Portfolio — 26 April 2026

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Andrew Giles announced $4 million to expand the Big Sister: Advanced Mentoring WA project, targeting women's participation in electrotechnology, construction and clean energy apprenticeships in Western Australia [TA-260427-dewr-7d2d00827e33]. The announcement is the sole activity in today's record, with no parliamentary segment present.

The project is delivered through a consortium led by the Electrical Trades Union alongside the Electrotechnology Training Institute, Nilsen, NSG (BOFFA), Peer TC, Energy Skills Australia and the University of Sydney — an unusually broad industry-union-university partnership for a single trades mentoring initiative. The central policy problem the funding addresses is stark: women currently make up just four per cent of WA's electrical workforce, and the project is designed to lift both commencement and completion rates through women-led peer mentorship [TA-260427-dewr-7d2d00827e33].

The funding flows through the Building Women's Careers program, which signals that the minister is deploying an existing structural vehicle — rather than a new instrument — to direct resources toward high-demand clean energy and construction trades. The programmatic logic here is direct: address cultural and structural barriers to women entering trades at the point where they are most acute, the apprenticeship pipeline, and use mentorship by women already in the sector as the primary lever.

The WA focus is notable given the state's outsized role in clean energy and resources workforce demand; policy staff should track whether similar investments follow in other jurisdictions or whether this remains a targeted WA intervention.