The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
Don't Lay S*!t Bricks - 42 Years in the Industry.
Join Duayne Pearce on Level Up as he tackles the generational gap plaguing the construction and trades industries. In this episode, Duayne chats with master bricklayer Andrew Hoskings about declining productivity, the vanishing art of skilled trades, and what it takes to bridge the divide between old-school expertise and the new generation. If you're in construction, a tradesperson, or just passionate about quality craftsmanship, this is a must-listen!
Check out the Duayne Pearce website here...
https://duaynepearce.com/
cross a generation gap. It's a piece of cake.
Speaker 2:I believe productivity right now, in 2025, is way less than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
Speaker 1:As long as the boss man has taught them properly, that kid will remember something. But if that kid hasn't been taught properly one day, he's going to teach someone else and he's actually not going to teach him right.
Speaker 2:There's so many people just not caring. The construction industry isn't just about the buildings we build.
Speaker 1:And there's one thing I do regret and I never asked him.
Speaker 2:The thing is, you don't know what you don't know A much lower standard of work to what we were 20 years ago. That will never happen again. This industry is changing rapidly and you aim to be the best at what you're doing. You will be very successful.
Speaker 1:The recipe is actually pretty easy, but no one's doing it.
Speaker 2:G'day guys. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in the shed this afternoon for an absolute cracking episode. Been trying to get this guy on for a little while. I've never actually met him before, but I've heard a lot about him. I think he's one of the best brickies in Australia. From what I've heard Today, we've got for you Andrew Hoskins. He's 58 years old. He's been a brickie for 42 years, worked for himself for 30. But he's also one of the judges in the World Skills, which I definitely want to learn more about. And you also do a lot of work with taste. So, mate, thanks for coming on board today and having a chat.
Speaker 1:Mate, my pleasure, dwayne, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Really good. It's a pleasure to be here, really good. I love the topic of Brickland and we've got to make it better and we've got to actually encourage young people to do the trade, definitely. So this is a mission that comes from an old fart Now my years in the trade. I used to sit in the smoko room, duane, and in the 80s it was like um, you know, be quiet, don't say anything, you'll be. You can talk when you're told to talk, but these days, no, I sit in the smoko room, is probably the oldest guy in the smoko room, but I love all the different trades and, in particular, the young guys who are interested in bricklaying and just construction across the board. I find it important, dwayne, I never take away from anything to do with tertiary education Super important. A country has to go forward, but let's not forget about vocational training. All right, that's the kicker, because we work hard and, as a general rule, we're really productive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mate, you're obviously doing something well, mate, because you're a very fit and healthy-looking bricklayer. Like most bricklayers you meet are hunched over, they're all buggered up, they're worn out Like what's the secret.
Speaker 1:Well, you're exactly right, dwayne, what you say. I've always been pretty tall and pretty lean. My old boss, like I said, he actually said to me you're too tall to be a bricklayer, you're going to do your back in. One thing that I could say to young guys I know that bricklaying is a piece right. So there's so many bricks you've got to get laid a day to cover your costs, to run at a profit and to advance in the trade. But what I've always done is I don't want to burn myself out. So I actually pace myself and as I'm getting older, I can still put a big day in if I want to myself, and as I'm getting older, I can still put a big day in if I want to. But I always pace myself because I always looked at the fact of I don't want a bad back. I don't want, you know, knee problems or shoulder problems or things that come with block laying and brick laying.
Speaker 2:But in saying that, it's been my choice not to go like the clappers I, I like what you just touched on, mate, because you, um, you know how many bricks you gotta lay a day to make it worthwhile, yep, and I actually think that is a skill and it's a skill in itself that doesn't get talked about, and I, I personally look, we might go down a bit of a rabbit hole here, but I personally believe that everyone's banging on about the cost of housing and affordability and all that type of thing, but no one's talking about productivity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm not sure on your theory, but I believe productivity right now, um, in 2025, is way less than it was five years ago, 10 years ago ago. Yeah, and I've seen some recent studies and they've done the numbers Like it's pretty insane. Yeah, because a lot of young people that get into the industry like, whether you're a brickie, a plasterer, a carpenter, whatever, a tiler, like you have to get a certain amount of work done each day to be profitable. That's it, yeah, and a lot of people don't think about that enough.
Speaker 1:No, look, and this is a problem with the industry we have Now. I'm not going to target any building and construction companies, but the one thing they've got to realise is for a trade to be sustainable and continue, they have to make sure that their tradies have the ability to get the right money so that they can employ, they can train and they can actually stay in the industry and be viable, relevant and run at a profit. There's no use going like hell, burning yourself out and chucking it in and going by a taxi. What's that achieved? Nothing.
Speaker 1:If you like your job, you should be able to control your career. To be able to turn up, put in a really good day, put the numbers in to pay for. You also need the right dollar per thousand, per block or per hourly rate. You know, and I've always tried to sort of not burn myself out At 58 this year I've seen a whole heap of burnouts and some are unfortunate, but some of them have been bought on by themselves. Yeah, you know. And? But the only thing I agree with what you said, dwayne productivity, wise. Um, the houses are unusual these days. They've got a lot of a lot of glass in them. The big runs are gone. Uh, there's not as much sort of um long run brick work to get numbers in. But brick laying you've got to be productive, you've got to be able to get the bricks in to pay. So so that's even like.
Speaker 2:That's something I've never really thought about. But you're 100 right, like houses do have less brick work in them because people want bigger sliding doors and bigger windows, so yeah but you would make your cream on your big runs absolutely when we were younger.
Speaker 1:Um, I never thought about it when I was maybe an apprentice, or even in the first five years of going out on my own, but there was more dollars to be made and more value in a long run. Or or backing up a retaining wall with a nine-inch skin or a cavity wall. But these days in a house you've got sectional panels, you've got lots of 24 by 18s, 24 high by 3 metres, 3 by 6, lots of big openings, heaps of glass. Now, I get that that's the architectural thing. A lot of it is the sustainability of the house, like everything is involved in that, but what that's meant is it's probably more difficult to be as productive as was what it was in the 80s and 90s. Yeah, the style of house is different, you know. Um, yeah, it just is.
Speaker 2:Yeah and what are you? I'm sure you'd have an opinion on this as well. What about the quality of the bricks that you're laying?
Speaker 1:Rightio, here's a burner.
Speaker 2:Well, mate, I see it across everything in the industry. So I'm sure bricks are no different.
Speaker 1:Now this is the and look this question, I've got to be blunt straight up Austral Bricks huge player in the market, of course. Then Boral and PGH are, as one, as big companies. They've got huge turnovers, all right, and I know that they have to supply the materials, but for a market that's booming. And let's face Australia's construction industry. I bat for Australia's construction industry. I actually think it's bigger than the mining industry oh it is, but no one talks about it. No one talks about it.
Speaker 2:It's way bigger than the mining industry, especially its offshoots, but I did a, I did a email a few years ago and sent it to some government officials and was we're telling them, basically, they need to wake up themselves, because when you add up, when you everyone talks about construction in all these different facets that they don't really and but they don't put everything together. Yeah, but when you add up, like the construction industry isn't just about the buildings we build, like you've got the buildings we build, obviously all the employees and contractors that come together to build that, then you've got all the suppliers that supply those materials, then you've got all the transport companies that transport it, then you've got all the manufacturers that make those materials, then you've got forestry, and and then on top of that, not only that, everyone builds a new house or moves into a house. Generally, they'll go and buy new furniture or something to yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just it's huge, it's massive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, and to keep up with that, I know the quality of bricks um the 80s, the fact that I didn't start until like 83 and then roll through as an apprentice. I know the bricks in the 80s and the 90s are better quality than they are now. Yeah, there's a huge color range now it's like a paint card, it's like a paint brochure of colors, but the the quality of the brick seems to be less than what it was in the 80s and 90s. Sure, occasionally there's there's better quality bricks in some particular brands and also some particular lines that might be. So the duane brick this six months might be better than the duane brick next year. I think it's very dependent on clay materials production turnover.
