Thursday, 27 August 2026

 Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (10:08): The Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026 arises from recommendations of the Apprenticeships Taskforce that this Labor government has sat on for two years. Now, in the second-last sitting week of the Parliament, this government is seeking to ram through massive and significant changes that run to 217 pages of amendments to Victoria’s apprenticeship and traineeship system that have industry groups seriously concerned that this will only make it harder for apprentices and trainees to get a successful start. You do have to question why the government has waited until the second-last sitting week of the Parliament to debate such significant legislation, without proper scrutiny or proper community and industry consultation, especially when the main provisions of the bill are not due to commence for another three years, in 2029. The bill is only being rushed through now for political expediency rather than seeking to actually achieve better outcomes for apprentices and trainees.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the 55,000 Victorians who are currently undertaking an apprenticeship or traineeship. These young Victorians are essential to Victoria’s economy and future growth. I would also like to acknowledge the some 35,000 Victorian employers who are providing opportunities for apprentices and trainees to learn a trade and receive invaluable on-the-job experience. Not only do we need to incentivise more young Victorians to take up an apprenticeship or traineeship, we need more employers who are willing to impart their experience and knowledge and help skill up the next generation of Victorians.

If we want Victoria to build more homes, manufacture more goods, support economic growth and increase exports to the world, we need a skilled workforce to do it. Yet this tired Labor government is failing to address the significant skills shortages in Victoria that are crippling industry and economic growth, and this bill will do nothing to improve that situation. Whilst we currently have 55,000 ‍Victorians undertaking an apprenticeship or traineeship, this is nowhere near enough to meet the skills demands of the future. Back in 2022 we had 77,000 apprentices and trainees undertaking an apprenticeship. So in the space of four years the number of apprentices and trainees that are in training has plummeted by 22,000. That is a 28 per cent decline on the Labor government’s watch.

Under Labor Victorian apprentices and trainee commencements have fallen to the lowest level in decades. The last National Centre for Vocational Education Research data shows trade apprenticeship commencements were down 11.8 per cent and non-trade commencements were down 20.8 per cent. There have been falling apprenticeship commencements across a range of important high-demand occupations, including plumbers, down 15.5 per cent; carpenters, down 16 per cent; sheet metal workers, down 19 per cent; child care, down 23 per cent; and aged and disability carers, down 17 per cent. In 2025 Victoria only had 11,990 skilled trade apprentices complete their training compared to 14,445 in New South Wales and 13,265 in Queensland. These numbers tell a depressing story. At a time when Victoria is needing to build more homes and infrastructure, we need skilled workers more than ever. But the drastic decline in apprentices and trainees really highlights that for years this Labor government has had its priorities all wrong, resulting in a skills shortage crisis and economic decline. I fear the provisions in this bill will only add further to the decline of apprentice and trainee numbers by making it harder for employers to hire them.

This bill is a product of recommendations made by the Apprenticeships Taskforce. In July 2023 the Labor government established an Apprenticeships Taskforce at a cost of $1.5 million. The taskforce was led by Sharan Burrow, former president of the ACTU. The taskforce was given a broad remit to improve safety in workplaces across the state, ensuring more apprentices and trainees have a successful start to their careers and industry continues to support the apprenticeship and traineeship system. It was also suggested that the review was required in response to increasing evidence of harms to apprentices and trainees from bullying, harassment, unsafe workplaces and workplace fatalities.

Can I say at this point, to make it plain and unambiguous, the Victorian Liberals and Nationals will always support measures and reforms that improve the safety, training, quality and workplace culture of apprentices and trainees. The safety of our apprentices and trainees is paramount whilst undertaking their training. It is absolutely non-negotiable. We should do everything possible to make sure that apprentices and trainees are undertaking their training in safe and secure environments. Gone are the days where it was considered fair game to subject apprentices and trainees to practical jokes in the workplace. As many members in this place will know, some of these practical jokes resulted in tragic consequences. I cannot even imagine the sorrow and the pain that must have been suffered by the families of these poor workers, and I know that all members in this chamber would send them our collective condolences. No-one should be subjected to hostile work environments or degrading abuse or unsafe work environments. That has no place in our vocational education and training system. But regrettably, there is not a single measure contained in this bill that will have any direct effect in keeping apprentices and trainees safe.

Other than including objectives in the act about ensuring the health and safety of apprentices and trainees, which really goes without saying, none of the provisions in this bill have any direct connection to worker safety. The taskforce delivered its report to government in March 2024, with 16 ‍recommendations and three supporting actions. In October 2024 the government announced it would support seven recommendations in full and support the remaining nine recommendations in principle. In its response the government said it would undertake further consultation before acting on recommendations. But from my discussions with various industry stakeholders, a majority of them were not consulted before this bill was introduced to Parliament two weeks ago, and some were only offered a briefing after they requested one of the department when they learned of the bill.

For over two years the government has had the taskforce’s recommendations sitting on its desk, and only on the eve of a state election has it decided to do something, albeit half-baked. The two-year delay is emblematic of Labor’s mismanagement, which has led to the decline in apprentice and trainee numbers and a skills workforce crisis on Labor’s watch.

One of the principal reforms contained in the bill is the establishment of a new regulator to oversee the apprenticeship and traineeship system. In its report the Apprenticeships Taskforce recommended the government should:

… establish a new regulator with a dedicated focus on apprenticeship, traineeship and VET-related regulation ‍…

The taskforce went on to state:

This would create a new body with a clear role and mandate to focus on safeguarding apprentices and trainees.

And the taskforce concluded by stating:

… the Taskforce recommends this work commence immediately to ensure it is delivered within this term of government.

Those are pretty clear statements from the Apprenticeships Taskforce. Regrettably, they were not taken seriously by the Carroll Labor government, or even acted on. This last statement is most telling. The government failed to commence this work immediately and failed to deliver within this term of government. With its priority being the corrupt Big Build, the government failed to act on the Apprenticeships Taskforce’s report for two years. Then at the end of its term it has thought, ‘Oh, gosh, we’re sort of running out of time; we might introduce a bill,’ but it is only half-baked. It is embarrassing on the part of the Labor government and demonstrates how little respect Labor actually has for apprentices and trainees and the employers who hire them.

The government always likes to talk a big game about its reform agenda but always fails to deliver on the substance, which means people like apprentices and trainees suffer the most. But when you look at this bill, the government has even failed to establish the type of regulator that was recommended. The taskforce said the sector required ‘a new regulator with a dedicated focus on apprenticeships and traineeships’ – a direct quote. The government has completely ignored this recommendation and instead, without any real explanation or consultation, determined to transfer all responsibility for apprenticeships and traineeships to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria. The workforce inspectorate is not a new regulator. It has in fact been around since 2020, when it used to be known as the Wage Inspectorate Victoria. The taskforce did not recommend the workforce inspectorate become the new regulator. Instead, the government has decided to cut corners and go with the cheap and nasty option of lumping our apprentices and trainees with a B-grade regulator that does not have any experience in the vocational education and training sector and will not have a dedicated focus on apprentices and trainees. It is completely unfit for purpose.

In addition, the workforce inspectorate has a pretty poor record when it comes to regulation. Back when it was first set up as the wages inspectorate, it was given powers to criminally prosecute employers for wage theft. These employers faced jail time if they were found guilty, which the government proudly promoted at the time as nation leading. However, at its very first attempt at prosecuting an employer for wage theft, it collapsed like a stack of cards. The employer argued these laws were completely unconstitutional and sought to fight the charges in the High Court. Rather than hold its ground and fight the case, the workforce inspectorate withdrew all charges against the employer on the eve of the hearing, causing the entire case to be withdrawn. The workforce inspectorate knew it had no constitutional leg to stand on and did not want to incur the same results that occurred when the High Court struck down the Labor government’s electric vehicle taxes and electoral donation laws.

After that disaster Wage Inspectorate Victoria was rebadged as Workforce Inspectorate Victoria and had most of its powers repealed. The workforce inspectorate now regulates areas including child employment and long service leave obligations. Instead of establishing a new regulator with a dedicated focus on apprenticeships and traineeships, which the taskforce recommended, the government has chosen to transfer all responsibility for apprentices and trainees to an existing regulator which is already required to be focused on completely different fields of regulation. This is ludicrous. The government has completely rejected the taskforce’s recommendation of a dedicated regulator and has instead tried to retrofit an existing regulator that has a pretty ordinary record of enforcement outcomes. How is the workforce inspectorate supposed to be able to have a dedicated focus on 55,000 current apprentices and trainees as well as 35,000 employers who are responsible for the workplace conditions of these workers when it is also required to be investigating long service leave underpayments and child employment law breaches all at the same time? The workforce inspectorate is being set up by this Labor government to completely fail, which means our apprentices and our trainees will only be worse off.

You would think that with all this additional work and regulation to support Victoria’s 55,000 ‍apprentices and trainees, a new dedicated position would be created to oversee and focus solely on this work. Under this bill a new apprenticeship and traineeship commissioner will be appointed to be responsible for direct enforcement under this new regulatory regime. However, like with all legislation introduced by this Labor government, there is a catch. The minister in her second-reading speech expressly acknowledged that the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria commissioner will be appointed to the role in addition to their existing role. So not only has this government refused to establish a dedicated regulator to support apprentices and trainees, as recommended by the Apprenticeships Taskforce, but it is also forcing the existing workforce inspectorate commissioner to take on the huge additional responsibilities of the new apprenticeship and traineeship commissioner role. This decision is even crazier when you consider the current workforce inspectorate commissioner does not have any previous experience in relation to the apprenticeship and traineeship sector. Given the huge impact these reforms are likely to have on the apprentice and traineeship scheme, why is the government in effect appointing a complete novice to be in charge of this new scheme? These actions fly in the face of everything the Apprenticeships Taskforce recommended.

When I asked during the bill briefing about how much it will cost to stand up this new regulator, no-one from the minister’s office or department could tell me. All we know is that it is not funded. ‘It is still subject to a budget bid,’ the ministerial adviser said. This is just so typical of Labor. Here we are being required to debate far-reaching reforms on one of the most important sectors in the Victorian economy, and the government has not allocated any funding and refuses to tell taxpayers how much it will cost. If this supposed new regulator is to have any chance of being successful in its new remit, it will be required to have significantly more staff who are trained in the requirements of the system to ensure apprentices and trainees are kept safe.

Under Labor’s bill Victorian apprentices and trainees will not only be denied access to a dedicated and experienced regulator but will be required to settle for a second-rate solution. The bill does not in any way resemble the regulator that was proposed by the Apprenticeships Taskforce. Instead the government has completely disregarded the carefully considered and researched observations of the taskforce. It is disgraceful that this government is demonstrating so much contempt and disrespect for the importance of our VET sector and the safety of our apprentices and trainees.

Another major change sought to be introduced by this bill is a new requirement that every employer in Victoria who wants to employ an apprentice or trainee must first hold a licence. In her second-reading speech the minister said:

The new licensing system will enable regulatory oversight over the lifecycle of the apprenticeship or traineeship.

The workforce inspectorate will be given the powers to issue licences once an employer has satisfied the necessary licensing requirements, including a fit and proper person test. Incredibly, employers will be required to renew their licence on an annual basis. Under this bill an employer will be required every single year to lodge an application with the workforce inspectorate, even if their circumstances have not changed. This bill only seeks to create more bureaucracy for employers if they wish to stay within the apprenticeship and traineeship system.

When I raised at the bill briefing that this new provision would mean that approximately 35,000 ‍employers would be lodging applications for a renewal every single year in order to maintain their licence, I asked how the workforce inspectorate expected to manage this new, incredible workload. In response I was told by ministerial advisers that the renewal of licences would likely become an automated process. This begs the question: why have a process at all if it is going to be reduced to a mere farcical tick-and-flick exercise? Why would anyone impose such an unnecessary burden? How does an automated tick-and-flick licence renewal protect apprentices and trainees and ensure they are safe at work? There is no rigour whatsoever. I can appreciate the regulator may want to get further insights as to whether an employer is adequately complying with their duties and obligations, but how is this going to be achieved if it becomes purely a rubber stamp process? It completely defeats the very purpose it is supposed to achieve.

An annual licence renewal is likely to be cost-prohibitive for some employers, especially very small businesses. It will likely act as a huge disincentive to many employers who are considering employing apprentices and trainees but do not have the time or resources to cope with the increasingly bureaucratic nature of the scheme. Peak bodies have told me about their complete shock at these changes and the lack of consultation with them. The Housing Industry Association has called on the government to withdraw the bill, warning the scheme will add to red tape, increase costs and reduce apprenticeship opportunities at a time of a severe skills shortage. The HIA said the new licensing system will discourage participation in the apprenticeship system and worsen workforce shortages, with executive director Keith Ryan saying:

Before introducing another layer of regulation, the Government must demonstrate that current arrangements are failing and that a licensing scheme will improve apprentice outcomes. To date, no such evidence has been presented that licensing would deliver any material benefit …

Another peak body, the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce, was also scathing in its criticism of the bill and said the bill effectively imports a labour hire licensing model into apprenticeships. CEO of VACC Peter Jones said:

Victoria’s skills shortage is real, and it is biting – in workshops, on worksites and in service centres right across the state. But it will not be fixed with licences, renewals and inspectors. It will be fixed by more employers, in more businesses, choosing to train the next generation.

These are just two peak bodies united in their absolute opposition to the provisions in the bill that will only make it harder for employers to employ more apprentices and trainees.

