the people they need, young Tasmanians leave for opportunities elsewhere, regional communities struggle to keep workers and too many people who could contribute remain disconnected from the workforce. Tasmania cannot build a stronger future while wasting the potential of its own people.

Our priorities

1. Build real technical pathways into skilled work. Create stronger vocational and technical pathways from the senior years of school into apprenticeships, trades, further training and secure employment.
2. Make training answerable for results. Judge publicly funded training by whether people gain useful skills, complete their qualifications and move into sustained employment, not simply by how many enrolments government can announce.
3. Rebuild Tasmania's apprenticeship pipeline. Make it easier for employers to take on, train and retain apprentices and trainees, particularly in the trades and occupations Tasmania urgently needs.
4. Get more Tasmanians into work. Remove genuine barriers to employment while restoring the expectation that Tasmanians who are capable of working should take reasonable opportunities to participate and contribute.
5. Value skills and experience, not unnecessary paperwork. Make it easier for experienced and capable Tasmanians to demonstrate what they can actually do without being locked out of work by excessive credentialling and bureaucracy.
6. Train Tasmanians before relying on imported labour. Build local skills pipelines and require genuine efforts to recruit, train and retain Tasmanian workers before workforce shortages are routinely filled from overseas.
7. Put employers at the centre of workforce planning. Ensure businesses, tradespeople and industries with real workforce needs have a stronger voice in determining what skills Tasmania trains for and where training is delivered.
8. Rebuild regional workforce capability. Expand access to training, apprenticeships and skilled employment outside Hobart so regional communities can keep their young people, support local industries and build their own future.

What this means for Tasmanians

For young Tasmanians: a clearer pathway from school into a trade, apprenticeship, skilled job or further training without being told university is the only road to success.

For workers and jobseekers: more practical pathways into secure employment, better recognition of existing skills and a system designed to help people stand on their own two feet.

For employers: training that responds to actual workforce shortages and a stronger local pipeline of people with the skills needed to do the job.

For experienced workers: greater recognition of competence earned through years on the job rather than being forced to prove yourself through unnecessary paperwork.

For regional Tasmania: more training delivered closer to where people live and stronger local workforces capable of supporting the industries and communities that create Tasmania's wealth.

Tasmania should be a state where people who work are rewarded, practical skills are respected and Tasmanian jobs create opportunities for Tasmanians. Train our own. Hire our own. Back our own.

What comes next

This baseline policy sets out where One Nation Tasmania stands on jobs and skills and the priorities that will guide our detailed policy work.

We will develop specific commitments through consultation with workers, apprentices, employers, tradespeople, training providers, schools and regional communities, together with careful examination of successful workforce and technical education models elsewhere. Further policy releases will follow as this work progresses.

If you employ Tasmanians, train them, work in a skilled trade or have struggled to find a pathway into secure work, we want to hear from you.