Speaker 1:It probably has a lot more variables than what it did years ago, but we had probably a better quality brick years ago. Certainly size-wise very unusual.
Speaker 2:There's more variance now. Yeah, bricks aren't as solid as what they used to be. I remember as an apprentice most bricks were a solid brick and they had I don't know what you call it the like, the indentation, the bottom of the brick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the frog.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it, yep um, but then these days they seem to be a lot more hollow, a lot more holes in them yeah, um, when I first started I came um partially through what we call dry.
Speaker 1:Well, different states call it different things, but queensland would call it dry pressed. So dry pressed bricks have the frog and they're a dry pressed brick in a mold. So they're inclined to come out very accurate, really accurate product. But they're always more expensive. You can still buy them.
Speaker 1:There was a a we call it a boutique brickwork in Warwick. Yeah, yeah, a German family owned it. They were magnificent bricks. That's still going in at the Warwick Well, I'm not 100% sure, dwayne, it probably still is, but it can never play with the big players and they know that they're not silly. But we used to call them boutique brickwork and that was amazing. Their product they were dry pressed but extruded bricks have the 10 holes, or cord bricks. I know new south wales victorium call them cord bricks. Yeah, um, strangely enough, a lot of old boys are going oh, the frog brick, dry pressed brick, it'll be the best brick. Um, they're very hungry for water. They, they, drink water. I know as an apprentice we'd have to go to work early. We'd have to be running the hoses on the bricks to actually make them layable so that when you spread your mortar.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't absorb the moisture out of the mortar straight away and be dead off the trowel so we'd have to go there and hose the bricks and hose the bricks for like an hour or an hour before, and half the time we had to do it at our own time. So then the boss would come along and say, have you got it all together yet? And we're like, yeah, it's all ready. Because back then that was another thing. Laborers, they used to turn up early. They were expected to turn up earlier. They had to have everything going, you know, ready to rock and roll. I'd love to see it return again. It's very difficult to find them.
Speaker 2:Good bricklayers, labourers.
Speaker 1:They're rarer. They're rarer than the bricklayer itself. You know they're just gone and yet they're a highly important part of the whole bricklaying game well, bricklaying's?
Speaker 2:obviously it is. It's a dying art. Look, and brickwork is definitely well, especially up here in queensland, it's yeah there's not, and we were just talking about before we started recording.
Speaker 2:Like only two kilometers as a crow flies from my house here, like when I was an apprentice, there was an enormous clay pit. I can't remember the name of the brickworks, but there's a huge brickworks and now it's all industrial land. Yeah, and there's another one over on the south side that only in the last two years, yep has closed down as well. So it's um, there's nowhere near as much brickwork as what they used to be no, and yet you still can't get a bricklayer.
Speaker 1:So in construction, in all of these really big developments, construction companies have struggled to get bricklayers. So it always worries me overseas whatever trade or I've observed overseas that whatever trade they struggle to get, they'll change the material. If they can't get bricklayers, they'll source out a different material to clad that building or clad that house or do that factory different. Um, I didn't experience but uh, as a bricklayer. But I know, particularly in brisbane and sydney, huge block line gangs before tilt up, before tilt up was even a thing, big block line gangs 60 plus could be more guys you'd hear about and laborers laying huge amounts of concrete blocks on big developments or shopping centers or uh, you know, uh, block work in the city or sub sub area. You know car parks and whatever in in city developments and high-rises.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they still do to a certain degree, but nothing like they used to. Now the big block-laying gangs disappear and it's more viable to do the tilt-up thing Now. I don't say there's nothing wrong with that, it's great, there's no problems in it, and it soaks up concrete workers, steel fixes, the riggers, the cranes. It still has a huge flow-on effect for work. But the old block-laying gang that's gone, yeah, so I'd hope that the brick-laying thing stays relevant, particularly in Australia, because Australia's only a puppy yeah, we've got so much.
Speaker 2:We need more passionate people mate.
Speaker 1:So to take people back.
Speaker 2:So um andrew I've met andrew through um the godfather, craig stewart, so the godfather?
Speaker 1:is that what they call him?
Speaker 2:that's what we call him. He um. He's a wealth of knowledge, mate, and, just like you, he's incredibly passionate about his craft and um he's been telling me about you for so long and, like you've got to bloke, you've got to see his work and I'm not sure we'll try and do it maybe in the recording of this. But like the photographs that you sent through of your brick work and some of the it's artistic mate, like some of the stuff that you produce is insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I know there's probably a lot of that that doesn't get asked for regularly. Like it's you having a bit of a play around, is it?
Speaker 1:Well, dwayne, a little bit of both. One thing I've always I've said this to my apprentices, I was really lucky To be an apprentice in the 1980s meant that you flowed through a really good construction industry in the 90s, and in the 90s there was a bit of a hit on design with federation.
Speaker 2:So it was like federation brickwork.
Speaker 1:So we got the ability to do arch work, to do some buttress work, to do gable ends, to do front entries with arches, just a lot of different sort of work which now just to do with the design of homes and I suppose the trend of what we're in that has gone. Yeah, but not always we're really lucky. Brick companies I say again Boral, pgh and Austral they're very good. They still do brick display centres. So some of that work in those photos was brick display centres Also, occasionally we get requests from them through architects to actually do work for architects. So it's kind of lucky. It's indirectly and I haven't really done it, I've probably only done it through being passionate and I've got a bit of a hunger for doing some design brickwork. Doors have opened where somebody wants a fireplace. That's a bit different. We get a phone call. So it's become really good.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like a little networky door that's opened up for design brickwork well, when you're passionate about something and you you um like people pick up on that and people want that in their work because you you're a hard bloke to find you don't have an instagram or facebook flying under the radar but, um, a lot of time.
Speaker 2:that's the best way to be like, yeah, you're, um, you're just poking doing your thing and you're doing it really well. But look, tell us a little bit about, because you do a bit of work with TAFEs and stuff and I know I've heard from my TAFE teachers that teach my apprentices, my carpentry apprentices, that bricklayers are getting few and far between, like there's not a lot of kids coming through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nowhere near enough. Dwayne, we've got a first-year apprentice. He was with us last year as a labourer so he started this year as a first year. Now he's at TAFE up Sunshine Coast. There's himself and two kids in the class, which is crazy. The Sunshine Coast mate he should have should be 13 of them in the class. Yeah, but it's sort of weird.
Speaker 1:I know, and don't get me wrong, all of these trades are important. The pick trades from what I see by going to work every day, the pick trades are electricians and plumbers. Right, they're the two. They're lined up. We've got more. They've got enough electricians to run a power station, like it's just insane how many electrical and yet when you ring up to get an electrician you can't find one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but bricklaying wise 10 years ago in kalula. Now kalula takes a fairly big area. I think we've got 70 000 people now, so, but it is over quite an expanse. So it goes to the coast. You know north, south, east, west. It's quite a big area. But in Kooloola 10 years ago there was twice as many bricklayers in that area. Now Gympie has boomed in the construction industry. It would have doubled, absolutely, absolutely doubled, probably more in its population and there's half as many bricklayers as what there was 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really strange because now when builders want to get a bricklayer, they ring me up and I choose. My choice is to stay small. So I just have, like my main off-sider, I have a tradie and an apprentice and myself. So three or four, that's my choice At 58, I don't want the brain strain and the whole shebang, but that's me and that's how I roll.
Speaker 1:But there's so much opportunity for young bricklayers advancing through the trade. They couldn't run out of work. My catchphrase at the moment is you could live another life. Honestly, they couldn't run out of work. My catchphrase at the moment is you could live another life. Honestly. You couldn't run out of work. If you tried, you'd have to shoot the boss or something Like it's, because there's just so much work out there. But I say this to the young guys at TAFE I go and I do a thing called try a skill and try a trade and I go and help out a thing called try a skill and try a trade, and I go and help out at TAFE on a voluntary basis. All right Now, I did my training and assessment, dwayne, but I only did it in case I broke and I love going to work and even though some people say to me aren't you burnt out, aren't you sick of it? Have you had a gutful of that brick line? No, I actually haven't, Mate.