Under the labour hire legislation, licences are issued for a period of three years. In order to have consistent regulatory outcomes, why doesn’t the government adopt a similar approach? It would certainly alleviate the bureaucratic burden on employers to submit a new application every 12 months. Such an extended period would lead to more certainty in the scheme and would not prevent the workforce inspectorate from undertaking random audits of employers during the relevant period to assess whether employers remained compliant with their obligations. If noncompliance were identified, then the workforce inspectorate would still have the ability to use its new powers to either suspend or cancel a licence if it considered it appropriate to do so. That is why we will move amendments in the upper house to extend the periods of licences to make them consistent with labour hire licences and to create more certainty for employers. This government should be trying to make it easier for employers to employ apprentices and trainees, not harder. However, Labor’s reforms seek to introduce further complexity and uncertainty into a sector that desperately needs positive growth.

At this point it is worth noting one of the key reasons why the Apprenticeships Taskforce argued for reforms to the training of apprentices and trainees. A direct finding of the taskforce says:

Victoria has low rates of apprenticeship completion compared with the Australian average … reflective of an ongoing trend of underperformance in Victorian apprenticeship completion rates, which have been below the national average each year for at least 13 years.

This finding by the taskforce presents a pretty depressing picture of the VET sector in Victoria under Labor and confirms that for over a decade Victoria has underperformed when it comes to apprenticeship completions and delivering skilled workers. This finding was also recently backed up by Helen Silver AO when she undertook her independent review of the Victorian public service, stating in her findings:

Performance of the VET system is mixed, with continued skills shortages in priority industries, completion levels lower than the national average, and student satisfaction at or below national averages.

Both the taskforce and Helen Silver made it clear that Victoria has unacceptably low apprenticeship completion rates under the Labor government. Yet instead of putting measures in place to both incentivise employers to offer more positions for apprenticeships and traineeships and incentivise more young people to take up an apprenticeship or traineeship, this Labor government remains hell-bent on making it harder. The measures in this bill will do nothing to achieve better completion rates. They will only drive more employers away, meaning less opportunity for young people to be hired in an apprenticeship or traineeship.

How much will all this cost? There is no doubt these changes will also result in significant compliance costs. The taskforce made this point and said:

The updated regulatory framework proposed … will create additional costs to implement and administer which will require additional funding.

The Taskforce recommends that the Victorian Government engage with industry partners to develop an appropriate and affordable funding policy …

In response to accepting this recommendation the government said:

A funding model will therefore be considered in parallel with developing options for the regulator and new legislation. This work will include examining the viability of a co-contribution model, as well as best practice approaches in other jurisdictions.

Co-contribution is code for a new tax. In black and white the Labor government said it was prepared to tax employers for their new apprenticeship and traineeship regulatory scheme through either licence or registration fees. That is this Labor government’s position. When I asked in the bill briefing whether there was any intention of charging employers a fee in order to obtain a licence, I was informed there was nothing in the bill that provided for a licence fee. Whilst that is correct, it was not exactly an answer to my question. While there may be nothing in the bill that says a fee will be charged, there is also nothing in the bill that says a fee cannot be charged. It does not mean that fees will not be payable, because there is absolutely nothing in this bill to stop this Labor government from introducing licensing fees through subsequent regulations, which will only hit employers harder and cause greater disincentives for employers to hire and train apprentices.

Every Victorian knows that Labor cannot be trusted at their word, given that the Labor government have added or increased taxes and charges 71 times after promising Victorians that they would not do so, the latest being Labor’s secret tax on all train, bus and tram travel for Victorians just to fund their unfunded Suburban Rail Loop. There is every likelihood that this Labor government will make employers pay a tax for a licence to hire apprentices and trainees, which is frankly disgraceful. That is why we will move amendments to this bill in the upper house to insert a provision that prohibits this government from requiring any fee to be paid by any employer for a new licence. Employers should be celebrated for hiring and training apprentices and trainees, not made to pay the price of the regulatory burdens Labor will create under this bill. As sure as night follows day, Labor will always find a way to tax Victorians more. That is why we will move the amendment to stop this tax-addicted government from hurting employers more and stifling opportunities for apprentices and trainees. If Labor have no plan for any such licence fee to be imposed, then they should not have any problem in supporting our amendment. I guess only time will tell.

As part of the new regime, employers will also be expected to comply with new employer standards as part of their licence conditions. The standards are expected to set minimum expectations about the behaviours and the level of training expected from employers when training an apprentice or trainee, but yet again these standards are not included in this bill. We were told at the bill briefing that these standards would be developed as part of the consultation process with applicable stakeholders. Again, this is another demonstration about how half-baked this proposed legislation is. We have provisions in this bill that expose employers to penalties of $125,000 if they fail to comply with the standards, but we do not know what the standards are. There is every reason to suspect that these yet unknown standards will impose additional compliance costs on employers.

Employers deserve to be consulted and to know what the new standards will be now rather than wait months or even years after this bill has passed. This is just more sneaky behaviour from this untrustworthy Labor government and a further demonstration of how this bill is a complete rush job. Why Labor is trying to make it harder for apprentices and trainees to get hired is utterly beyond me. This bill is a complete rush job because these changes to the apprenticeships and traineeships system are not expected to commence operation until 1 July 2029. That is right, none of these changes are expected to start operating for another three years. So why the rush with only two sitting weeks in Parliament to go? The explanatory memorandum for the bill states that the reason for the prolonged commencement period is:

A new ICT system will be required to be built, and this will require a significant lead time for implementation due to the complexity and scale of the reforms.

Not only has the government admitted it does not have an ICT system to support these reforms, requiring another three years before the changes can come into effect, but these reforms will not come into effect until five years after the Apprenticeships Taskforce handed down its report. This is just more mismanagement from this Labor government. Whether it is because they are out of money or they were simply incompetent in preparing ahead, who knows? It would not make a difference if this bill was introduced in six or 12 months time, as there still would not be an ICT system available to allow the new scheme to come online, during which time the government could perhaps consult more broadly with industry. During the bill briefing I was advised the government was working towards an earlier commencement date, but then again, we know this Labor government is absolutely rotten when it comes to being able to deliver IT systems. They have never completed a project ahead or on time, and Victorians have absolutely no trust that the Labor government can deliver this project within the next two years, especially when they are still unable to tell Victorians how much it will cost.

This bill represents a missed opportunity by the government to introduce real reforms to arrest the serious decline of Victoria’s VET sector and to unequivocally ensure apprentices and trainees are safe at work. Currently Victoria has an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent, the highest unemployment rate of any state in the country. Youth unemployment in Victoria is rising and is now a staggering 11.8 per cent, the highest in the country and higher than the Australian average of 10.7 per cent. That means today 74,000 young Victorians do not have jobs. Sadly, as of May this year, nearly 9 per cent of Victorians aged between 15 and 24 were not in education or work. Youth unemployment in Melbourne’s west is the most troubling at 15.6 per cent, closely followed by Melbourne’s south-east at 14.3 per cent. Under 12 years of Labor, Victoria is suffering rising unemployment and a skills crisis, and this bill will do nothing to fix it.

Victoria’s apprenticeship challenge is not a shortage of regulators; it is a shortage of apprentices. Apprenticeship and traineeship opportunities only exist if employers are willing to create them. The Liberals and Nationals will oppose this bill because it does not align with what the taskforce recommended and will only make it harder for employers to employ more apprentices and trainees. The answer to a skills shortage is employers employing more apprentices and trainees, not regulators regulating them. Victoria needs a government that is serious about skills, a government that works, with an economic plan that drives confidence and makes it easier to employ apprentices and trainees, not one that puts a bill forward that is anti-business and will result in apprentices and trainee numbers declining even further. The Liberals and Nationals will oppose this bill.

 Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (10:38): I rise today to speak in strong support of the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. I do so not only as a member of this house but as someone whose life has been shaped profoundly and permanently by our public education system here in Victoria. I am so proud to stand here as a product of that system, but I also stand here with a clear memory of what it was like when that system was not given the support that it deserved.

I grew up in central Victoria, attending public schools during the Kennett years, when investment in education simply did not exist. I remember learning in portable classrooms that were freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer, making learning so much harder than it should have been. I remember my family struggling each January to afford the basics like school uniforms, textbooks and stationery. These are not luxuries but essentials for students, yet we received no support at that time. I remember friends who could not see what was written on the board because their families could not afford glasses. And most painfully, I remember students who struggled with their mental health and several who died by suicide while I was in high school, who needed care and professional help but found none in the school system. Instead the only support available was a religious chaplain put in our secular school by John Howard’s government. These are experiences that have stayed with me forever and that lit a fire in me to make sure the next generation of country kids did not face the same barriers. That is what drives me as the member for Ripon every single day.

I am incredibly proud to represent 54 schools across my electorate and even prouder of what we have been able to achieve for so many of them over recent years because our Labor government knows that when you invest in education you invest in the future. Across Ripon that investment is visible everywhere you go. We have delivered over $2 million to upgrade Tarnagulla Primary School; almost $500,000 for Bridgewater Primary School; a transformative $13 million redevelopment of Wedderburn College; over $400,000 for St Mary’s Primary School in Inglewood; almost $200,000 for maintenance at Inglewood Primary School; a $5 million upgrade to Beaufort Secondary College; almost $500,000 for a new undercover basketball court at Beaufort Primary School; a $10 million transformation of St Arnaud Secondary College; a $500,000 upgrade at St Patrick’s Primary School in St Arnaud; over $200,000 for upgrades at Avoca Primary School; almost $88,000 for Creswick North Primary School; an $11.1 million transformation of Woady Yaloak Primary School at their Snake Valley, Scarsdale, Smythesdale and Ross Creek campuses; almost $400,000 to upgrade Haddon Primary School; over $400,000 for upgrades at Invermay Primary School; an almost $20 million transformation of Miners Rest Primary School; over $17 million for a new primary school in Lucas; an $18 million upgrade of Maryborough Education Centre; a $4.6 million upgrade of Ararat College that is almost complete; $2 million for Ararat’s Marian College; $2 million for Ararat’s St Mary’s Primary School; over $1 million to upgrade Ararat North Primary School; over $9 million to transform Ararat 800 Primary School; over $340,000 for Ararat West Primary School; almost $2 million for upgrades at Linton Primary School; over $800,000 for upgrades at Little Bendigo Primary School and almost $300,000 for upgrades at Talbot Primary School. We have delivered better school bus connections for kids in Cardigan Village, Lucas and Miners Rest. We have delivered brand new childcare centres in Wedderburn and Clunes, with two more on the way in Avoca and Maryborough, and brand new and expanded kindergartens in Napoleons, Haddon, Lucas and St Arnaud, with more on the way in Ararat and Beaufort.

This is what delivery of our education system looks like. This is what it means to back our communities. This is what Labor does, and this bill continues that work. The education and training reform amendment bill introduces important practical reforms that will strengthen our education and training systems and provide greater support and protection for Victorians at every stage of their learning journey. A key focus of this bill is strengthening protections for Victoria’s apprentices and trainees, who play such an important role in our economy, our workforce and our regional communities. It will establish stronger oversight and protections for apprentices and trainees, including a new licensing scheme for employers, expanded compliance and enforcement powers, stronger safeguards for those employed through labour hire providers and improved training plans to support quality learning experiences. These reforms are about making sure that apprentices and trainees are safe, that they are treated fairly and that they are supported to complete their training and build successful careers. The bill also strengthens the teaching workforce by improving Victoria’s permission-to-teach framework, which will become known as conditional authority to teach. These changes will make sure that aspiring teachers receive the supervision, mentoring and support they need while they are studying and that they gain classroom experience, helping build a stronger and more sustainable teaching workforce for the future. Importantly, the bill also reinforces the expectation that every Victorian school should be a safe and respectful place to learn and work. It strengthens school community safety orders, giving schools more effective tools to respond to threatening, abusive or harmful behaviour, including harmful conduct carried out through social media and other digital platforms.

These reforms matter. They are thoughtful, they are necessary and they will make a real difference in classrooms across our state. But they are also part of a much bigger story, because over the past decade we have fundamentally transformed education in Victoria. Since 2014 we have invested over $20 billion into upgrading and modernising our schools and into building new ones. We have grown our teacher workforce every single year. We now have mental health professionals in schools – real qualified support that simply did not exist when I was a student. We have doctors in schools providing accessible health care where it is needed most. We have dental vans, free glasses for students and breakfast clubs, because a child cannot learn if they are hungry or unwell. We provide free period products, removing stigma and ensuring dignity. We support families through the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund and affordable uniform programs. We have delivered free kinder, giving every child the best possible start in life. We have delivered an incredible pay rise for our principals, teachers and education support staff, and we have strengthened funding for students with disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, making sure that we have a truly inclusive education system.

When I reflect on my own schooling and then look at what exists today, I am blown away by the progress – real, meaningful, life-changing progress. But I also know that progress is never guaranteed, because the alternative is clear and is truly terrifying. We have seen what happens when education is not prioritised: cuts to programs, closures of regional schools, billions of dollars stripped from the system and supports for families and students like the School Start bonus, reading programs, Free Fruit Fridays and financial assistance cut away. If given the opportunity, history tells us those decisions could be made again. That is why this matters, that is why this bill matters and that is why the continued investment in our education system is so critical. Because education is not just another policy area, it is the foundation of everything. It is the key to stronger rural and regional communities and a stronger future.

I stand here today not just as a member of Parliament but as someone who has lived through the consequences of underinvestment and who has seen firsthand the power of getting it right. This bill is part of getting it right, and I strongly commend it to the house.

