WATCH: Brothers Bruce and Barry Harkness talk bricklaying. Video by Adam McLean
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00:00I'm Barry Harkness and I'm here to compete in the WorldSkills competition.
00:03And I'm Bruce Harkness and I'm competing against my brother in it as well.
00:08I'm just a first year at the minute.
00:10But yeah, I'm a third year apprentice.
00:12I'm 17.
00:13And I'm 19.
00:14Who do you work for?
00:16Our father, Joe Harkness.
00:19Yeah, because it's our family business.
00:21Yeah, for sure.
00:22Yeah, he's competed in WorldSkills before and he went quite well.
00:27So now we're sort of here trying to bring up the legacy.
00:29So your auntie is also a bricklayer?
00:31Yeah, she's a bricklayer.
00:32And my dad's brother's also a bricklayer.
00:35And then dad's dad is a bricklayer too.
00:38It's sort of surrounded by it and you sort of get encouraged pretty easy
00:41when your whole family's sort of at you.
00:43It's a good job because you just, it's sort of,
00:47if you work hard and lay a lot of bricks, you get good money.
00:50All the doors that bricklaying opens, like the surgery and bricklaying opens,
00:53like through TAFE that is, it just opens up so many pathways,
00:57like building, you can go into construction.
00:59When people see that you've got bricklaying under your belt,
01:02they go, oh wow, all right.
01:04Oh, it's pretty good meeting all the other trades on the site
01:08and that sort of, you get to have a muck around and that.
01:11Yeah, it's just a good healthy job.
01:14Like you're outside all day, like in the sun sometimes, shade other times,
01:18like it's just a really good balanced job.
01:20We've sort of competed against each other all our lives
01:22and it's like when Bridget said he was going in
01:25it was like, oh yeah, all right then, I'll sort of take you on.
01:31And also Dad, Dad was a pretty big support, like in it all.
01:36He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go and he bought us some stuff
01:38to practice with at home and like that sort of stuff.
01:40Yeah, very, yeah, he's been very supportive with
01:43competing in WorldSkills.
01:45He always got more work, like because he was a representative of Australia.
01:51So like he's, yeah, he always encourages us to do it.
01:54So we continue having plenty of work.
01:57You tell the builders that he's competing in Australia.
02:00Oh, oh really, oh yeah.
02:02And then they tell you all the rest of the jobs they've got lined up sort of.
02:06I reckon there's a bit of a pay rise in there for Bruce.
02:09I don't know.
02:10So Dad's up at a pay rise?
02:14No, he'll probably just feed me a bit better.
02:18Like he needs more food.