Speaker 2:you wouldn't be sitting here with as much energy as you have bouncing out of the chair if you didn't enjoy what you're doing.
Speaker 1:But I still do. But I know, being a bit older, I look at other people's jobs and I go. I think to myself if you don't like your job, that's it, you're cooked it. I think to myself if you don't like your job, that's it, you're cooked, it's finished. Why are you there? Yeah, what are you putting in? You're not really helping that many people, you're just cheesing everyone off being there. Yeah. So I like going to work in an industry that's still relevant and it needs help. It needs good bricklayers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it needs good bricklayers. It needs good brick layers. Yeah, it needs good brick layers and I um, I've seen a lot of a huge demographic of brick layers over the years. Overall, as a trade, I love it, but it's got a little bit of a problem. Its skill level is going that way instead of that way. Yeah, now, I have not huge answers for to fix that problem. The only thing that I see is it has to be taken a little bit more seriously as a trade and it's got to be treated more professionally. Bricklaying is a profession. It's not just a dog's body game where you turn up and put the radio on and just smash them in. That's not it. Bricklaying as old as time itself. You can go all through Europe and you can ask all the old construction guys. At college, bricklaying was revered as a trade. It was right up here.
Speaker 2:Well, even when I was an apprentice, mate, I remember bricklayers were respected. They were a very top quality business to have, and I don't see it as much now. I remember being an apprentice and the brickies would have their trade pack trucks and they'd have it all decked out with the scaffolding and everything. It was all very well organised, yeah, and I don't see a lot of that anymore.
Speaker 1:No, and it's sort of. I think then it reflects in the quality of the job. One thing I've always been told my old boss told me this years ago and I've passed this on brickwork is the it's. If you walk up to a house, it's pretty well 80% of what you see unless it's rendered or timber or whatever. That's cool. But if you walk up to a face brick home like yours here, duane, it's 80% of what you see. And do you want 80% crap or do you want 80% quality? Yeah, which one do you want? So, and then I think for years rolling down I'll be dead and gone right. So I kind of look at it that the next generation that's coming through, as long as the boss man has taught them properly, that kid will remember something. But if that kid hasn't been taught properly, one day he's going to teach someone else.
Speaker 1:And he's actually not going to teach them right. And yet really, when you look at it, is it the kid's fault? It's actually not. It's been the generation that's actually had it good. Right now, if they haven't instilled it, they can't blame the next one for popping it. It's hard.
Speaker 2:That sort of stuff's hard. We're absolutely under the pump at the moment. We've been doing quite a lot of weekends and stuff and actually last Saturday I did a big day on the tools with one of our labourers and one of the jobs we had to do was lay some bricks and look, I'm not a brickie but I was taught Like my boss was old school.
Speaker 2:They did everything If the brickie didn't show up or it was a small renovation, like we just did whatever had to be done. Yep, and so we've tidied up the project. Last Saturday did some other tasks that we had to get done for the day and I said right now we're going to. So we used the old. When we did the demo on the job, we pulled the old brick fireplace down.
Speaker 2:So the big stone base and then the brick fireplace. So the stones we laid out and that's all getting worked into the landscaping, and then the bricks we've cleaned up and we're using them for a little path cleaned up and we're using them for a little path, entry, path to the front door. And yeah, I just said to him well, we finished the rocks, the next job's we're gonna lay these, these bricks. And he's like what do you mean? I can lay the bricks, yeah so, but like we have people come through now and I think this is something that's really hurting the industry is we have apprentices come, they do their time and they think at the end of their time they're set and they leave and they go out on their own and there's not enough people sticking around with their employer long enough to actually pick up all the skills they need and
Speaker 2:so I did. I hung around with my boss so I learned to do the bricklay and I learned to do the plaster and I got everything. And this laborer last sunday was like blown away because like I'm not on the tools a lot in my business anymore, yeah, but he was blown away that I had like I still have it surrounding the shed out there, like I still have me bucket. Yeah, that has all the troughs and all the concrete and the brick laying gear in it and I'm like I did my. I finished my apprenticeship bloody 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, your finished my apprenticeship bloody 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah, um, your point there that you made duane's bang on, and actually, young people, this is a big thing you've got to remember and you've got to take this on board. I, when I was younger, I thought oh, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever the old boys would tell you something, but your head's not in the space, right. But as you get older, you hopefully get a bit wiser. But one thing that is true is you really only start learning after you finish your apprenticeship. Yeah, it's really weird.
Speaker 1:My old boss we were and this is no disrespect for him a very knowledgeable, old, skilled bricklayer. Um, he'd be in the top three best bricklayers I've ever met. In saying that, I'm talking not speed, skill level and an eye for straight, I always say, like you can be a natural at any job, but to be a natural bricklayer you've got to have an eye for straight. And the other trade that's got a really good eye for straight is tiling. You know, like we're all about lines. It's, it's all lines, it's all symmetry. It's like I don't want to cut you off.
Speaker 2:You're on, put you off track. But even even that like a simple skill, like being able to sight things, my boys hate it on site now like I rock into site and from across the road getting out of me you got something all that I'm I'm pointing, and they know when I come over I'm going to pick, pick them up on something. People aren't using their eyes anymore. They rely on lasers for everything. Well, dwayne that's quality we never had a laser when I was an apprentice.
Speaker 2:I didn't even have a laser, most of my trade.
Speaker 1:Now we're coming into a great area here. This is the area I love. This is unreal. You've instigated it. I love that when You've instigated it. I love that when we first, when I was an apprentice, I wasn't going to fart, I couldn't. I was pretty quiet, believe it or not, but my old boss was a hard-ass, tough old boy, A gentleman, but old school full on. So we never had at that stage of the game. What I do like about Brick Lane is you can follow it through the decades. Do you want to say decades? I'm only a puppy really, but I've watched four decades.
Speaker 1:So in the 80s they'd get out of the truck. There was no profiles, there was no clamps on the wall to set the brickwork pole to gauge off the first thing that was. And also there was no cut and fill. So cut and fills never existed. So the builder would work with the concreter or the bricklayer and set out the job profile. We do a base because there was no cut and fill. It might have been a split level home or it might have been a low base. Travelling along, they never touched the land. So we then, as the bricklayer, had to get a plan, A plan. No one looks at a plan anymore. You do, You're the builder. But if you hand one to a bricklayer, they don't need the plan anymore. All they do is measure straight off the stud 160 mil they're off. You had to set it out with the builder.
Speaker 1:Now, as a whipper I didn't think much about it. But when I look back at it now it was good because the profiles were there. We pulled our lines, we plumbed everything down onto the footing and we started to build corners. Now I use profiles. Now I know that I've got a brick saw profiles, a brick elevator, all the whistles and bells.
Speaker 1:But the old way, before the laser, um, he'd send me off and we'd have to fill the water level. Now and when I think about it, I told my apprentice and he's like a a what, A water level and how it was. The builder would have profiles everywhere. He'd have a datum that was the RL of what your base was going to end up at as a height and then we would actually attach that water level to that point and then the water level would be long. It could be like 30 foot of clear hose. It could be more. That would end up going around and follow the bricklayer around with a plug in the end to determine his fourth, fifth, sixth course, wherever the base topped out and water level never lies.
Speaker 2:Mate. I've talked about the water level a few times on the podcast. It's 100% accurate 100% accurate. Like cheap as chips.
Speaker 1:It's 100% accurate, 100% accurate Like cheapest chips yeah, cheapest chips.
Speaker 2:I think we had a 50-meter roll in my boss's truck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was on like a hose reel.