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (10:47): It gives me great pleasure to stand here this morning to talk on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026, and I do so following the member for Ripon. I was listening to her talk about her grounding in having people that work in trades being a huge influence on her life. It will be no surprise that I stand up having that same grounding, as many know. I was lucky enough that my father started his own plumbing business way back in the 1970s. My first recollection as a small boy was wanting to go to work with my father, and it is probably the reason that I ended up doing a trade and being a plumber and gasfitter. Making the journey to here where I am now in Parliament probably was not something that was on my mind when I started my trade. I talk about the grounding of being in people’s houses working with them and in their lives listening to them. It was a great tool that I never thought I would be using inside Parliament. You do need to engage with and talk to people from all walks of life and listen to them and their concerns, whether you agree with them or disagree with them. It was that grounding that has enabled me to take on the information and find a pathway forward to fix their problems.

My education finished in year 10, because what I wanted to do was be a plumber. That was going to be my life. When you decide you want to go into a trade, there is that other little bonus that you still have to continue and do four years of education in our TAFE system to be moved from being an apprentice to being a tradesperson. I talk with a lot of our builders, plumbers and electricians around the Latrobe Valley, and it certainly has changed, though the structure of how the apprenticeship runs is very similar. The trades have changed over the journey with what they are now teaching in the TAFE courses.

There is also the difficulty these days of trying to engage with young people moving through the school system and retaining them once they decide that they want to move down the path of having a trade. It is very difficult to get them from being a first-year apprentice all the way through to where they are working in your business. Some of the issues around that rely on being able to retain them, but on the flip side it is around the educators that are teaching these students the values and the pathway forward to becoming good tradespeople. A lot of the teachers, especially in my time in TAFE, were former plumbers. They were people that had run their own businesses, and they were in charge of teaching students as they came through. That continues on today, but these people are ageing, and the new generation coming through to fill their spots and be able to teach the apprentices as they come through is something that we do need to keep an eye on.

We talk regularly in the chamber here – it does not matter what side of Parliament you are on or where you are situated around regional Victoria – about the lack of tradespeople that are out and about in regional Victoria. Whether it be that they have been in Melbourne on the Big Build or they have gone interstate on big builds there, trades are highly sought after, especially the good ones. If you are a good tradesperson, your skills are very much valued. We talk often here about our housing crisis, which is at the forefront of everybody’s mind when we talk on most bills in here, and it is reliant on having these apprentices coming through to build the next generation’s houses, whether they be carpenters, plumbers or tilers. It does not matter who they are, we need that process to make sure that we are building enough houses and manufacturing.

Touching on that, the buzzwords that we all hear about at the moment are about data centres and building data centres. It is inevitable at the end of the day, but we need to make sure that we are getting in front of these builds, because the one thing about data centres and how big they are is that they are going to need a lot of electricians and a lot of plumbers to build them. These constructions can take up to four years, and some of the numbers divvied out are that there might be up to 700 electricians needed in the build of these data centres, so we need to be on the front foot and making sure that we have that production line coming through TAFE and other educational places that are putting these tradespeople in and making sure that they are highly skilled. But we do not want to have a drain on the flip side and an unintended consequence of not having enough people in the day-to-day trades for general maintenance or the building of houses. That is what we really need to keep an eye on.

Going back to when I first started, most apprentices in their first year were 16 or 17 years of age, so there was a reliance on having a parent that could get them to that TAFE college or jumping on a bus in regional Victoria to get there. That is a real issue as well, and that really has not changed a lot over the journey. I know that there has been talk about lowering the age at which people can get their drivers licence from 18 to 17. In rural and regional Victoria that would make a huge difference to the trades and these apprentices being able to get themselves around. It is a really big area, and we have to look outside that box of being an apprentice and qualifying for a trade and how we can keep the numbers up at a constant level.

We are going to have to grow those numbers, as I said, to have these data centres that we need to build. Another aspect is we have an Olympic Games in a few years time up in Brisbane, and there is going to be a concerted push for tradespeople. They are going to be looking right around Australia for tradies and apprentices to go up for this massive build before the Olympics. We need to make sure that we are covering the possible loss of trades that will be exiting the state and moving up there. That is why we need to be on the front foot in all trades, but in particular on the electrical side, the plumbing side and the building side, because when all is said and done, we need to make sure that we have this workforce available for the day-to-day needs of the Victorian public.

In this bill we are putting more regulation on the business owners. There are some huge businesses in the trades, but most are mums and dads that are trying to do the right thing by their apprentices. In putting more regulatory reform and impost on these young families that are trying to do the right thing and provide a pathway through to the trades, we do need to make sure that we are incentivising them to still be tradespeople and employ apprentices and not making it all too hard for them.

As I close, we have concerns for that production line coming through, but we must not forget the education side as well. People who have been in the trades are the ones we need to actually teach the next generation of our apprentices, so I would welcome the government keeping that in mind as we move forward in this area.

 Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (10:57): I am delighted to rise today to speak in support of the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. It is good to speak after the member for Morwell, who has his own experience and perspective in this space. This is another important bill, one that introduces reforms to the regulation of apprenticeships and traineeships as well as reforms to the permission-to-teach scheme administered by the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the school community safety order scheme and other matters.

We have seen a strong focus from the government on education and cost of living, which is right at the heart of our government, supporting apprentices and supporting schools and family. We saw that front and centre recently with free TAFE. Free TAFE has been such an important initiative in my community, a really crucial cost-of-living support, saving my constituents and Victorians more broadly an average of $3000 per course. Cost of living is front and centre, as I said, for so many of my constituents. Balancing the family budget, with utility bills and everyday expenses, is a constant in the minds of many in the Clarinda district and of many across the state. Free TAFE is another way the Carroll Labor government is supporting Victorians, providing relief and support in both big and small ways.

In fact there are many initiatives that I have been really proud to see delivered in our schools and education institutions. We have given out free pairs of glasses to hundreds if not thousands of the students who need them most. We have also seen more than 60 million free meals provided under the school breakfast clubs. It is simply amazing. I have been to many of those schools to see firsthand the benefit to our younger students at primary school and at secondary school. There really has been a lot happening in our schools and our education settings to support our young people and families with the cost of living.

We have seen that commitment across schools this year, and there are also many fantastic schools in Clarinda district where there is a lot happening this year, particularly Clayton South Primary School, which received funding of $12.45 million for a new administration and learning building, consisting of a general-purpose classroom and a science space, and a new playground and landscaping. The minister at the table, the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, was with me at the time to make that announcement for Clayton South Primary School. You could not believe the face on the former principal, who could not believe it, because he knew that improvement to his school would be transformative for younger students at the primary school and also in my neighbouring local schools. It was great to be out and about late last year to catch up with principal Craig Pauwels, students and the construction team and to see the great progress that has taken place and is happening right there. I am really looking forward to the months ahead and to visiting again when we open the school. It will be truly special. Students at Clayton South Primary School will have an even better place to learn, to grow and to thrive in this building that will serve generations to come. So congratulations to everyone involved, and I am really looking forward to returning to the school and seeing our young people and staff using the building for the first time.

I am really proud of the work that is being done in support of our young people and young families in Clarinda with the cost of living and education. Again, there are a lot of initiatives that are important for my community, big and small cost-of-living measures, from the breakfast clubs to Glasses for Kids, free dental check-ups at Smile Squad, free swimming lessons, free public transport for kids and of course free TAFE. We have heard that more than 225,000 students have benefited from free TAFE already, saving students an average of $3000 per course and making it easier and more affordable to train, reskill or upskill to get a well-paid job that leads to a rewarding career. Free TAFE currently offers 80 qualifications and short courses without tuition fees for Victorians, and this includes the diploma of nursing and certificates in information technology, accounting, bookkeeping, individual support, training and assessment and so much more. This is simply amazing.

We can see clearly here this government’s commitment to supporting apprentices and supporting schools and families, and that continues here with this bill. This bill introduces reform to regulations of apprenticeships and traineeships in chapter 2. Namely, it strengthens and modernises the regulation framework for apprenticeships and traineeships, prioritising their safety and support. Key measures in the bill include a greater range of enforcement tools for the regulator, introducing a licensing system for employers of apprentices and trainees, and embedding an education-first approach to support employers to comply. The regulation of apprenticeships and traineeships will also move from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria, complementing the inspectorate’s existing functions and capability as an industry-focused regulator.

These are important changes enhancing safety and support for apprentices and trainees. We know, and we heard from the previous speaker the member for Morwell, that many of our younger students might start at a very young age – 16, 17, 18 or thereabouts – and their safety and their returning, keeping an interest in their apprenticeship or traineeship, are very, very important for our future workforce. Further, these reforms acquit the government’s responsibility for the recommendations of the Apprenticeships Taskforce in relation to the regulatory framework for apprentices and trainees. The taskforce consulted with apprentices and trainees from priority cohorts such as First Peoples apprentices and trainees to inform its work.

Schools and other matters are addressed in chapter 3; namely, the amendments to the Education and Training Reform Act 2006. These amendments are directed at the government’s commitment to ensuring that Victorian schools are safe and respectful places of learning for students and workplaces for staff. On that point I would like to thank all of the Clarinda district teachers, principals and education support staff for the work that they do, some of the most important work in our state. They show up every day for our kids, and I am very proud to be part of a government that recognises and values that work, delivering a pay rise and making Victorian teachers the best paid in Australia with the best conditions. I commend the Premier and the minister on that. On this side of the house we recognise that great public education starts with valuing the people who deliver it. I am really glad to see the new agreement and better pay, better conditions and better time. I am also glad to see that this bill improves and strengthens the permission-to-teach registration scheme administered by the Victorian Institute of Teaching, as well as implementing recommendations from the statutory review of the school community safety order scheme and making other amendments to the scheme.

Finally, the bill introduces a new statutory principle which enshrines the expectation and intention that all Victorian schools are safe and respectful places to learn and to work. With that strong focus on education and on cost of living that is right at the heart of our Carroll Labor government, we are supporting apprentices, supporting schools and supporting families. I commend the bill to the house.

 Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (11:07): I rise to address the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. I do so as the shadow minister, the alternative Minister for Education, and I am grateful to be working with my colleague the member for Evelyn on this particular matter. The member for Evelyn has responsibility for parts of this bill, and my portfolio responsibilities cover elements of this bill as well. I am grateful to her and to her office for cooperatively working together with my office to draw these matters together. I am also grateful to the government for providing a bill briefing and for the time that they have spent to assist us to understand the implications of this legislation we are considering.

Specifically in relation to education, this bill seeks to insert a statutory principle that schools should be safe and respectful places of learning and work; rename ‘permission to teach’ to ‘conditional authority to teach’ and require a supervision and support agreement before it can be granted; amend the school community safety order regime, including the threshold and review process for existing exclusion orders; and introduce a new digital content school community safety order, empowering schools to require removal of, or restrict, online content about the school. On face value, if you just look at that part of the bill, there are certainly elements that make sense, things that are reasonable.

Whenever people are interacting with anyone they should be respectful in their engagement. I think that is fundamental. I think we can all agree on that. I am aware that on occasion that respect cannot always be guaranteed. In the midst of a crisis where teacher retention and attraction in this state is an ongoing issue – the last time I checked there were about 700 full-time equivalent teaching roles in this state unfilled – I am very mindful of the impact that that has on students and their learning in classrooms right around this state. The fact that there are not permanent teachers in Victorian government schools, to the order of at least 700 the last time I checked, means we need to do better to better support teachers.

I am mindful also of the issues in this state with attracting and retaining school principals. I want to acknowledge the work that school principals do as educational leaders of their community. I say to them, from an alternative government perspective, we are not only grateful for the work that they do but we are respectful of them and their position. Fundamentally, we believe that if they are asked to do a job as educational leaders of their community, they should have the trust of the state’s education department; they should have the trust of the minister in order to fulfil that role to the best of their ability. So we want to protect our teachers. We want to protect principals from being subjected to behaviour which is, frankly, wrong. I understand that part of the bill, and as I said, if the bill we were considering today was just about this, I think it would be a very different conversation.

I do draw the house’s attention to the contribution of my colleague the member for Evelyn insofar as she addressed and outlined a number of concerns – deep concerns – that the opposition has with this bill, specifically through the skills and training lens. I will address the background of the bill’s education portfolio-related provisions, which respond to two distinct pressures, the first being the growing concern about the adequacy of school community safety order powers following reports of abuse and harassment directed at schools, school staff and students online. The second is the change from permission to teach to, as I said earlier, conditional authority to teach. My understanding is that that is simply a name change and not a substantial change in the provisions around that circumstance, which I know is of great benefit to schools and great benefit to principals – to have that freedom and autonomy to work with the Victorian Institute of Teaching to achieve the conditions and meet the conditions required for an individual to have permission to teach and to contribute to a school community as we would expect them to do. On the basis that it is simply a name change, there are no real issues there.

I am aware of some of the responses from stakeholders, which I would like to share briefly with the house. Some shared that the new digital content order may be hard to enforce in practice, since it can only be directed at the person who makes the online post or is the author of the online post, and groups or pages, with no details of the admins, who will not be able to be punished. So there is potential there for the intent of the law that is being proposed in this bill to not be fully realised because of the structures of social media platforms. Breaching an order is a civil penalty provision, not a criminal offence. This would require a court order for further action, which would be resource intensive and potentially slow. The bill removes the requirement that a risk be imminent before an exclusion order can be made and abolishes the current process by which a person may formally respond and have that response reviewed. In its place, the person will be afforded a fair opportunity to respond where reasonable, with the substance of that stated standard set by ministerial guidelines.

