Haircuts or national defence? The career choice young Aussies aren't considering

If there's a barber down in South Australia that can become a welder, then maybe they're barber at Woi Woi.

And one of the areas I think that we need to do better at is engaging with the public and explaining that to them.

Over the weekend, I was up at Woi Woi because I was participating in a marathon and I thought I'll get a haircut for the marathon.

And the barber sort of said, you know, what do you do?

And I said, oh, I'm in the Navy.

I'm involved in the nuclear-powered submarine program.

And surprise, surprise, he knew nothing about that at all.

When we went to ASC last with the Deputy Prime Minister, we stopped in at one of the welders and she was previously a hairdresser.

Not your barber, though.

Oh, well, I'm going to get to him.

She was a hairdresser and she was now welding and we said, you know, her potentially next opportunity will be sent over to Pearl Harbour to...

to do welding and to be certified on a Virginia.

And so I think we also need to encourage people that are in different fields of employment

that there are opportunities for them to diversify and move into naval construction and the NPS program.

And as I said before, if there's a barber down in South Australia that can become a welder, then maybe their barber at Woi Woi, that I spoke about before, maybe he's thinking right now, hey,

Instead of just spending Saturday afternoons cutting some dude's hair, maybe I could do something a bit more interesting and join the program.