Speaker 1:That's it. That's it and it was like a normal during the apprenticeship. This was probably only the first two or three years, but eventually Owen Thompson, my old boss eventually he got the 14-inch masonry drop saw he got the laser. Before the laser we had the dumpy level. And there's one thing I do regret and I never asked him, I never knew how to use a cowley level. Have you ever heard of a cowley level?
Speaker 1:So, it's like the dumpy, but it's even older than the dumpy and it goes back before the water level and it's more of a surveying tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one where it looks like a little level sitting on a tripod, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it is. You know, and I never knew much about that, but it's sort of weird, those skills. I think what they did, duane, was they caused you to construct a corner and build a corner. Now, all right, tomorrow I'll call the boys. You know, this is the wall we're working on. We'll set up a profile. Profiles are industry. Profiles, used properly, are very good, um, and you can mark your gauge. If you use a profile, you can get a very plumb corner. If you don't care about the profile and the profile pulls in, it's all too late. You've got your corners run out, but I so I still use them for speed, but I do like to build a corner every now and then it teaches, teaches the skill.
Speaker 2:Most people wouldn't know what you're talking about, mate Correct me if I'm wrong when you're talking about building the base up. So we would go to site, do the footings and things and then, exactly like you said, we would get the brick laying, because all the jobs we did for years were brick bases and the brickie would always start building his corner up and that corner depending on how high it was, sort of depending how long it went out.
Speaker 2:That's it, the rack out, yeah and that yep was the start of the job. That's it. Once all the corners were done, then you just pulled your lines and you filled it in. That's it um you brought back a few memories, mate, because I got my ass kicked so many times for getting air bubbles in the water level yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And look, it's really weird, I the the good bricklayers, the skilled up bricklayers, they were the corner builders, the line men. They run in the line in between and that probably was something that the boss would have. He would have determined that that. You know, duane's good on the corner and he's got good level skills. And I still tell my boys the principle, pardon me, the principle is gauge first level, plum and then alignment.
Speaker 1:Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. It shouldn't change. Once it changes, you're heading in the wrong direction for straight brickwork. So it's gauge, which is height, level which is level, plumb which is plumb, and alignment to line everything down. Those simple things really, probably because we're a little bit archaic. They don't actually need to change. And the bricklayer, who's productive and a really good trowel, he can build a corner and there's no mucking around. They just know because they used to do it years ago. I know they do it college, still now, but it's not something that is relied upon. It's funny. I've heard young apprentices say I don't want to build a corner. We don't build a corner, we put a profile up and the good TAFE trainer, the good TAFE trainer, the good TAFE teacher or the TAFE trainer will go yeah, but you need to know how to construct a corner or something like that, or you know what I mean, where it's actually doing it by trowel and level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um and yeah, look you, I'm not telling you that you don't know. This is more just for listeners. But the first probably 10 years, I reckon, of my time the brickies, the one bricklayer that did most of my boss's work. He had a brick saw on the truck, yeah, but it hardly come out. Holy. We had a gauge rod, so the morning we flicked the slab out and marked everything. Well, a lot of the time you had a brick base, yeah, so it was very easy. You'd knock your knockoff course off, you'd flick all your walls out and then you'd do all your window set out based on the bricks, that's it. And so there was no cutting, no, but then, over my time and as I started so a lot of there was no cutting, no, but then, over my time and as I started doing a lot of work for myself, there was so many people just not caring and the brickies would always have the shits like they'd be cut, like some bloke would be on the saw all day, every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just cutting bricks because no one had taken the time to set the job out properly.
Speaker 1:Yep, and this is important because, in reflection, one generation, if they don't know about setting a base out and the carpenter coming in with the builder and setting all the openings out, the windows, the doors, etc. Uh he, if he doesn't get told that he doesn't know, he doesn't even think it's a problem that you're cutting bricks. They just put them in anywhere they couldn't care.
Speaker 2:Most people in the I know reach out. A lot of people don't even know what a gauge rod is. Yeah, yeah, or a height stick is yeah, um, and it's.
Speaker 1:This is where it's kind of goes old school. It's almost as if the place needs, the industry needs, a little bit of a reboot of knowledge. But it's difficult to do that. But what can be done is the employer he needs to do. Now I'll get on to one thing here WorldSkills Australia and WorldSkills International. One of their mottos is best practice. All right, so they promote best practice. These these days, best practice is straight out the wheelie bin. No one gives a crap about anything. All they give a garb about is how much they're getting a week, how much they're getting a day, how much they're getting an hour, whatever it is. As far as addition up quality for the couple's biggest investment they'll ever make in their whole life, they couldn't give a crap.
Speaker 2:And again, I truly believe it comes back to that rushing to get out of your time to go and work for yourself. People just aren't picking up the skills, and the thing is you don't know what you don't know, so you rush it on your own and you just think you're doing everything right, but you're actually producing, yeah, a very, a much lower standard of work to what we were 20 years ago yeah, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 1:It's sort of weird I see kids at tafe, um, because sometimes in a general conversation sometimes you can be guilty of bashing the generation. And yet I know there's really good kids out there. There's good tradies, there's kids who want to be a builder, they want to be a plasterer, they want to be a bricklayer, but there's not as much of that as what used to happen. I know one thing that I always really am thankful for I grew up I'm the oldest of three and I was always connected to my old man. Anything that he was building, anything that he was doing, any dogfight that he was in in town, going to the dump, going to the sawmill, whatever I wanted to be part of, I was not an indoor kid, I had to be outdoors. So and this is before phones, before anything where the I don't know freedom.
Speaker 1:You just did whatever. I don't know if it's just good. It's hard to explain, but I don't have to because people that are listening they know kids who were brought up in 70s, 80s, 90s is top shelf, really A hundred percent. It actually was top shelf, but I kind of really like the fact that I spent a lot of time with my old man doing things, like the fact that I spent a lot of time with my old man, um, doing things.
Speaker 1:If he was digging a hole, so he he basically dug out under what I'd call I don't like it's not a queenslander, that's terms used wrong but a high set timber home on stumps. He dug it all out, re-stumped it all. It got bricked in eventually. But like they did in the sort of 70s uh, dads and granddads they did a lot of it themselves and I was always part of it. I couldn't dig enough holes with the crowbar if I tried. I just loved it. It's weird. At the time I didn't think much of it, but I look back on it now. Um, that's, I think, is a good thing for a young tradie to aspire to doing an outdoor job or a vocational job or a construction job or painting. You're going to laugh at this, dwayne. I wanted to be a bricklayer, but my next pick was painting. I love painting and people go. I can't stand painting painting.
Speaker 2:I love painting and people go. I can't stand painting. My old boy's been a painter for 40 similar to you like 42, 44 years and I just I did a bit of time with him doing some painting when I first finished my time. And yeah, man, I I can't stand it.
Speaker 1:I'll do a bit of touching up here and there, but I just can't stand well I used to work for an old fellow who's an old boy painter and I'd do it on the weekends and it started from work experience at high school and he was a repainter. So he was a sand abacara, you know of sanded-down houses and full timber repaints exterior and I really liked it. But I couldn't I know now I couldn't do it as a job. But I couldn't I know now I couldn't do it as a job.
Speaker 2:but I love these things Using your hands yeah.
Speaker 1:There's just something about the whole creativity thing and if you're that way inclined, it's almost it gives you it's like a bit addictive. You know, I really like it. I go to art galleries and I love. I can't paint for poop, all right, I wouldn't have a clue how to paint anything. But I look at art and I can 100% appreciate that going to the Merced d'Orsay in Paris to see Van Gogh is just how the hell did that happen? That will never happen again. Or Rembrandt, or something like that. That's just special, so special, and it comes from these things and in here. Yeah, so I kind of love the whole tradie hand art creativity thing. Um, but I just transferred into brickland and well, you've definitely done that, mate.