I am grateful to those organisations and stakeholders that have contributed to the opposition forming its view on this particular bill, including Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools; Independent Schools Victoria; the Australian Education Union – I am looking forward to catching up with Justin tomorrow, actually, if memory serves me correctly; the Victorian Principals Association; the Victorian Catholic Education Authority; the Australian Principals Federation; the Australian Catholic Primary Principals Association; Country Education Partnerships; and the Australian Christian Lobby.

I did want to, in the time remaining, just address some of the concerns raised with me about this bill by Parents Victoria. In essence they have made, through a constructive lens, some suggestions, which I place on record and suggest that the government may wish to consider as the bill progresses from this place to the next: retaining a high threshold for immediate orders, preserving meaningful procedural fairness and independent review, limiting repeated renewal of ongoing orders, explicitly protecting good faith parent advocacy and complaints, requiring consideration of disability and communication adjustments, requiring consideration of the school’s contribution to the conflict, ensuring access to independent advocates and support people and establishing a pathway for relationship repair and restoration of constructive parent–school communication after an order concludes. That is the perspective of Parents Victoria on behalf of parents of students in schools in our state, and perhaps there is an opportunity for the government to consider, not necessarily through an amendment as this bill progresses to the other place but perhaps through a ministerial order, to be able to take on in good faith some of the concerns, many legitimate, of Parents Victoria.

I hate to say it, but the reality of the circumstance that I find myself in is that I have done my level best to make a worthy contribution today, specifically referencing the part of the bill that is within my portfolio area of education, and the position of the opposition in this instance is to oppose the bill because of the concerns we have outlined through the member for Evelyn. If the government had chosen to bring two separate bills, for example, there may very well be a different conversation to be had. But as is the case with many bills in this place, there is a bit of Frankenstein activity going on, where a few different thoughts are plugged together. I understand that through an efficiency lens, and I regretfully say that we will oppose the bill on the basis that I have outlined.

 Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (11:17): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026, and I think this is a really important bill. It is something that matters enormously for the future of our state, in making sure that people who choose apprenticeships or traineeships have an opportunity to learn, to work, to build a career and also to come home safely at the end of their working day. Absolutely traineeships and apprenticeships are one of the great pathways to a really great job and a great career. In my family my husband is a TAFE teacher. I know the value of our TAFE teachers, and I will thank them every day of the week and thank him for all the work that he does with supporting our young people, mainly young people – there are some adult apprentices as well – and supporting our apprentices to learn the trade of their passion. But also teachers really do support students around workplaces, workplace safety and payments, and they also counsel them on a whole lot of other issues that come with going to an employer. So I thank our TAFE teachers for doing an incredible job in this space.

It is valuable to learn hands-on. While you are learning, you are getting qualified, you are being paid, you are getting practical skills, and it is a pathway to a great job, like I have said, but it also can be a pathway to maybe university or further study in your passion. But I suppose I just want to at the outset make it very clear that Labor supports apprentices, Labor supports TAFE and Labor will always protect our free TAFE system. And to parents: your kids will be better under Labor, because we want your kids to have a pathway to a great job. And to students, who are leaving school: you are going to be better under Labor, because we want you to have a pathway to a great job, and that can be through an apprenticeship. You are going to be so important to building our great state, and you are going to be so important to the future, with all the different skills that we are going to need into the future.

We are absolutely going through a transition here in this state, and it is going through enormous change. I do not want to pre-empt too much of the work that we have done at a committee level. The Economy and Infrastructure Committee is about to table a report on this topic about pathways. In that report we do discuss a lot of the challenges that we are going to have into the future. I am not pre-empting anything here, because this is data from the Victorian Skills Authority, the employment projections dashboard from 2025 to 2035. We know that in the next three years nearly 400,000 new workers are expected to enter the workforce. Those are new positions or they are replacing retired workers. Over the next decade that number is going to increase to 1.4 million workers that are going to be needed. The greatest areas of growth are going to be around aged care workers, disability carers, nurses, carpenters, construction managers, plumbers and more. We know that out of this workforce almost half are going to need a post-secondary education, like VET training, TAFE training or an apprenticeship. They are going to be absolutely essential as part of our future workforce.

Like I said, apprenticeships can provide an outstanding start to a career. We established the Apprenticeships Taskforce, which we announced during the 2022 election. We have got on with that work. We knew that this system needed to be better, and we have committed to that. Importantly, it was not just a process of department people working together. It was the taskforce talking to employers and talking to union representatives. It was informed by an apprentice and trainee reference group, which consulted with apprentices, trainers, employers, unions, industry bodies and the regulators. We wanted people who are on the ground who understand the system. They are the people that live it every day, and they are the ones that absolutely could give us the right lived experience to improve this system.

The final report was absolutely clear. It did paint a very clear picture that apprentices and trainees were experiencing bullying, discrimination, harassment, unsafe workplaces and unpaid wages, and it did raise concerns about the quality of the training. It is not all employers. I just want to make that clear. But there is a systemic issue, a systemic weakness in the framework itself, hence why we are here today. We do not want to see workplaces being unsafe. We certainly do not want to see incidents or deaths in our workplaces. We know that they are preventable, and we want to do everything we can to prevent them from happening in the first place. That is why this taskforce was so important. It made 16 recommendations to strengthen safety and oversight and modernise this framework. The government accepted all 16 recommendations in full or in principle.

At the time of announcing them in 2024, we did have a lot of industry saying that they very much welcomed our commitment to this work being done. The Master Builders Victoria CEO, who was a member of the taskforce, acknowledged and welcomed our acceptance of the recommendations, saying:

These are great first steps and important moves forward in attracting and retaining more apprentices into industries like building and construction, including women.

…

We clearly need to establish better accounting and visibility, to effectively track apprentices … through the system, better understand completion rates and the issues which affect those rates, and ultimately be able to deliver better, tangible supports.

We have started to implement these recommendations, including the Apprenticeship Helpdesk, and have also strengthened apprenticeship systems and support. This bill is another step in doing that.

As we heard from some other speakers, this bill is responsible for regulating apprenticeships and traineeships. We are going to transfer that from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria. This is an important change. It has a strong focus on protecting workers rights, bringing apprenticeship regulation into an environment which is going to strengthen the focus on safety and obviously that compliance as well. That is what we should be doing here in this place: modernising not only our acts and our laws but also our regulatory systems.

This bill is going to have some arrangements also for labour hire providers who engage in apprenticeships and traineeships. It will provide that information sharing between co-regulators. As we have seen in many other systems, when multiple agencies are involved we want them to be able to share information and track and be more efficient, so we are doing that as well. We will also have a statutory review of the new scheme after five years, and we want to make sure that it is doing what we have set out to be doing here.

Like I have said, this is not about treating every employer like they are doing the wrong thing. We know that the overwhelming majority of employers who take on apprentices and trainees want to do the right thing. They are actually putting a lot of effort, time, energy and money into investing in their young people. They are teaching them. They are mentoring them. They are giving them the skills to work locally and also to develop skills for a career, and we should absolutely be supporting and recognising that. We recognise that nearly 80 per cent of those employers who do take on an apprentice or trainee in Victoria are small businesses. They do not have big HR departments or compliance teams. We need to be able to support them in making sure that they are in the best position to take on an apprentice. We know young people want to do it, but there is a disconnect. We do find that there is a challenge with matching a want-to-be apprentice and an employer, and we want to make sure that the employer is in the best position to take someone on. That is why implementing these reforms has been really important.

With the time I have left I just want to reiterate the fact that this government really does support our apprentices. We want to make sure the system is there for them to succeed, to finish their apprenticeship and to get an incredible job at the end of it. To those who are leaving school thinking about an apprenticeship or traineeship now, we have your back. We have pathways for you. We want to support you. Only this government is going to give you that pathway. Only this government supports TAFE, and we are going to make sure you have a great future ahead.

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (11:27): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. This bill establishes new regulatory architecture for apprenticeships and traineeships. It transfers responsibility from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria. It creates an apprenticeship and traineeship commissioner, establishes a consultative committee, introduces employer licensing, creates new employer standards, expands compliance and enforcement powers and imposes new requirements around training plans and information sharing. That is a lot of machinery, but what does it actually do to get more young Victorians into apprenticeships? That is the question this government has failed to answer, because the numbers in this bill’s own analysis are damning.

In 2025 Victorian trade apprenticeship commencements fell 11.8 per cent to their lowest level since 2001. Non-trade commencements fell 20 per cent to their lowest since 1995. Plumber commencements fell 15.5 per cent, carpenter commencements fell 16.1 per cent, sheet metal worker commencements fell 18.9 per cent, childcare commencements fell 23.1 per cent and aged and disabled carer commencements fell 16.6 per cent, and the number of apprentices actually in training fell from 73,000 in 2021 to 57,000 in 2025. This is a staggering 22 per cent decline. Overall commencements of apprenticeships have fallen by almost half – 46 per cent since 2021. This is all happening while Victoria is desperately short of skilled workers. This is clearly a failure of this Victorian Labor government.

The Victorian Skills Authority estimates that construction alone will need 162,000 new workers between 2025 and 2035. So think about that. We have a housing crisis. We need to build more homes. We need more infrastructure. We need plumbers, carpenters, electricians, builders and other skilled workers. And at precisely the same time as we need more people entering these trades, the number entering apprenticeships is collapsing. So the government’s answer is to create another regulatory framework and make employers obtain a licence every year if they want to obtain and train an apprentice. That is the wrong direction to be heading. If an employer is already wondering whether they can afford to take on an apprentice, they should be asking, we should be saying and the government should be saying what we can do to make it easier for the employer to say yes and to actually employ and support them. Instead this bill asks them to navigate another licence, another compliance framework, another set of standards and another regulator.

We do not even know what the standards will be yet. There is no transparency around that. We do not know what the future costs will be. In fact it is quite likely that the licence will have associated with it a cost – another tax. We do not know what the regulatory burden on the employer will actually look like. We do not have any evidence that this bill will result in increased commencements or completion rates, so the outcomes that we hope this bill would be addressing are not even identified.

The safety of apprentices and trainees is non-negotiable. The safety of teachers, principals and students is also non-negotiable. Teachers across Victoria do deserve our thanks. Can I take a minute, if I am given the opportunity, to thank our teachers who do an extraordinary job. They entered teaching to educate, inspire young people and make a difference. Every day they work incredibly hard to do just that, but too many are weighed down by increasing workloads, behavioural challenges and a system that leaves them feeling unsupported. We need to back our teachers, value their professionalism and give them the support they need to stay in the classroom doing exactly what they do best: teaching our kids. To every teacher who keeps turning up and giving their best to our children: thank you.

We do not need to increase the bureaucracy, paperwork, red tape and costs for our teachers, our principals and our employers. Costs are vitally important to be discussing, because at this part of the bill I would like to highlight that we could not get any confirmation in the bill briefing that would give us the confidence that this current Labor government are not planning to introduce a new cost on employers for this new licensing system.

That brings me to the broader issue of trust. How can we trust that this will not happen? Because every Victorian has every reason to be sceptical of this government when it says ‘Trust us.’ Just this week the Auditor-General exposed that Victorians are paying a hidden tax on every public transport fare – a secret tax, without the government publicly disclosing it. Yesterday the Auditor-General found that the tax had been approved in 2021 and was not acknowledged in the public documents that government should be putting in their communications around this tax. It was expected to raise $8 billion, and around $5 billion was going to go to the Suburban Rail Loop. Who was the transport minister when that levy was approved? Premier Ben Carroll. This has broken the covenant that government has with its community.

John Mullahy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker: relevance.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I ask the member on her feet to come back to the education and training reform amendment bill, please.

Roma BRITNELL: I absolutely am speaking about trust, the introduction of a licence that we are concerned about the cost of and the example that we saw just yesterday where taxes are introduced without trust.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): Is this on the point of order, or is this your contribution?

Roma BRITNELL: No, this is on the bill. I am on the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I have asked you to be relevant.

Paul Hamer: On a point of order, Acting Speaker: relevance.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I ask the member to come back to the education and training reform amendment bill.

Roma BRITNELL: I am speaking exactly on the bill, and this bill is about introducing a licence that could have associated with it a cost. I am talking about the costs that this government imposes on our community through different taxes, which is quite relevant to the bill when we are talking about a licence that may have a fee.

A member interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: It is very relevant. Suddenly Victorians are told that we should know where our money is going and what it is buying. Clearly integrity is still optional to this Premier, and we do deserve to know where our money is going. The Treasurer conceded that yesterday. That is the point. Trust is not being built by telling Victorians about a tax after the Auditor-General discovers it. They get caught out, and that is when they do something about it.

Trust is built on creating trust that you can rely on, not trust that only occurs when you get caught out. It does not get built by creating another regulatory system or refusing to provide proper costings. Trust is not built by announcing reforms now and telling Victorians it will take years to implement these reforms, and trust certainly is not built by asking employers to do more, pay more and comply with more rules when government cannot show that these rules will actually produce more apprentices.

Victorians need a government that focuses on outcomes. We need more apprentices, we need more skilled workers, we need more homes, we need teachers who are safe and supported, we need students who are safe in their schools and we need a government that tells Victorians the truth about what it is doing with their money. Yes, let us improve safety, let us improve training quality, let us protect teachers and let us protect students, but let us not confuse more regulation with reform and let us not pretend that another regulator, another commissioner, another licence and another ICT system will somehow reverse a 46 per cent collapse in apprenticeship commencements.

