Trades-training 'sweeteners' quake-zone option

John Key. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Prime Minister John Key says "sweeteners" to get people into trades training for the rebuild of earthquake-ravaged Christchurch may be considered.

The Labour Party has warned of a major trades skills shortage in the coming months as Christchurch starts to rebuild, and Mr Key on Friday toured the reopened campus of Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) with a focus on trades training.

He said the institute was going to be "an important part of training a lot of people in the trades area, which will be critical to the Canterbury rebuild".

"We are encouraging people to enrol. There are places, and the Tertiary Education Minister's in discussions with CPIT about expanding their capacity here. There's certainly going to be huge demand [for the trades] and we seek real opportunity.

"And there's a number of opportunities we are actually talking to [CPIT] about, in both short-term and longer-term courses.

"So we're going to tailor those. And there are other polytechs around the country also that can work very hard in that area for us."

Asked if the Government would consider sweeteners for people to go into trades training, Mr Key said: "That's a possibility". He did not expand on that.

"But making sure they can access to those courses is the most critical bit."

Labour Party leader Phil Goff recently warned that the Government would have to act quickly to create more skilled labour.

"At the moment the building industry is at its lowest ebb in nearly 50 years, so there's a lot of action that needs to be taken quickly to equip the building industry with skills, with materials needed for that rebuilding," he said.

"Lack of demand has led to a lack of skills. Apprenticeships aren't being taken on in the numbers that they were, pre-trade training is not happening in the same numbers, and many of our trades people have fled overseas to Australia.

"The fact is we need thousands of people in the construction trades and we need to use institutions like CPIT, the private training providers, we need to use private industry, and the Government needs to give absolute priority to getting those houses built."

Mr Goff said getting trade-qualified New Zealanders to come back from Australia to add to the rebuild effort would be difficult given the gulf in pay rates.