Speaker 2:I don't know how we're going to show some of your stuff. I'll have to try and share it on my instagram or something. But yeah some of that, the um like. Obviously there's those that twisted archway did you see that? One. You like him. Holy shit, I don't, mate, I don't. I can't even start to imagine how you did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, that's a helical arch. So it's a. You might have noticed um and brickies and construction guys if you listen, and we know what a helical pier is. So a helical pier is like no different than a corkscrew. So it's built in segments and it's worked out mathematically for the turn to get 90, 180, 360 or 270, 360 depending on how high you go. So, um, and then we decided that it needs to become an arch. So it actually we had to work out the arch centre as a cradle and the cradle it turned. And this is Dwayne, where I'm a bit lucky. This could never be an industry thing that you would be able to do for Joe Rat Builder, because you can appreciate he can't afford that time. But we were lucky. We did it for brick companies and they wanted it as a bit of an expose. So we got given the golden goose. I suppose I'll never do one again. I'll guarantee you as long as my bum points to the earth it won't happen again.
Speaker 2:How long did?
Speaker 1:that take? How long did that take? It was about a week. It was because every brick is cut because it turns and arches, so it buzzes and turns as well, so it was crazy like the cutting in it.
Speaker 2:But I look at that, so I think you'll be similar to me, mate. Like I haven't done a lot of traveling but the little bit of traveling I've done, especially in Europe, like I can stand and look at an old building for days, Yep, and I just sit there and think, like I just appreciate the labor the creativity, the, the, just the skill that went into those old buildings, like you just, and it blows my mind like, well, you know more than I do talking about the history of bricks.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I love about our trade is I know it's relevant for the time. Labour Costs them nothing, you know. Imagine the bricklayers they would have had on cathedrals and big government buildings throughout Europe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thousands of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, it would be insane how many they had. But, relevant to the time, it probably wasn't a thing that they even thought about because at one period of time, factually, bricklayer was king, absolutely without a doubt. Never taking anything away from the other trades, bricklayer, particularly through europe, was absolute king. Um, the place where I've seen and hopefully some of the listeners have been there, denmark, copenhagen. Oh my God, father, it's like you've died and gone to brick-lone heaven. It's like insane, the brickwork in that country.
Speaker 1:I found out why, dwayne years after, is that Denmark doesn't have a forestry industry as such, it's all agriculture. They don't have a forestry industry as such, it's all agriculture. They don't have timber. It's not a timber wealth country to be able to construct in timber, nor so much is it steel, but bricks. Oh my God, I can't overstate. I Googled Denmark and brickwork and just this encyclopedia of construction will come up. It's insane, and that's kind of why I like the trade and I like it for its skill level, I like it for its history and it does go back a long way. Brick layers go like brick layers are around far before carpenters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, it's just probably because it was a natural product, it was dug out of the ground, it was mud bricks. I'm talking to Shea travelling. I've been really fortunate to travel through Egypt. There's a country it's amazing and I love stone, as in granite, like Egypt's, full of granite from Aswan, from the quarries in Aswan, the red granite that makes all of what you would see as littered down the Nile, but sandstone as well. But brickwork was mud bricks. So what's weird is they hadn't really created the ability to make a beautiful mud brick product, but two and a half, three thousand years ago ago they were smashing out mud bricks out of the dial, someone was laying them. So it's very unusual. Like everywhere you go is a masonry trade. Um, masonry slash, as in bricklaying and stone masonry, and I've got to say, um, it's a, it'll never happen. But my favourite trade is, you know it is brickland, but my cousin to it is architectural stone masonry. Yeah, man, oh man, that is, that's the prime, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:How they turn chunks of stone into the things they do is incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where it gets back to duane their um ability to be good craftsmen. Um, and it's kind of strange. I get people come up to me and they go oh yeah, we're in 2025. Who gives a shit? That's not relevant? Yeah, it is. It actually is, because that's the skill of your trade, all right. So if you want to roll it up and throw it in the rubbish bin, that's not a good thing. You can still do a quality build for Bob and Mary's brick veneer at North Lakes and not smash it up. So I know we might never get the opportunity to build. Actually, this will interest you. I'd love to do it. I don't know whether it will happen Next year.
Speaker 1:Gaudi's Sagrada Familiar in Barcelona is finished, complete. So you know, gaudi the architect, his big cathedral yeah, now, that's complete in 2026. How long have they been building that for? Ah, now, don't quote me on this. Everybody in in podcast land will know it better, but it's like a hundred and something years.
Speaker 1:So it's, which is people go yeah, whatever, so what so? What so? What? Um, I want an amazing architect, but what's I find really unusual is that would be one of the few constructions that has actually been still going over the last hundred years to complete a cathedral which they say is just dumbfounding. It's just next level. I know previous, you know 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th century cathedral. Yes, they're amazing and sure, amazing is not the right word, it has to be up from that. But for that Sagrada Familiar to be actually constructed now, man, that's amazing. Yeah, so there must be architectural stonemasons in Europe, being German or Austrian or whatever, that are still doing that work, yeah, which is exciting, because that would be a tough gig to be an architectural stonemason now. I don't know how you'd stay and work, but it's just that we keep Like.
Speaker 2:I personally believe that easy is ruining the world. It doesn't matter across the board. We're all taking the easy road. Hard work is becoming a thing of the past, and so everything is just becoming constantly easier, and so houses. I take my job very seriously and I talk about this all the time on the podcast and on my socials, like I can still like I'm I don't know if you know I'm from gimpy, most of my family's from up that way, and he's not over there, my uh really yeah, my mom's family were the weavers like they owned a lot of mother mountain.
Speaker 2:yeah, had dairy and bean farms and stuff up there, and so like there's still a house out on that property that I can drive past and that was all. They cut the timber in the hills, they dragged it down to the house site, they machined it, they cut it, they built the house and it's still there.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:And I just think why, like it really frustrates me that trades these days don't think like that, like we should be put it, we should be building things that are going to last yeah, like we shouldn't just be come in, smash it out. Let it get it done.
Speaker 1:Move on to the next one and I've had this one put to me all the time is it's always financial, it's always a monetary reason why buildings got to be done to a certain level to people to be able to afford it and sort of pump them out. I'm not. It's really weird as a businessman, not actually a very good weird as a businessman. I'm not actually a very good one. This is a fact. I'm a bit too creative. I sort of throw the watch away and I concentrate on the creativity thing for an outcome, but that's only if it's a special project.
Speaker 1:Now, in saying that, some of those photos, we just recently we did a church chapel, now we did a vaulted ceiling. Now I'd done one vault ceiling before but this was an opportunity to do a better one, so that was a very that was a great customer to have all right. So he actually paid for all of that and everything was a winner. But apart from that, I kind of always try and put the quality of a job over sometimes the financial outcome of the job, in saying that you've got to run at a profit and you've got to be able to pay the bills. But if I'm doing a job for Duane and it takes a bit longer and we're on a contract rate and it's per thousand or per block or whatever it may be. I'm the businessman. If it doesn't quite pay, that's life right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, that's part of my mission to change mate, because I think there's a lot of really skillful tradies out there that are underselling themselves. Yeah, you've got to sell your passion, you've got to sell your quality, and it's about you're not going to do work for every client.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Because there is a lot of clients out there that are purely focused on the dollar. Yeah, so you've got to find the clients that want the quality and and appreciate the skills that you have.
Speaker 1:that's it and dwayne, I kind of reckon, um, it's a hard balance. Uh, weirdly enough, you'd think I would have worked it out after all this time. But I have a passion for bricklaying, so I kind of look at it from like different perspectives. I always try to teach my apprentice. I don't give him the broom he's not a broom apprentice. I'm trying to make him learn something. But I sort of kids these days, they're a little bit in the moment.
Speaker 1:So what happens is everything's got to be instant. Four years of an apprenticeship they go. Oh my God. Four years, I can't last that long. That's too long. Four years is nothing, absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:And in that four years that actually moulds you as a person and as a tradesperson to be able to sort of continue your job all the way through. And then it becomes a career, and I know a lot of bricklayers and maybe other trades too. Their construction job is not a career. It's actually not. I can pick it a mile off. Yeah, me too. They didn't give a crap. It's not a career. It's maybe for the next five years. We're going to knock it out of the park and that's it. So to me it's not a career. They can tell me all that trash as long as they want to. It's not a career. A career is something that you want to do your best at, to maybe like through WorldSkills Australia.