Victoria’s skills crisis is real. It has happened over a decade under this government. The housing crisis is real. Labor are responsible for this. The work shortage is real. These are the problems in Victoria, which has the highest unemployment rates of any state in this country. Our young people are the pathway to real work, and they should be supported – not getting another layer of bureaucracy. We will oppose this bill and will offer amendments in the upper house, because Victoria deserves a fresh start to deliver legislation that will support Victoria’s growth by supporting both employees and employers.

I would like to thank some of the organisations that have been supporting our apprentices and our young people, Neil Porter Legacy in Warrnambool; the people who work in WDEA; the Beyond the Bell community, who are trying to increase retention rates; the local learning and employment network; and Standing Tall in Warrnambool, who support young people in our regions right through South-West Coast. There are some amazing people doing some amazing work, and they want to see legislation that grows the support around apprentices, trainees and students in schools, not legislation that adds more bureaucracy.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (11:37): I am just going to pick up on a couple of matters that were raised by the opposition. The member for Evelyn is purported to have been verballing ministerial advisers from a briefing, which is not appropriate. I will say further that there is funding publicly announced and Wage Inspectorate Victoria is funded ongoing. That is just to refute some of the allegations made. It is not appropriate to be verballing someone from a briefing; it is about respect. So I will just fundamentally put that out there as a point that should be taken in this chamber.

Secondly, with regard to our wonderful teachers, our $1.9 billion investment in growing and supporting our education workforce since 2019 is seeing results. Victoria now has about 14,000 more registered teachers than we did in 2020. Our workforce continues to grow, with more than 1300 extra full-time teachers employed in Victorian government schools in the 12 months to June 2025. This is the result of initiatives like Victoria’s nation-leading employment-based teaching degrees and financial incentives for hard-to-staff roles laying the foundations for a strong and sustainable school workforce now and well into the future. ABS data shows that around 44,700 FTE additional staff were employed in Victorian schools between 2024 and 2025, the largest increase of any state or territory. Student-to-teacher ratios in government schools have also steadily improved, decreasing from 14.6 to 12.8 for primary between 2018 and 2025 and from 12.1 to 11.4 for secondary over the same period. So I hope that allays some of the concerns that were put to the chamber by the member for Sandringham.

I do find it, frankly, galling the way the opposition has absolutely trashed these reforms and diminished the significance of the benefit they will provide apprentices in our state, particularly when we note that the last time the Liberals were in power they sacked more than 2000 TAFE teachers, shut 22 TAFE campuses and savagely ripped $1 billion from TAFE. So who are they to be trash-talking relevant reforms that are absolutely important to continuing to build apprenticeship pathways in this state. I will note, historically, that in July 2023 the Victorian Labor government delivered on its 2022 election commitment to establish the Apprenticeships Taskforce. While those opposite may think that harassment and work safety concerns are not important to apprentices, we think they are. This is what is inherent in the reforms of this bill. The taskforce’s work highlights challenges that many apprentices continue to face, including workplace safety concerns, harassment, inconsistent training experiences and difficulties navigating the apprenticeship system.

These are not minor issues. They may find them minor; we do not. They can affect whether someone completes their apprenticeship. I am going to repeat that: they can affect whether someone completes their apprenticeship. These circumstances, these situations, these parameters matter and can also have an impact on whether they remain in their chosen occupation or reach their full potential. So instead of trying to oppose this bill and these important reforms, I would hope that those opposite would think about the pathways for apprentices and the different circumstances that they have to navigate and actually have some compassion and consideration and see the relevance of these reforms. It is not – and I know this has already been spoken about in the chamber – about condemning employers and saying they are terrible people or otherwise. It is just simply about taking on board the various reforms that have been put forward that have been fed back from apprentices themselves, experiences that they have noted. Should we not be listening to them and taking heed of what they themselves have experienced? I would have thought that empirical sort of evidence is actually relevant and important, so I would hope that those opposite might shift gear a little bit and just think about the working experiences of the apprentices themselves.

Specifically, the bill will deliver an annual employer licensing system assessing ongoing fitness to employ apprentices or trainees, which replaces the current one-off approval; a graduated set of compliance and monitoring tools ranging from notices to produce and comply to new offences and penalties that balance the need for proactive safeguards while minimising disincentivising employers from employing apprentices and trainees – absolutely there is sensitivity to the challenges that employers face themselves when managing their businesses; and greater information sharing between the relevant Victorian regulators. How could there be an issue with this? We know that across government departments, certainly interstate as well but in this circumstance, encouraging better communication across relevant Victorian regulators has got to be a good thing. This will deliver improved coordination and consistency between regulators. The bill will deliver regulations to be made setting out outcome-based employer standards to clarify ongoing expectations of employers across the apprenticeship and traineeship journey; stronger regulation of apprenticeships and traineeships under labour hire, including group training organisations, with the ability to prescribe specific employer standards for employers who are labour hire providers; expanded training plan oversight, including minimum content requirements – that would seem really practical to me, so why are those opposite opposed to such things?; lodgement processes; and registered training organisation reporting obligations. This is about accountability. That is not a bad thing. Surely accountability, when we are looking at government processes et cetera, is a good thing.

If we are looking at outcomes – and I think it is absolutely fair and proper to raise those questions; no-one is opposed to that – more than 10,000 Victorian apprentices completed their training in 2025. The number of apprentices completing their training in Victoria increased by 16.5 per cent, higher than the national increase of 8.1 per cent. You would not think that if you heard some of the speeches from the opposition, but I am just putting some facts and some data on the table. The latest data on apprentices and trainees in Victoria shows tradies are completing their training at record rates, with more women getting on the tools in traditionally male-dominated roles.

We know TAFE is the primary provider of apprenticeships and traineeships in Victoria. I am just going to repeat that: TAFE is the primary provider of apprenticeships and traineeships in Victoria, and Labor backs in TAFE. It is a very high priority. That is why we have free TAFE. In 2025 more than 70 per cent of all Victorian apprentices and trainees completed their training through TAFE. Those are real figures. That is surely meaningful, and if we are talking about outcomes, well, there it is, right in front of us. Apprentices and businesses choose the TAFE network because of the quality of the training, the passion of the teachers and the world-class facilities. This also makes really good sense. We know that only Labor governments support TAFE and public provision of education and training. In February this year we enshrined in legislation the free TAFE guarantee, and you can see why. You can also see why so many apprentices are using this as a legitimate pathway to a very fulfilling career.

The Labor government has invested more than $16 billion in new and base funding into our TAFE and training system since 2014, including more than $660 million into 45 new and upgraded TAFE campuses. I heard a comment before: ‘Oh, infrastructure.’ Well, it does matter and where it is matters, because it also has to be accessible. Having TAFE around the state means that it is actually accessible, certainly from a commuting point of view and for people to be able to consistently attend their lessons et cetera. Infrastructure does matter. More than 245,000 students have benefited from Labor’s free TAFE since 2019. If we are talking about outcomes, we can give you numbers; that is no problem. Thinking about cost of living and enabling the students to afford to complete their tuition, it has saved them more than $816 million in tuition fees, an average of more than $3300 per student. That is a lot of money, particularly for a student. So that is significant as well.

Clearly we have rebuilt and reformed Victoria’s training system that the previous Liberal government left wrecked and ruined. That is why I have been so shocked by the slagging off of the TAFE system et cetera by those opposite. I was like, ‘Have they actually read this bill?’ It was like we were in a parallel universe. But in any case I have been happy to –

Annabelle Cleeland: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I think this member is misleading the house, and making imputations on members across the aisle is disorderly.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): There was not an imputation on an individual member. Her time has now expired, but I will give you the opportunity in debate to address any of those concerns.

 Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (11:47): I also rise – but I will stick to the bill a little bit more than the previous member, who got a bit distracted – to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. To refute some of those allegations made, we do believe there are some reasonable objectives in the bill. As you have heard ad nauseam throughout today, we absolutely support apprentices. Apprentices should be safe at work – no negotiation. They should receive proper and adequate training, and they should not be subject to bullying or harassment. These are important safeguards. Schools should also have appropriate powers to protect teachers and staff from serious abuse. But where we have raised concerns today is about the layering of another round of bureaucracy and compliance onto employers, who are already doing it tough. Rather than have these attacks on individuals or on our side of the house, we want to speak to some of the facts and the data behind these comments around how hard it is to do business in Victoria right now and in particular how that has consequences for whether you are in a position to appoint an apprentice in your business.

Trade apprenticeships fell by nearly 12 per cent last year. That is the lowest since 2001. Non-trade commencements have fallen more than 20 per cent. That is the lowest since 1995. Training overall for apprentices is down by more than 22 per cent. These are current figures, and you cannot try and spin your way out of whether this is factual or not. Businesses are doing it tough, and they are not in a position to appoint apprentices because of that. At the same time as we can see the figures are alarming, why is the Labor government trying to force more regulation and more bureaucracy on these businesses? We need to understand a solution to this and not just keep adding weight and pressure.

The businesses taking on apprentices in my region are overwhelmingly small and medium. They are builders, electricians, plumbers and mechanics. A shout-out to O’Sullivan Builders, who are right now helping us rebuild some sheds that were burnt down. They do not have compliance departments. They cannot take on apprentices, which would mean wearing the wages, the training, the supervision and the responsibility for a young person. This bill adds a new employer licensing system on top of all that, and it is a licensing system that needs to be reviewed annually.

We need to be careful about creating a system where an employer who would willingly train a young person decides the administrative burden is too great, because that is exactly where we are heading. We are already there, and you can see that with the numbers. Why is there a 12-month accreditation, not three years? I support the amendment by the member for Evelyn for a three-year licensing system, because we do have genuine concerns, and you have seen that here today, about a fee-based design. It is another mechanism to take more money out of the pockets of Victorians and the businesses trying to keep people employed, rather than a genuine safety or quality measure.

We have seen it today, and in fact I just got texted a news report saying that the Premier has done a backflip and abolished the secret Suburban Rail Loop tax. It is from our side of the house, the scrutiny and investigation into these fees and secret charges that Victorians pay the price for. We have seen it just in the last two days, this decades-long levy that was quietly placed on public transport fares, which regional Victoria chipped in a substantial amount for – and will be. Now the Premier has done a backflip, despite him signing off on this new levy. The Premier has said publicly that integrity is not optional, yet this charge was signed off on in 2021 when he himself was public transport minister.

Paul Hamer: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, the matter that the member is canvassing has got nothing to do with the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): Yes, and I believe I have already addressed relevance. This is not a wideranging debate, and I believe the member for Euroa was in the chamber when I talked to the member for South-West Coast. I ask you to come back to the education and training reform amendment bill, please.

Annabelle CLEELAND: The relevance, which I would like to refute, is that this is the same government that is telling small business it needs another licence and another fee to train an apprentice while it is quietly taxing the same Victorians to pay for a Melbourne rail project they will never use. I will talk about what this bill does.

Paul Hamer: On a point of order, Speaker, the Acting Speaker was very clear in her ruling, twice, that the member on her feet should be relevant to the bill that is actually being debated.

The SPEAKER: I have not been in the chair for the debate, but I have been listening intently, and I remind members when we are speaking on bills that to try and bring in extraneous issues is not the way to go. I ask the member for Euroa to come back to the bill.

Annabelle CLEELAND: Thank you, Speaker. Welcome back. I will talk about what the bill does not do. It does not create more apprenticeships. That was the purpose, and it goes absolutely against it. It does not give a small regional employer a new incentive to take one on. It does not touch the cost pressures already deciding whether an employer can afford to. The Victorian Skills Authority projects that construction alone will need more than 160,000 new workers in the decade. So our concerns are absolutely warranted.

I am conscious that members were interrupting my representation of regional Victoria, so I want to skip to why supporting regional businesses is important. We cannot talk about growing apprenticeships at the same time that this government is actively locking local businesses out of bushfire recovery work. The member for Eildon asked a question on notice, and in the response around the 25 contractors currently on the bushfire clean-up program, only three are based in the LGAs affected. My own question regarding this remains unanswered. The definition of ‘local’ has been redrawn. On a disaster recovery program, it is traditionally defined by postcodes within the declared event area. It gets better. Labor’s dysfunctional clean-up response has rewritten the rules, and ‘local’ is now apparently being calculated as anywhere in Victoria. This is not local content by any definition that residents of my electorate would recognise, and it explains why so little benefit is coming back into our community. Multiple local contractors who put machinery, equipment and people forward the moment the fires hit have not received work through the clean-up program, and they cannot go on the record because they are hopeful that one day this Labor government will wake up and start supporting regional businesses.

It was the deputy commissioner for recovery who changed the guidelines governing local contractor participation in the clean-up program, broadening ‘local’ to the statewide definition, and the outcome is on the record: barely any engagement, with contractors instead brought from as far as Geelong and Bendigo and Shepparton. No LGA was impacted. The clean-up program’s head contractor Forge Solutions is part of the Johns Lyng Group, and given the scale of the appointment and the guidelines change that followed, Labor must be transparent on the appointment and probity process, including what, if any, role the deputy commissioner for recovery played in shaping the guidelines that determined how work flowed to that contractor and its local subcontractor arrangements.

These are not just contractors, these are the small businesses that employ apprentices. You cannot regulate for more apprentices with one hand while starving the very businesses that train them for work, and taxing them further, with the other. Training does not happen in a vacuum, it happens on worksites and in businesses, and they need to be viable to keep taking people on. Our alternative amendments are practical: remove the application fee for the employer licence, extend the licence from one to three years and bring forward the statutory review from five years to two.