Speaker 1:The reason why I'm with them is I give back to the industry. So, in my simple way you know I'm not like the world's best teacher or the world's best bricklayer, but it's a way to give back to the generation. And one thing I can do and it's really weird, and as I go through life I seem to be getting better at it I can cross a generation gap. It's a piece of cake. It's a piece of cake Like I can go to TAFE and they come out and they go look at this grumpy old bastard Like the hat, the frigging sock savers, you know he's like Jesus. Look at this idiot. Here we go, and yet I'll make that day interesting for those kids and I'll be a little bit cool, but I can engage them because, uh, I'm not buying them, I'm not manipulating them, but I'm making them realize that I'm not some grumpy old poop who's just you don't want to listen to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what I find is then that's ticked a box, that kid's gone away from tafe that day and he's gone. Wow, dad, I've seen this bricklayer today as a fruit loop, like he was as funny as, but he taught us this, this, this and this. Yeah, so you've actually ticked the box. If you're a grumpy old shit and you scream and yell all day, what's he going to tell mum and dad? Yeah Well, what's he going to think of the trade? And no positives are going to come out of it. So I try to be tough on my apprentice, but fair, and I want him to learn something, and one of my favourite lines is this is your future, riley, not mine. This is yours, but I keep telling all my young fellas, if you want to.
Speaker 1:If you want to climb the ladder, it'll benefit, it'll pay dividends in years to come and I know he gets it, but it's difficult. The world that they live in as an apprentice bricklayer is not the one that I was in and that I think that's the hardest part, mate.
Speaker 2:I keep telling my young guys all the time like you, this industry is changing rapidly. Yeah, and we uh, it is getting further and further. Between good tradesmen and if you work your ass off, you put in the effort, you put in that extra one percent every day and you aim to be the best at what you're doing, yep, you will be very successful. Yeah, because of the other nine out of ten guys that are coming through aren't passionate and they're not putting in the effort. Yeah, so I think there's never been a more um, I don't ever think there's been a better time in my time, anyway, for people to actually do incredibly well at their trade.
Speaker 1:And this is one thing I can't speak for. It's a bit different. Like I'm in a rural area, so I can't speak for. Like a city gang of bricklayers, all right, I can't really appreciate what it's like for them to be working for, maybe, a project builder who is going to promise them, like you know, 60 houses for the year and that's all they're going to do. So I can't pass a judgment on that because I've never been in that position. I hear lots of things but I've never been in that position.
Speaker 1:But the only thing is that I kind of reckon, if you can, no matter what job you're doing, no matter what, uh, aim for the better hourly rate or the better rate per thousand, but you've got to deliver something with that. And I've had a few guys tell me oh yeah, we get this a brick, we get that a brick, we get this a block, this, we get that a brick, we get this a block, that a block. We're whacking them in, we're doing this, we're doing that, they're building everything, they're conquering the world, but if they get a better rate per thousand or a better dollar rate, are they given quality for it? Because I sort of instill into my boys. Are they given quality for it? Because I sort of instil into my boys we get good rate of brick per thousand and good blocks per block. But there's one thing more important than that is that if Dwayne pays the top dollar for the face brick laid, what does Dwayne want? Yeah, yeah, does Dwayne want quality? Of course he does. If he's going to pay for top money, he wants a top job.
Speaker 1:But that mindset, that's a long-term mindset, so it keeps your trade good. Because I've always some people are going oh, you bricklayers, you're always putting your rate up and I'm like look, what you've got to understand is to run at a profit, to pay workers' comp, to pay public liability, to pay super and all the red tape, fruit loop stuff along the way. You've got to run at a profit. You can't be living five years ago, you know, just because the builder says that's all you're getting. No, no, no, no, no. You've got to actually get a better rate per thousand. But the offset there's an offset with everything. The offset is you've got to do a top job. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:No shit People only focus on the dollar.
Speaker 1:Why are you dishing up rubbish and you want $2.60 a brick? If you want $2.60 a brick, it's got to be prime yeah.
Speaker 2:It's got to be prime.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's got to be really good. What is a brick worth those days to lay? Look, we're getting two dollars forty lay only. But that can vary and that's with um.
Speaker 2:It's about that's joe blog's builder it's about time bricky's got the right rate, say well, I remember for for years, you're, you're on 80 cents a brick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And look, when I first started out on my own I was getting 450,000, so 45 cents all right, but relevant to the time, the rate has gone up, but I've tried to make it climb and obviously costs climb. Business costs climb. So do materials. I've noticed since COVID, materials even in brick line through the roof. And our materials are simple, you know, but they've even gone up. Well, sand mate, far out. Yeah, yeah, it's like mad how much it is now. But as opposed to a builder, our materials are nothing but relevant to Bill and Bob and mary's house. It's still dollars that shouldn't come out of your pocket. It should be within the structure of your lay rate or lay rate plus materials, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:But, um, along with it's got to be quality, because and I know I keep getting given to it, but Quality is the number one thing- mate it is it is, and I've said to my kids before and I've said to apprentices on the floor at TAFEs the recipe is actually pretty easy, but no one's doing it If you pay. X amount of dollars, you expect a quality job. You'll be happy, Like generally. You'll forget the price. The quality will remain.
Speaker 2:Mate. It is a daily conversation on my job sites now, with all of my trades. We're all screaming for help. We need labourers, we need tradesmen, but everyone is chasing more money than ever. Yeah, but are they? Delivering, but the quality is lower than ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah um, a funny thing that I tell me workers and, um, my main man, barry hooper. The guy's been with me for 30. He remembers it because he had the same boss for a period of time and I took barry over when owen retired. But you've worked together for 30 years, yeah, one-on-one. So he knows me better than my wife because he had the same boss for a period of time and I took Barry over when Owen retired. So you've worked together for 30 years, yeah, one-on-one. So he knows me better than my wife.
Speaker 1:Serious, I'm not joking you, dwayne, and he'd be probably in the top five best bricklayers that I know. And this is the difference, barry. He's your all-round skilled up bricklayer who knows he's actually good enough to be a teacher. He doesn't think he is, he's very humble, but he he's got a package and I've always reckoned I look at guys and I go you're a natural and you really know what you're doing. You don't think you do, but you actually do. You move well, you've got ability with a trowel and it's just an extension of your hand.
Speaker 1:Barry's sort of like that. But he's been the worker, he's been an employee, the perfect employee. He doesn't want to be the boss, he doesn't want the responsibility. And yet when I go away, he runs a place like clockwork and when I come back there's no fires to put out, there's nothing. And what this comes from is the fact that he's a very, very good tradesman. He's learnt it right. But in actual fact, what you'd have to say is and I'm a little bit of it, but mainly Owen as well, his previous bosses they did it right, they taught him right. So he's a product of a generation that sort of skilled up their apprentices and their workers and he's kind of what pushes out the sausage machine at the end.
Speaker 2:He's a winner. Well, he's part of that generation that takes pride in what they do, and he laughs at this.
Speaker 1:It used to happen frequently Owen, the old boss man and Barry's boss. If we were laying on a wall with Owen, he would let us go through till lunchtime and sometimes even in the afternoon, and then he would go along with a pencil and he'd mark the bricks that were shit that had to come out. So as we went along he didn't tell us there and then the wall would climb, not a big gang, so the wall wouldn't climb excessive. But at smoko or lunch or in the afternoon he would drive off. I never had a car. He'd ring the old man and say Andrew's on site, he's taking a few bricks out. Can you come and get him? Secretly? I probably had the shits.
Speaker 1:But do you know what it taught me? Don't lay the chip brick. Why are you laying chip bricks? Yeah, you put in, you've butted that brick. You've bedded that brick in the wall face brick. You've pointed it, jointed it, whatever the joint finish was, and you've accepted it. Why have you accepted it? So he'd go along, put a big cross on it and then that mud's gone off. So you'd have to plug and chisel it out and like take it out and then instill another brick. So it taught you a lesson don't lay shit, bricks and you know it works.
Speaker 2:It actually it actually really works?
Speaker 1:yeah, because, but at the time I remember this, the sun would be waning and I'd be like jesus. This is what have I done, you know, but it was a lesson. And then another thing is and I've told past apprentices action has consequences. If you do the wrong action, that's the consequence. Pull the brick out. We're having lunch.
Speaker 2:Catch you in 20. Can you imagine doing that to an apprentice these days?
Speaker 1:Just bloody go to jail. Yeah, and I know, but I this is where I know that's what's so difficult these days to get the balance, to be able to get that through to a generation that's different. They're not an ill-perceived generation, there's nothing, they've got the skills. But I just kind of think somehow they've got to be instilled in them in a different way than what we did um, which that's what I'm trying to figure out, yeah, and I and actually you're on a mission there and I don't know I I have covered one base.
Speaker 1:Is that? Um, if they're younger and you're older, somehow you've got to connect. So you cannot be old fart, the grumpy old shit that no one wants to listen to. You've actually got to be the old guy who's pretty cool, he's all right. God, he's a pain, he's a bit anal, he's just, oh, he's like ACD, but he's all right. So you've got to be a little bit like that. Yeah, so that's a difficult thing, I know, mate tell us.
Speaker 2:We'll um. We'll wrap it up shortly, sorry tell us a bit about this world skills um and what it's all about now duane.
Speaker 1:one thing I'll say, and if the listeners, if a big thing that you can do go out there and google world skills australia world skills international now duane, and Google WorldSkills Australia WorldSkills International Now Dwayne and Shea have done that and it would have opened a bit of a world to them.
Speaker 2:Well, last year I got asked to be a judge for carpentry at WorldSkills, but the week they wanted me I was away in Tasmania, so I never got to do it, but it's something I would definitely enjoy doing, I think.
Speaker 1:Now a guy like Dwayne. They're the sort of guys that they're after because they've got a passion, they have a knowledge and it's one way that you can pass it on to people. So I am just Andrew Hosking bricklaying. Tomorrow I go back, get in the truck off to work, but as a part-time or as a voluntary thing. World skills australia um, they look for passionate, well-skilled up um employers or trainers or tafe trainers because it is affiliated with training to a certain degree and thereafter people of a like mind who can instill good trade qualities into every trade. So you would have seen on the website, it's every trade, it's not exclusive to anything Every trade.
Speaker 1:Now, I started as a regional level but I was on the other side of the fence. I had apprentices who were identified by TAFE teachers and one of them, bj I'll say beach um I'll. I'll speak of bj um he's. He's actually a carpenter now. So he went through bricklaying. He spent 14 years with me and he came to me and he said I want to do my carpentry apprenticeship. So he left. But while he was a bricklayer he had a knack. He had a good creative mind, good hand skills, good mathematician. It's really don't know where that come from, because generally bricklayers aren't. Yeah, we're not real good with the maths, but, um, he went to TAFE and in his training, uh, the teacher identified him and said to me look, you want BJ to go on WorldSkills Regional Comp. So all that's doing is it's fostering the skills of a young apprentice to learn more and give more to the industry through a competition. So he's up against regionally.
Speaker 1:We were Sunshine Coast, so this might be Brisbane North, it could be Brisbane South, it could be Gold Coast, and it travels all the way around Australia. So they get regional competitions where they create a predetermined project. They have six hours to build that project. Now the bricklaying judges judges of which I've been lucky to become one we judge that and it's judged on measurement measurement, uh, marking, and also judgment marking, as in your, to judge it with your eyes. So it has a very uh, it has a very technical breakdown of marking scale. So that then, dwayne wins the regional competition.
Speaker 1:All right, as a bricklayer, we'll call you a brickie. So you win that competition outright and you're judged the best job. So then you'll move on to the national competition. So the national competition, so the national competition, means that you represent Queensland in what was just the World Skills National in Brisbane. So you're a Queensland bricklayer. That was only a few weeks ago, wasn't it? Yeah, only a couple of weeks ago in Brisbane, and it was a really successful event. It's been in Brisbane before I'm going to say 2006. So did they only?
Speaker 2:do so. They had that one in Brisbane. That was all bricklaying, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:Well, no, it was every trade.
Speaker 1:Oh, they did have other trades, every trade.
Speaker 2:Because I saw a lot of the brickwork stuff but I didn't see any other trades there.
Speaker 1:You know every trade Dwayne is part of it. Visual, every trade duane is is part of it. Um, visual bricklaying is really visual comp. So we're kind of lucky. We draw a good crowd and people love to see what the creation may be. So at the one in brisbane I designed, I was lucky enough, I got picked to design the projects. So the three projects were the front facade of the town hall in brizzy, then it was the Story Bridge with the Brisbane River running under it, and then it was the map of Queensland with a lettering that said 2-5 being the year. So they have 18 hours at a national level to construct that. Then those jobs are judged and the winner will move on to Shanghai next year, which is the international competition.
Speaker 2:Now he'll represent.
Speaker 1:Australia.
Speaker 2:It's really good for people to be striving to achieve those types of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and look, some people, Dwayne will look at it and they'll go ah, look, it's all right, but what a waste of time. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but what I like about it is it's probably about the only outlet where a bricklayer can go and strive for something better, more skilful, at a different skill level and he can up his skills. So WorldSkills, Regional, national and International level and he can up his skills. So world skills, regional, national and international under the world skills australia umbrella. Um, we'll go to shanghai next year and then we'll have one bricklaying competitor. There'll be one carpenter, yeah. There'll be one plumber, there'll be one electrician. They'll be in a team called the Skilleroos and it's like an Olympic team, yeah, right, sort of. It's sort of like a Commonwealth Games for trades. What's the plumbers do?
Speaker 2:I've seen what carpenters do on the brickies.
Speaker 1:They do a lot of modern plumbing work with the acrylic systems or whatever they are that the plumbers use these days, as well as soldering. Yeah, and they'll set out. What would be in a house is condensed to a wall. Oh yeah, yeah, and it's an actual plan of which can be judged, and all of those competitors do the same thing, yeah, so yeah, it just offers challenges for a young tradie to be all he meets. We had 12 open bricklayers and then they had eight vet in school. So vocational education, training in school bricklayers. So those vet and school brickies they got to see the open bricklayers create. So they're the bricklayers that those vet and school brickies they got to see the open bricklayers create. So they're the bricklayers that are coming through. So it's got an important, it's got a really important aspect about it, mate what's what for?
Speaker 2:the young people are listening that may be thinking about getting into trade and being a brickie like. What advice can you give them?
Speaker 1:It's a great trade to get into. In this day and age 25, 26, we really do command the best money that we've ever commanded in my 40 years, you know, like without a doubt it's our best money, yet it's still relevant. You're in Queensland, a boom state, without a doubt. The olympics is coming. Whenever the olympic city is here, we have an influx of construction. We have an influx of money. Infrastructure has to be done, housing will boom. There'll be a lot of commercial activity going on in the city. Uh, my guess would be br will be like Sydney. I didn't go, but I remember prior. I remember the Sydney Olympics and I know construction-wise it was huge in Sydney prior to the Olympics. So it's a great industry and it's not Brickland's a great industry to be into and it's creative, it's outdoor, it's healthy. You get to work with other trades that are as close to the builder as you can probably get. In saying that, I always like the fact that bricklayers work with carpenters and work with builders.
Speaker 2:Mate and you end up to be, like you, 58 and have a look at you.