We will always support genuine protections for apprentices and trainees. Another factor that we need to take into consideration is how our apprentices are getting to work. Public transport in regional Victoria is absolutely disgraceful. Most of it is buses that do not coincide with when apprentices start work. We need to look at changing the probationary licence age from 18 to 17 so our young apprentices can get to work. These are the practical steps that Labor should be looking at and not further taxes, not further fees. This side of the house, the Nationals, will always support regional businesses and the apprentices that they employ.

 Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (11:57): I am very excited to stand today and talk on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill ‍2026. If I can have your brief indulgence, Speaker, I am also excited because I have just come from talking to the Hawthorn Football Club and Gazey in Strangers. That was a bit of a fanboy moment. What do we say when Gazey is in Parliament? ‘Turn it up.’

Education is such a vital, important part of what we do in this place, one of the major portfolios that our cabinet looks after. I remember my first speech, and education played a big part of that because my intention when I came into this place was to do my best to upgrade and fund our local schools as best as possible, and I think so far we are doing okay. There is always more to do, as many have said. Before I go on about doing okay and things, let us talk about some of the context of what is in the bill. I want to go to the school community safety orders that are amended here and the fact that we are making some other changes to protect our teachers, staff, principals et cetera in a digital context. We all know that social media, while we all use it and it can do good in the world, can also do a lot of not-so-good. Unfortunately our teachers and students can get the brunt of that, including from other students. We know that since back in the day, when I was going to Kent Park Primary or Fairhills High School in the 1970s and 80s, there has always been bullying in schools, there have always been problems during school days. But back then, when you went home you left that at school. One of the problems we have with social media these days is that our kids are plugged in – take mine, for example: they are plugged in all the time – every day, a lot of the day. The irony is that now, with our restrictions on devices at schools, our kids do not have the devices at school but they have them at home, and in some terrible cases that bullying can continue at home.

We have as a government taken many steps to try and help our students. Other members have mentioned that mental health professionals in schools was a fantastic initiative. But we do also see, unfortunately, parts of the school community – and it is a very, very small amount of people – sometimes react to our staff, to our principals, in very unproductive ways, and in an even smaller amount of times this can get very problematic. These provisions for the safety orders are obviously a last resort, but sometimes those last resorts are needed.

I remember years ago Bec was at a school and there was this website that popped up. It was RateMyTeachers, and it was anonymous. Anyone could write anything. Our teachers do such a fantastic job, and I am very happy to see that they are thinking about being the best paid teachers in the country, and I cannot wait to see that get done and in place. While I am at it, I am also very happy to see a commitment to full and fair funding for our schools as well. That is fantastic. That is on top of the capital investment that this government has made over 12 years, but I digress.

I will give you an example where I think some of these changes will be very relevant. Recently one of the schools, and I will not say which school for reasons of naming people, in my area had an incident where a gentleman who is currently living in his car – that is a whole other story that we can talk about on how to help people – came onto school grounds during the day. Obviously that is not a good thing. The school was placed into lockdown, and the wonderful staff did everything they were meant to do. There was no further incident, but it is a concerning fact that this happens ever. That person was talked to. I think the police attended. There was no further incident to my knowledge, and that person left the premises. But that person is still living near the site, and it is my understanding that they might be entering the premises after hours. If someone is walking through school grounds after hours on a normal basis no-one would blink. But when we have someone who is doing that regularly, apparently after hours in the evening, then we have an issue. For something like this, school community safety orders may be a tool that could be used in this place, just to have a discussion with that person to try and explain to them the gravity of what is occurring. I fully support those changes.

I have garbled on a bit and I am going to run out of time, but I just want to go through some of the changes that we have had over the last eight years in our patch to iterate the investment in our educators and our education places. We have got Syndal South Primary School in my patch. Katelyn Joyce is doing a fantastic job down there. One of the first things that we committed money to was to upgrade building A. It was one of the old 1960s light timber construction buildings that had not really been upgraded much since then. We upgraded that building A. There is Glen Iris Primary School, with Maddie Witter down there. They had some issues with an old playground that needed to be upgraded. It is now a fully upgraded, inclusive playground, and I believe the little preppies, when we went down there, are pretty happy with that.

For Pinewood Primary School we made a commitment in 2022 to provide a brand new gym with music and art rooms, and I took a sneak peek last week when we got to drop in to see Karen down there. It is fantastic. We do not necessarily get thanked a lot in this job and no-one is saying we should, but I did have a guy come and tap me on the shoulder down at Pinewood Coles, which is my local – g’day to all the people down at Pinewood Coles – and he just said, ‘Thanks for the gym, mate. Great that that was organised.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’d probably thank the Treasurer and the Premier, not me, but, you know, I’ll take it.’ That is looking fantastic.

At Camberwell South Primary School Natasha Cummins has been working on getting the toilets that run off the gym upgraded for her junior kids for years, and we managed to get that into our capital grants last year, so that is coming. They are very happy with that. At Ashwood School Karen Overall is doing fantastic work. We have got a brand new senior centre for those kids at Ashwood School, who are the best of us. At Burwood East Special Developmental School with Helen Smith, again, we made some upgrades there. We have upgraded, I believe – someone correct me if I am wrong – every special school in the state. I think that was the noise. At Parkhill Primary School Joanne Jolly is doing an awesome job. They have not only a gym that we upgraded about five or six years ago with the former member for Burwood but also the forecourt and atrium and other things that we have done – they look fantastic. At Ashwood High School, with Dr Moore, then Meg and now the acting principal Michael Foster, they have got a brand new STEAM centre that we did in the last term, which is awesome, and we are doing some further work to building B, which is in planning now but all budgeted and in the bank.

At Mount Waverley Secondary College Karen Wade has got a STEAM centre as well. There is Campbell McKay at Mount Waverley Primary School, which had a bit of a fire incident the other day. Campbell, if you are listening, my understanding is everything is okay, which is good, but that is a shame. Maybe we will have to upgrade some of that to get rid of the old stuff there. They have got building upgrades that we also promised in 2022. At Ashburton Primary School we did netball courts I think in the last term. Again, there is a bit more to do, but that is a great upgrade for the kids down there. In this budget that we have just had we promised a brand new gym for Mount Waverley North Primary School, which Natalie Grieve and her team have been working on for probably over eight years but definitely since I have been here. There are a few other things we have done, but they are some of the commitments we have put into our education system in the Ashwood district, previously the Mount Waverley district. There is more to do, and I intend to get it done.

 David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (12:07): I rise to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. This government is addicted to red tape, regulation and tax, and we have just seen it again. We have record numbers of apprenticeships that are down. We see scenarios in this state where trade apprenticeship commencements are down 11.8 per cent, falling to the lowest number since 2001. I mean, that is just ridiculous: when we have a building and housing crisis we have the lowest apprenticeship commencements since 2001. Non-trade commencements are down 20 per cent, falling to the lowest numbers since 1995, when traineeships were in their infancy. Falling commencements were seen across a range of occupations, including plumbers – down 15.5 per cent. You cannot get a plumber in Victoria for love or money, and we have a government that is wanting to create more regulation to provide disincentives to getting plumbers into the workplace and small businesses to train them.

This is a government that is addicted to red tape, regulation and money, because all this is is just more cost that is being imposed on businesses and harm to these businesses. People are just turning away from the industry. No wonder Victoria is in a housing crisis when we have these issues and incompetent governments that want to introduce more red tape and regulation in this state. We have carpenters down 16.1 per cent and sheet metal workers down 18.9 per cent. It just continues to go on in terms of regulation and red tape in the building industry. This is not the first rodeo. We have had two other attempts by this government, unfortunately, to introduce a whole lot of regulation and red tape that has forced businesses – small builders – to become paperwork shufflers more than they are actual builders. Forget about laying a brick; they are more focused on having to deal with the volumes of paperwork to ensure that they can register and run their businesses. This government is just running small builders out of business, and that is why we are not getting things built in this state. We know from talking to Master Builders Victoria (MBV) and the Housing Industry Association (HIA) that we have seen the cost of building a house go up by about 30 per cent in the last few years; 43 per cent of the cost of constructing a home in Victoria, according to Master Builders, is regulation, red tape and taxation – the highest of any other state.

With 70 new taxes in a decade, it is a government addicted to tax regulation red tape. That is why homes in Victoria are not being built and that is why this particular bill, in the way that it is being presented to the house today, is a dud. It is a dud because what it does is say to those employers, ‘Every year you’ve got to go about filling in a whole lot of paperwork. You’ve got to register and obtain a licence and comply to just take on another apprentice or a trainee.’ What an incentive that is. It is a joke. What makes it even sadder is it is a government that does not consult with the industry. Master Builders Victoria actually wrote to the government raising serious concerns with this particular bill, warning it would hit small building businesses hardest at a time when the sector is already absorbing major regulatory change. We have the National Construction Code in Victoria that other states are delaying. We are the first ones to adopt it, which means it is forcing more cost and more compliance issues on these industries at a time when they can least afford it.

The bill transfers regulation of apprenticeships and traineeships from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria and introduces – here is the kicker – a new annual employer licence and gives the regulator expanded enforcement powers, including civil penalties up to $25,000 and public naming of employers whose licences have been cancelled. Welcome to Victoria. Victoria is the cost capital. It is certainly not the building capital; homes are not being built. The government claim that they are building 80,000 homes a year. The minister was on her feet yesterday talking about how wonderful things are that we have now hit 50,000; she has just forgotten about the 80,000 target that the government had, which was kicked down the road to 800,000 over 10 years. They are celebrating failures now in Victoria: ‘Do you know what, we’re building the lowest number of homes that we have in a decade. But it’s great – 50,000 homes.’ Seriously, homes are not being built because it is just too expensive to build homes in Victoria.

Master Builders supports the underlying goal of protecting apprenticeships and traineeships – we all do – but not at the cost of actually giving a young person a start in life. We want to get apprentices into a trade or into a profession, get them going on the tools and into a job earning an income and ensuring that they get their start in life. That will not happen under this bill, because it is another deterrent before they hit the start line. Let us get them in the job. Let us get them on the tools. Let us get them in the construction industry. Let us get them building homes, not filling in paperwork.

Master Builders’ key concern is the bill departs from what the taskforce actually recommended. Rather than a specialist education-led regulator with a risk-based registration process, the bill applies a general workplace enforcement model with strict liability offences and a no-fault element required, with 98 ‍per cent of the construction business nationally employing less than 20 people. More than half of the apprenticeships and traineeships are in small businesses. More than half are working in construction, and the compliance burden will fall disproportionately on operators that are least equipped to absorb the cost – small businesses. Again, we are trying to hit a nail with a sledgehammer and do something here to a small sector and say they are the big guys of the construction industry. What about the small builders? This government does not care about them, because they are not union dominated. It is not just another CFMEU handout on the Big Build in some of the big construction projects, because they do not care about small businesses and they do not care about small builders. We have seen that time and time again.

Master Builders is calling for a pause to the bill until further consultation can occur. If the government had any decency and thought about shaving costs and getting homes built, they would pause this bill and at the very least take up the amendments that we have seen from the member for Evelyn, who has done fine work on this bill. But do not take the Master Builders words as exclusive; the Housing Industry Association is calling for the Victorian government to withdraw its proposal to require employers to obtain a licence before engaging apprentices, warning the scheme will add red tape, increase costs and reduce apprenticeship opportunities at a time of severe skill shortages.

Again, this is a warning sign from the two peak industry bodies. HIA and MBV are saying, ‘Warning, warning, Will Robinson, don’t go forward with this bill. It will cost money. It will cost jobs. It will not build homes.’ The government has ignored the warning signs and is pushing on because they are addicted to tax, addicted to red tape, addicted to regulation and addicted to the bureaucratic mess that Victoria has become under the useless government that currently presides over us.

Today I tabled a petition from 1879 people opposing the abolition of the Architects Registration Board of Victoria – 1879 architects. They are really concerned about their board being abolished, particularly what that will do to young people who are studying architecture. Victoria produces 43 per cent of Australia’s master architecture graduates from five accredited programs, including many international students. What the government wants to do is abolish the board. Again, it is an industry where Victoria is leading the way in terms of design. We are the design capital in Victoria when it comes to architecture and built form, product design in so many different areas, fashion. The government wants to rip the carpet from under the very people that are creating the opportunities. I presented that petition which opposes the abolition of the Architects Registration Board of Victoria, which the government wants to kill. It is another example of the government wanting to take away any industry support. They ignore Master Builders and they ignore HIA. They not only ignore the architects registration board but they want to sack it.

That is what we are dealing with in this state, a government that just runs a dictatorship. They want to run everything from Spring Street. They want all planning to come from Spring Street, not from local councils. They take away people’s local voices. That is why this government is addicted to red tape, costs and tax. For us to go forward, we need a fresh start in Victoria to get rid of this useless government and get homes built again.

 Kathleen MATTHEWS-WARD (Broadmeadows) (12:17): I rise to support the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. I cannot tell you how proud I was to officially open the tech school in Broadmeadows last week. Thanks to another massive Labor state government investment in both Broadmeadows and in education, we now have a magnificent place to learn, to discover, to challenge, to innovate and to prepare our young people for the jobs of the future.

Success has many parents and this is truly one of them. The first time I met Sheena Frost, Gina Dougall and Sally Curtin as a candidate four years ago, they told me their number one priority for Broadmeadows was a tech school. I was able to secure an election commitment for just that. The Kangan board and the indomitable Sharan Burrow are also incredibly strong advocates. Their vision is second to none. I thank them and the team at Kangan for bringing this project to life: CEO Laura Macpherson, director of the Hume tech school Bo Li and the Hume tech school team, my good friend Melissa Tinetti and all the wonderful staff at Kangan, industry partners and representatives from local schools. The tech school is a great example of what can be achieved when schools, training providers, industry and the community work together to create better opportunities for young people.

One of Broadmeadows’ greatest strength is the strong partnerships between organisations and their shared commitment to a better life for everyone. Together we are the strongest advocates for the people of Broadmeadows. I particularly thank all those who work so hard with me on the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board and those who were able to join in the celebrations last week: Kim Stadtmiller, CEO of the Hume Whittlesea Local Learning and Employment Network; Don, CEO of DPV Health; and representatives from Banksia Gardens and Hume City Council and, importantly, students from Aitken College, Hume Valley, Mickleham Secondary and Hume Central who were able to join us on the day and were so proud that their ideas have been included in the building.

The tech school initiative began in 2014, with a $128 million Victorian Labor government commitment to establish 10 tech schools across the state. In 2023 we committed a further $116 million to build six more tech schools so that 62,000 more Victorian students could access hands-on STEM learning experiences for the careers of tomorrow. Hume is the fourth of those new tech schools to open, and I know it will make such a difference to local students and schools across the electorates of Broadmeadows, Greenvale and Kalkallo.

There has been a lot of excitement about this tech school, and it is easy to see why. You can see the thought that has gone into every part of the building. It was designed with students, teachers, industry and the local community and with strong connection to country. It brings together culture, knowledge, learning and the possibilities of STEM. The artwork at the entrance, created by Aunty Kim Wandin and Chris Joy, draws on the Woi-wurrung story of the Seven Sisters. This tech school will provide free high-tech, hands-on learning experiences for more than 20,000 secondary students from 28 ‍partner schools. This Labor government has also made free transport available for local students to get there, making it easier than ever to access great learning opportunities locally. Plans also include running programs after school hours and during school holidays to give even more local kids the chance to explore, learn and be involved in positive activities.

Students will take part in immersive programs in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, digital technology, health infrastructure and social services. What I love about the programs on offer is that they encourage students to think about how technology can improve lives, strengthen communities and solve real-world challenges. In anatomy, students can design and print 3D medical devices and explore careers in health technology. In race to sustainability, they will investigate renewable energy and design solutions for a cleaner future. In data detectives, they will take on the role of cybersecurity analysts, investigating digital threats and how to protect people and their data. There will also be a focus on biomanufacturing, lab science, robotics, freight and logistics, autonomous vehicles, ethical decision-making in transport, food security, waste reduction and, my favourite, the circular economy. I thank Hume council for being a leader in this field. I cannot wait to see the discoveries, innovations and opportunities that come from this tech school.

Only Labor is making sure every child, no matter their postcode, gets a world-class public education close to home. We have invested heavily in quality education for the early years right through to adulthood. Education is my number one priority, and I am really proud of what we have been able to achieve across the electorate. Just in Broadmeadows, Labor has invested $20 million into the Broadmeadows Special Developmental School. I initiated a major upgrade at Hume Valley, upgraded courts and doubled the size of Gowrie’s early childhood centre. Across the electorate we have expanded kindergartens to deliver on Labor’s nation-leading free kinder for three- and four-year-olds. We have built one of the first government owned and run childcare centres in Moomba Park and an incredible new STEM and technology centre at John Fawkner. We have invested $10 million into the Jacana School for Autism and upgraded all of our special schools, plus made major upgrades to primary schools including Meadows, Glenroy West, Westbreen and Fawkner. Federal Labor have delivered the university study hub at Broadmeadows led by La Trobe – a real game changer. We have partnered to deliver 120 new social homes nearly ready to open just across the road from the TAFE.

Only Labor delivers on education, as demonstrated by the recent offer to teachers and support staff, which will make them the best paid in the nation. We know that education is the most powerful tool to transform lives and communities, and our teachers and support staff work hard every day to deliver on this priority.

Worker safety is a priority of the Carroll Labor government and has been the foundation of the labour and union movements for over 100 years. I recently invited local union reps from our schools into Parliament to discuss teacher safety and wellbeing, and I thank the Premier and the members for Greenvale and Pascoe Vale for joining me. We continue to work together to deliver on their priorities and develop policies that assist local teachers and schools to enhance the learning environment for all. This bill reflects our deep commitment to teachers and the critical work they do and will strengthen powers to keep them and all staff and students safe at schools.

This bill will also keep our youngest workers safe at the commencement of their careers, strengthening protections for Victorians entering the workforce through apprenticeships and traineeships. Victoria’s 62,000 apprentices and trainees form a crucial element of our economy and society. Apprenticeships and traineeships play a critical role in enabling our workers to develop their skills and participate in the workforce and provide employers with access to a skilled supply of labour to support Victoria’s economic growth and sustainability. Liberal governments defunded, closed and ruined our TAFEs, yet we have rebuilt and reformed Victoria’s training system.

Many TAFE students continue their journey from learning to employment via a traineeship or apprenticeship, and they need to be safe and supported. In February this year Minister Tierney and I visited Kangan Institute and celebrated National Apprenticeship Week. We congratulated Apprenticeships Victoria and its strong partnership with employers and training organisations on their fifth anniversary of enhancing the apprenticeship journey and boosting retention and completion rates. It was so heartening to hear the life-changing stories of the many apprentices and the support that this program has given them. More than 80,000 apprentices and trainees have received crucial support to build skills and rewarding careers.

In 2023 the government established the Apprenticeships Taskforce to advise the Labor government and to provide recommendations to improve safety and make the system fairer for apprentices. The taskforce consulted extensively, including with apprentices and trainees from priority groups, women and First Nations apprentices and trainees. It consulted extensively with small business to ensure the recommendations were considering the needs of both employees and employers. The taskforce finalised its report in March 2024 and made 16 recommendations, and we are implementing all of them.

A key finding was the potential for a power imbalance between the apprentice or trainee and their employer, which can unfortunately make them more susceptible to being exploited. For many it is their first job and often they are not sure of their rights, are unsure what is appropriate or not appropriate in the workplace or just do not know where to go when they need help. The majority are less than 25 ‍years old, with a large percentage under 19, and it is really difficult to be assertive at that age. Younger workers are also found to be more prone to workplace safety incidents. Apprentices and trainees in the construction industry face greater health and safety risks given the dangers when working on a building site.

This bill delivers on the government’s response to the taskforce’s recommendations to strengthen the regulatory framework for apprenticeships and traineeships. The key recommendations in the bill regarding apprentices and trainees will provide additional protection, particularly for those engaged by labour hire firms. Being able to speak in this place after rising to support the Workplace Protection Orders Bill 2026 last sitting week shows the dedication of this government to make Victorians’ places of work and study safer places to be, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (12:27): I am pleased to rise on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. Speaking as a person who has employed a lot of apprentices over the years – I did through my construction career, as did my father before me – if this bill came forward when I was self-employed, I would nearly stop employing apprentices. The construction industry is the main sector that employs apprentices throughout the state. We do have other apprenticeships obviously; we have hairdressing and baking and whatever. The construction industry is so over-regulated. You have got so much paperwork to do now, and government keeps getting in the way. I cannot see this bill doing anything but disincentivising people to take on apprentices.

To introduce a bill where every year now you have to be registered to take on an apprentice is almost like we are going to have builders as registered training organisations. That is what it feels like. I sat down with the Housing Industry Association (HIA) on this bill, and they were totally against it, for good reason. You have got to remember that 70 per cent of the houses built in this state are done by mum-and-dad builders. They are not done by the Metricons and the Simonds and those ones. In actual fact Metricon and Simonds are less likely to employ apprentices. They generally just employ subcontractors: your framers, sparkies, fix-out carpenters and lock-out carpenters. It is that next tier down – the subbies – that employ apprentices. The 70 per cent of the builders in this state are the ones that are employing the apprentices, so there is no incentive now. We are again making life more difficult in the construction industry.

I will give credit where credit is due. The construction industry had a little bit of a reprieve when we changed ministers. The Minister for Housing, Building and Precincts, the member for Bentleigh, made a couple of changes that were positive for the construction industry. I have said this before in this chamber. I know, Deputy Speaker, you have probably been sitting in that chair while I have been saying it: when you get the major bodies, being the HIA and Master Builders Victoria, saying to the government, ‘Pause this. Consult more,’ they need to listen. They need to listen for good reason.

The apprenticeship numbers in this state are falling dramatically. The member for Broadmeadows just referenced tech schools. Tech schools were the best thing we ever had. I went to –

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Wayne FARNHAM: I will take up the interjection from the member from Narre Warren North. She just said that we shut them all. Well, she might want to go back and check the history books, because it was actually the Cain government that started to merge the tech schools and the high schools in this state. It was the Cain government that actually started that process. It was not a Liberal government. I know the next thing she will say is ‘Jeff Kennett’ and she will run around crazy. It was the Cain government that did that. The Cain government were the ones that started to close the tech schools in this state. The biggest mistake we made in this state was shutting tech schools for kids like me who were not academic. I could go to a tech school and I could get a range of experience in different trades that I would like to try. I tried boilermaking, carpentry and fitting and turning. I tried all those trades when I was at tech school and learning. The great thing about a tech school was that a tech school student was more likely to get an apprenticeship because they had that basic skill that was taught to them, and not just the hands-on skill but the theory as well. The best thing Victoria ever had was tech schools, until the Cain–Kirner governments shut them down. That was actually what happened. If you check your history, you will find I am right. I am not often wrong. I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken – completely different.

If we look at our apprenticeship numbers, in 2022–23 we had about 58,620 apprentices, in 2023–24 we had 33,023 and in 2024–25 we had 24,888. The 2025–26 figures are predicted to drop another 18. 2 per cent. When you look at that, if we just go back to the 2022–23 and 2024–25 figures, we have dropped from 58,000 to 24,000. So rather than bringing in legislation that is going to cause more paperwork for anyone employing an apprentice, why don’t we look at why the figures are dropping? Has anyone done any research into why the figures are dropping for apprenticeships? Goodness knows we need more trades in this state. But then I talk to people like the Master Plumbers association. They are limited on the amount of apprentices they can train a year. I am happy to be corrected, but I think it is about 150 a year. I have sat down with Master Plumbers, and they could double that figure. So if we want more trades in the system, why aren’t we going to bodies like Master Plumbers, talking to them and saying, ‘How can we get more people through?’ The simple response will be, ‘Lift the caps.’ That will be the simple response from Master Plumbers: ‘Lift the caps. We’ll put as many through as we possibly can.’ When you have that significant drop in two to three years, you have got to research why we are having that drop and why we are having the failures in the completion of apprenticeships, not introduce more regulation to make life harder.

As I said at the start of this contribution, I have employed apprentices, and if anyone in this chamber has employed an apprentice I am more than happy for them to contribute. But when you employ an apprentice, probably depending on the trade, for the first two years they are relatively unproductive. Okay, you get them out there and you say, ‘Listen, I want you to whack this frame together.’ You know it would take a tradesman maybe an hour and it will take the apprentice 3 hours. He is learning, and as an employer you cop that. You know you are going to have those losses in the first couple of years. This is the thing about apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are so important. It is one of the few industries where you get trained and paid at the same time, unlike university. All you do if you go to uni is that you end up with a big debt.

At least with an apprenticeship, with a trade, you are being paid while you are being trained. It is one of the few industries where you can do that. That is why I am sitting here wondering why we have had such a decrease. We cannot sit back and say, ‘Well, we’re going to put more regulation on it. This is going to be good,’ and expect the industry will employ more apprentices; they will not. Even the federal Labor government has dropped the rebate for apprentices from $5000 to $4000 – another disincentive. I have said this before to the government: if you keep whacking industry enough, they are not going to have any faith in you anymore. This is what is happening in the construction industry particularly. For the last three years they have been belted from pillar to post. You can talk to any builder, anyone out there, and they will all say the same thing. As I said, I give the member for Bentleigh credit – he gave them a glimmer of hope when he reversed the minimum financial requirements – but this is not going to improve our apprenticeship numbers one bit.

I do not like this bill at all, and if I was employing apprentices I would not like it at all, because why would I want to be registered? Builders have police checks. To be a registered builder you have to have a police check. The builders are the ones employing the apprentices, so why make their lives harder? Why didn’t the government sit back, if they are serious about trades and tradies, and go, ‘How can we give the builders or the plumbers or whatever an incentive to employ apprentices?’ Not make life harder for them and bog them down in more regulation and more paperwork. We are already 75 ‍homes behind the promise of 80,000 homes a year. If we want to get more houses in this state, there is a really simple solution: get out of the way. Get government out of the way and let builders build so we can get more homes.

 Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (12:37): I rise to support the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. I do so because few responsibilities of government are more important than ensuring that a young Victorian leaving school can look to the future and say, ‘There is a pathway for me’ – a pathway to further education, a pathway into an apprenticeship or traineeship, a pathway into a good, secure and well-paid job and ultimately a pathway towards the dignity, independence and opportunity that come from meaningful work. A job, as we know, is much more than a pay cheque. It provides purpose, achievement, independence and security. It gives people the capacity to support themselves and their families, meet the cost of living and contribute to their community.

That is why since coming to government in 2014 our Victorian Labor government has continued to place jobs, skills training and education at the heart of our economic and social agenda. We rebuilt TAFE, we introduced free TAFE, we strengthened Local Jobs First, we introduced the major projects skills guarantee, we invested in schools, apprenticeships and vocational education and we have deliberately used our infrastructure program, government procurement and frontline services to create opportunities for Victorian workers, apprentices, trainees and businesses. Since 2014 Local Jobs First has been applied to thousands of projects, for example, representing almost $200 billion in government investment, while the major projects skills guarantee has supported thousands of apprentices, trainees and cadets into employment on major Victorian projects.