Speaker 1:you bloody bouncing out of the chair, hey fit healthy working outdoors, it is good and look, it's a lot of fun and you get a good rapport with your workers. And I kind of like you're going to laugh at this. Bricklaying has a culture. Now, I'm not talking about the culture of going to the pub, you know a bit of a slob, a bit of a downgraded culture. Brickline is historic. We are brickies, we're not just anything. Brickline's a good trade. Yeah, you know, it's been around for a long time and we'll construct things, I think, in Australia, for a lot more years to come. But I'd like to think that in a technological world, that's what's difficult, dwayne. It's hard to be able to compete with technology, have you?
Speaker 2:seen the trucks now that come to site and they lay the bricks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and look that's amazing, but it won't work in cottage work. It's limited. It's work, it's limited. It's limited, it is limited, in the perfect scenario, in shopping centres and a controlled environment, it will work, can work and it has worked, but it's not cottage work and it's certainly not architecture.
Speaker 2:That won't happen.
Speaker 1:It'll work for boxes, it'll work for boxes. Architecture that won't happen. It'll work for boxes it'll work for boxes. You know, and but I know a trades got to move forward. But I think part of brick lines problem is, if it could. If the supply of brick layers was there, brick laying as a trade would still remain relevant, because supply and demand, if you can get them, still you'll use them From a builder's point of view down the track. If you can't get brickies, what are you going to do?
Speaker 2:I personally, mate. I love bricks. I think they're fantastic. I think they're underutilized now. I think they're a good product to build with. They're healthy to build with. They're green.
Speaker 1:They recycle pretty well. I don't know, they're a great product.
Speaker 2:Even with the rates you're getting now, they're still economical. It's still a very economical way to line a house.
Speaker 1:That's right, and I say this before we wind it up. This is something that young people should take on board Trades across the board. I said it at the beginning the tertiary education thing is super important, Mate, absolutely 100% important. But vocational training every single trade is a really important thing. In a country like Australia, that's young and what happens is, if you're not a child genius and you're not going to go to UQ, you can become part of a construction industry and you can out-earn the UQers.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely mate. Most traders these days are out-earning them.
Speaker 1:That's it, and you've got no debt, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right. They go and do do their high-profile study and they're paying off debt for years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you're not real scholastic at school, it's sort of I wasn't, I could have done better at school, but that's the time and the place. But I like now to learn something and I could sort of really hone in on schoolwork more now than what I did back then. I was probably more interested in surfing. But, um, I kind of look at it from a kid's point of view. If he's not going to uni and he doesn't get a real high score at the end, he should be encouraged to go vocational, to do a pathway to a trade.
Speaker 1:Uh, whereas sometimes and this might set people on the high horse trades have become a dumping ground for all the dumb asses of school. All right, and we're actually not. No well, that's okay. But but that's kind of what has happened. It's sort of like oh well, if you don't go to uni, you can always get a trade. Uh, it should actually be said wrong. It should be said differently. It should be like if you don't want to go to university, this is a career pathway that you could pursue mate, the world would be nowhere if we didn't have tradies.
Speaker 2:That's it but who? Builds all the houses everyone lives in who builds all the? Roads, everyone drives on who yeah people. It is something that, again, it's part of my mission. We've got to improve the professionalism of the building industry well, that's a good mission and it's.
Speaker 1:It's not a mission that everybody is on. So it's important, because when we're all gone, I sort of would like to think that one of my apprentices in the past would fly a good flag for their trade, not just a sort of substandard one. And then you know, I suppose your job's done right. Then you know, yeah, yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:Well, andrew, it's been an absolute pleasure having a chat to you, mate. I, uh, I've got a few ideas. We'll, uh, I'm sure we're going to do some more stuff together in the future, but, um, appreciate you driving down, taking the time to have a chat. Um, mate, love your passion. If one bit of advice I can give anybody that's listening, whether you're young or old, is you've got to be passionate. If you're not passionate, you're never going to be successful that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it. And if you're enjoying what you're doing because I every now and then get people go to me are you still bricklaying? And I'm like is? I don't say it to them, but I think to myself when I walk away how is that a problem?
Speaker 2:it's not mate. It might be to them, but it's not to you, like, like?
Speaker 1:it'd be a problem if I was, if I was a problem to the trade. But if I like it, I don't see it as a problem and I kind of um think, uh, when I, when I'm lucky enough to have opportunities like this, what I say may not always be taken on board by people and a lot of people can have opinions. That's cool. But we're very lucky if you sort of like your trade, you can promote your trade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and I don't think that's a problem because, god, brickland needs promotion it definitely does and I and when I go away overseas or if I'm in part of tafe, I want those kids to keep going. They might be a pain in the ass, like you. You identify the kid over in the corner. You want to hit with a shovel all right, you know that. But if you don't put some time into them, what are? What are they going to do? What are they going to become? Yeah, you know, I had a fellow a little while ago, duane, say to me um, we never take it on board, but as a generation, each generation, it actually is your responsibility to teach the next one. It actually is. I know you think it's a burden or a pain in the ass but it actually is your job.
Speaker 2:I agree, mate.
Speaker 1:Because if you don't do it and he cocks it up.
Speaker 2:It's adding to the problem.
Speaker 1:Exactly I agree 100%.
Speaker 2:We could definitely go on another hour for it, I feel. Well, something that I've become very aware of is good tradesmen aren't good teachers. We're not taught to teach.
Speaker 1:That is true. It is hard to teach.
Speaker 2:It's hard to teach and it's a it takes time. You've got to build a skill up like. You've got to be relatable to people. You've got to be able to communicate well with people.
Speaker 1:You've got to be able to listen to people, so Actually that's a say, that's a ripper thing. That's actually right too, because it's sort of relevant to what I said about business before. A good tradie is not always a good businessman. I'm all right, I'm still here. I haven't slid down the razor blade or anything like that, but I probably could have done some things differently. But that's very true about the teaching thing.
Speaker 2:It's not easy and we're not trained like a teacher yeah, like you know, like an agent, and most tradies just want to go to work. They want to do their thing. Yeah, but one. I'm really encouraging with my team on site. You've got to. We've got to slow down a bit. We've got to take the time every now and then to spend the time to educate the young guys. So we can't just be push, push push down the track.
Speaker 1:I've always been a batter for the apprenticeship system. It's a tough gig the four years and a lot of people go. I couldn't put up with them for that long. But if you do, it pays dividends later. Yeah, if you're a good boss and he's a good employee, I've always gone on. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. So if my boys actually ask me for a day off, if they give me enough notice, I don't have a problem with it. But I also want you to hit the tennis ball back. So you know, while we're at work here and I ask you know, guys, we're topping this wall off. We're going to be another half an hour. We need to do that to pull down, to clean splashes and scaffold. You're going to be a bit longer. Is everyone cool with that? They all go. Yeah, that's. You gave, yeah, and then now I give back. So but it is difficult. The teaching thing yeah, um, my wife reckons I wouldn't last long in the teaching system because I'm a little bit politically incorrect and I'd probably end up in court.
Speaker 2:But oh, it's not hard these days, but it's yeah, but I kind of like it.
Speaker 1:I have a try, a skill thing coming up at Bundaberg, at a job site in Bundaberg under Construction Skills Queensland. I won't change the recipe when I turn up there. That that grade 12 class. I want them to respect me, but I also want them to have a good day, all right. So I don't want them to be on their phones. Phones are no go, they go straight in the bag. So but they'll have a good day because, um, they'll get something from the experience and there might be one out of those 15 who goes oh, that was all right, I might ask a bricklayer for a weekend job or something.
Speaker 2:I think more kids should be taking up bricklayer. It's like going to the gym all day. You're out in the sun, you're getting fit and healthy.
Speaker 1:It's a good gig.
Speaker 2:Get into it. So, look guys, andrew's a little bit. He's not on the socials and that, so I can't give you the socials. Go and check him out Sorry. We'll try and Shay might try and work some of if you watch it visually board with your merchandise. Yet make sure you go to the website duanepeircecom and that way we can can help continue to level up this building industry. See you on the next one.