Since free TAFE began in 2019 more than 245,000 students have benefited, saving them more than $816 million in tuition fees, an average of more than $3300 per student. We have invested more than $16 billion in new and base funding in TAFE and training since 2014, including more than $660 million for 45 new or upgraded TAFE campuses right across the state. That investment matters because TAFE remains the backbone of our apprenticeship system. In 2025 more than 70 per cent of Victorian apprentices and trainees who completed their training did so through TAFE.

Investing in apprenticeships is one thing, but we must also make sure that when someone begins an apprenticeship we do everything possible to ensure they finish it safely, fairly and successfully. Victoria currently has around 62,000 apprentices and trainees, but the regulatory framework governing them is no longer fit for purpose. The current framework was established more than 15 years ago, with elements dating back more than 25 years. It has not kept pace with the changing nature of work, education or Victoria’s economy. The Apprenticeships Taskforce, established by our government and chaired by former ACTU president Sharan Burrow AC, identified serious issues confronting apprentices, including workplace safety concerns, harassment, inconsistent training and difficulties navigating the system. It made 16 recommendations and three supporting actions, and our government supported all 16 recommendations either in full or in principle.

We know there can be an enormous power imbalance between a young apprentice and an employer. Most apprentices and trainees are under 25, and many are even under 19, as you can appreciate, Acting Speaker Farnham, from your experience. This is the very first workplace for many of them, yet apprentices have experienced bullying, harassment, discrimination and wage theft. Tragically, there have also been workplace incidents resulting in serious injuries and deaths. A young person should never have to choose between finishing their trade or feeling safe at work. That is why this bill modernises the system. In straightforward terms it will do quite a number of things, including transfer the regulation of apprentices and traineeships to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria, establish stronger compliance and enforcement powers, introduce a new licensing system for employers of apprentices and trainees, establish clearer employer standards, strengthen protections for apprentices working through labour hire providers, improve oversight of training plans and enable better information sharing between the regulators. It will create a dedicated apprenticeship and traineeship commissioner and consultative committee and require a statutory review of the new scheme after five years. And rather than the current one-off employer approval, the new licensing system will provide ongoing oversight with a light-touch annual renewal designed to minimise unnecessary burdens on good employers. I should say the overwhelming majority of employers who employ apprentices do so in a good, fair and reasonable way. They do a great job of overseeing and training apprentices, and we should continue to acknowledge and thank those employers who do take on apprentices, because they make a massive contribution to the future jobs and skills pipeline of our state. They should be commended.

This bill also strengthens our schools. It enshrines the principle that Victorian schools should be safe and respectful places to learn and work; strengthens the permission-to-teach arrangements, renamed ‘conditional authority to teach’; and improves the school community safety order scheme. This is fundamentally a bill about safety, about quality and about pathways. Those pathways have never been more important as our economy, our in-demand industries and our workforce and skills pipeline continue to grow, evolve and transform.

Acting Speaker Farnham, I am very proud to be a member of the Legislative Assembly Economy and Infrastructure Committee, which you were previously a member of as well, but we have recently been undertaking, since your departure, an inquiry into student pathways and in-demand industries. According to the Victorian Skills Authority, over 1.4 million workers will be needed in Victoria by 2035. This includes both people filling newly created jobs and workers replacing people who retire. It is forecast that 87 per cent of those workers and jobs will need post-secondary qualifications. Of the approximately 1.5 million workers, there are about 716,000 that will be in occupations generally aligned with VET qualifications and about 551,000 occupations aligned with university-level qualifications.

The biggest workforce needs are concentrated in some of the most important industries and areas, including health care and social assistance, where we will need another 363,000 workers by 2035, including ageing and disability carers, nursing support, personal care workers, early childhood educators and other health occupations. In construction we will need 162,000 by 2035 – carpenters, joiners, plumbers, construction managers, electricians and many other skilled trades. In education we will need 150,000 new workers by 2035 – teachers, again early childhood educators, education aides, university educators, TAFE teachers and so much more. In professional, scientific and technical services we will need 140,000 workers by 2035 – software programmers, engineers, even solicitors, accountants and management analysts. In accommodation and food services we will need 125,000 new workers – more chefs, cooks, hospitality workers; cafe, restaurant and hotel managers; and many more baristas as well. Retail trade will need 115,000 new workers by 2035, including pharmacists, sales managers and retail frontline workers. In public administration and safety we will need 95,000 new workers – police, policy analysis, intelligence professionals and many across the public administration sector. In manufacturing we will need 80,000 new workers – metal fitters, machinists, production managers, technicians and advanced manufacturing specialists. In transport and postal warehousing we will need 75,000 new workers across logistics, distribution and procurement managers and transport workers and drivers too. In financial insurance services we will need another 70,000 workers and across digital technology at least around 20,000 new workers. Each of these sectors and the people that work within them are the people who will build Victoria, care for Victoria, teach Victoria and drive the Victorian economy of the future as it continues to grow and evolve.

But there is of course as part of this another enormous transformation occurring simultaneously: artificial intelligence. Jobs and Skills Australia’s 2025 Our Gen AI Transition study, the first whole-of-Australia labour market government study into generative AI, essentially found that AI is much more likely to change and augment jobs than eliminate them. JSA says 87 per cent of current Australian jobs are more exposed to augmentation than automation. That is, AI has the capacity to complement and uplift the productivity of existing jobs, not just outright replace them. This Jobs and Skills Australia analysis, subsequently highlighted by the Productivity Commission, found that only around 4 per cent of Australian workers are currently employed in occupations classified as ‘highly exposed to AI automation’, compared with approximately 31 per cent in occupations ‘highly exposed to AI augmentation’.

For Victoria the Victorian Skills Authority has taken that national JSA analysis and applied it directly to Victoria’s skills plan. It estimates that for the roughly 1.5 million workers Victoria will need over the next decade, a very large proportion will enter occupations whose tasks are expected to be transformed by artificial intelligence. But government modelling indicates that AI is overwhelmingly, again, more than likely to augment those workers rather than replace them. And that distinction really matters: the future is not simply a story about robots replacing workers; it is a story about jobs, industries and our world changing, just as they have changed over the millennia as technology has changed and evolved. Industries and jobs changed through the advent of the printed word – books. Industry and jobs changed through the dawn of the industrial revolution. Industries and jobs changed with the advent of the telephone. Industries and jobs changed with the advent of Ford and General Motors’s assembly lines. Industries and jobs changed with the launch of the space race as well, with Sputnik, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the subsequent missions of Artemis and the ongoing mission of Voyager adding to the stars. Industries and jobs changed through the splitting of the atom. Industries and jobs are changing through the clean energy revolution – through solar, wind, battery storage and so much more. Industries and jobs also changed through the advent of analogue and subsequent digital communications and computing – mobile phones, emails, internet, the ATM and so much more.

So the challenge before us is not simply that AI or robots are coming to take people’s jobs; it is to ensure that the new technology that emerges is able to complement and grow our economy, industries, workforce and skills pathways to support prosperity, productivity and socioeconomic gains for everyone, just like the previous technological evolutions have continued to do. Across all of our sectors we will continue to experience more demand, particularly in those frontline services, to continue growing the Victorian economy and helping every Victorian.

 Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:47): I rise in support of the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. In the community that I represent, there are so many people who have built a good life through having a trade. That started with having an apprenticeship, and it is one of the first steps on a journey to what can be a fantastic life for you and your family. Our whole community benefits from having a demographic made up of so many people with a trade, because it means that as volunteers in our community with different community organisations, they have got the skills to really help just get things done. So I really appreciate having that make-up of my community.

There are young people in my community that are following in those footsteps, and I have had the pleasure to meet many young apprentices in my community who are learning how to build houses, who are learning how to wire houses, who are learning about automotive trades and so much more. The way that they are supported, first at school, then in school-based apprenticeships and then stepping out into the broader community – it is just fantastic to see that wraparound support. When a young person does not have that school-based support with the officers there and that wraparound service, it is good to know that this government is making sure that there are good protections for them in their workplace. I do not know, Acting Speaker Farnham, if you have seen things like this on your local community Facebook, but I often see messages from young people looking for an apprenticeship, and they always seem like such upstanding young people that are really seeking to have a go at life, and the community is very quick to jump in and give people guidance about who could take them on. We love apprentices, and we love the businesses that take apprentices on.

In my community, at Whittlesea Secondary College one of our teachers has been teaching trade and woodwork for over 45 years. I recently shared with my community a photo of the wooden table my husband made all those years ago in the 1990s at high school with Mr Lucas, and I called on the community to share with me if they also still had a table at their house that they had made with Mr Lucas. The response was overwhelming. I have had people emailing me photos of the tables as well. There were such positive comments about and memories of Mr Lucas, and so many of those comments went on to say ‘I’m a chippie now’ or ‘I was apprentice of the year in 2006’. These are people who were taught by him and through his support have gone on to work with their hands and help build our community, so I am really thankful to Mr Lucas for that, and the whole community is as well. We value the skills of apprentices and the fact that they are building our great state, and it is only right that they are protected and that they have support as young people, often in their first experience in employment. Unfortunately there have been safety incidents where there have been serious injuries and death, and that is absolutely not something we want to see, because where things are preventable we should prevent them, and that is what this bill is about.

This bill comes about through the work of the Apprenticeships Taskforce, which was chaired by a former ACTU president and included a former justice of the Fair Work Commission. Its membership was exhaustive and included employer representatives. Those opposite are somehow wanting to have two sides of the same coin, one being the safety of apprentices and one being support for business as though an increase in one is a reduction in the other. This government rejects that. We reject pitting one group against another in that way. We support both and we believe that everybody should have those protections in their workplace. There are many things in this bill which will streamline things for employers and make it easier for them compared to the current system. For example, the current approvals by the regulator to enter into a training contract is changed to this more streamlined licensing process where after the first year employers will just be asked if there has been any change to the circumstances. If not, that is all that needs to happen.

We know that the vast majority of employers do the right thing by apprentices and trainees, and this is just to make sure that for those apprentices or trainees that unfortunately find themselves in an environment where someone who does not do the right thing have got somebody there to support them. Sometimes people do not have the courage to speak up or do not even know that their rights are being breached or that greater safety is available. This is just one of the things that this government has done around creating better conditions for apprentices. We have got the centralised Apprentice Helpdesk, as well as new mental health and counselling services for apprentices, additional support for employers and ways to improve training quality. Other supports are funding of $5.8 million over two years in the 2026–27 budget to continue the Apprentice Helpdesk that I spoke about and transition to the workplace rights apprentice training program. Previous support has been around the priority apprenticeship model.

If we just take a step back and look at the big transitions our state is experiencing, especially around renewable energy and around transport projects, the opportunities presented to apprentices through those projects have been immense. But it goes both ways, and the state of Victoria has really benefited from those workers and from the skills those workers have developed through working on such big and complex projects, and they are skills that we need into the future. That is why we will support apprentices not just now but into the future as well.

One of those types of support is the apprenticeship support officer program, which provides apprentices with that tailored support, including referrals and help with training; employment safety; workplace concerns; mental and physical wellbeing; housing, which can be a big deal for young people; financial difficulties; and drug and alcohol issues. There are 29 of these officers currently employed across 13 TAFEs to provide support to first-year apprentices and those who experience additional problems. Over 21,000 apprentices were contacted under the program in 2025. In one year alone all those points of contact provided that support, which I am really pleased about. It is one thing to say that you support apprentices and you support people building a good life with their hands and through the skills that they can develop from an apprenticeship – to say that is easy, but what you can see is the government taking a bigger, structural, more systematic approach through the taskforce that I mentioned and accepting in part or in full all of the recommendations that that broad-based taskforce delivered. Platitudes do not cut it. I think any tradesperson probably wants you to cut through the rubbish and just get to the point, so I will come to the point, and that is that this government supports apprenticeships and supports people to be safe at work and to come home safely to their family, and that is why I support the bill.

 Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (12:57): I rise to give my contribution on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026, which goes to apprenticeships, traineeships, schools and other matters. I only have a short time before lunch, so I would like to say how lucky are young people today? I look at and go to different TAFEs and different institutions and I just wish I was young again and had those opportunities. I am still young, but I wish I was a bit younger. I often wonder what I would do if I were at TAFE. I think my wife would love me to go to TAFE and learn how to build stuff, because I am one of those people that does odd jobs around the home. I measure five times, cut three times and then get my wife to do it properly. But maybe it is a bit late for me to do that. I guess I would go off and do cooking. I have already done a bit of cooking, but I would like to go back and do that. But I just think people are really fortunate, and listening to the debates today and hearing everyone talk about the opportunities that the Labor government have given kids and apprentices, I just hope that we take a moment to step back and be grateful for what we have and the work that everyone here in this place is doing to support them to have a future. That is what this bill is about too – having a future.

I did think about the fact that I probably did not have an apprenticeship, and then I went, ‘Well, yes, I did, actually’. Way back in 1979 – now I am feeling old – I got a part-time scholarship to go to the West Australian Ballet company. Instead of going to sport on a Wednesday afternoon, I would catch a bus from Fremantle over to North Freo, go to the West Australian Ballet company and be taught by one of the professionals there in a classical ballet class. I realised that was my apprenticeship. To be taken into a fold, a place where I was cared for and nurtured by someone with experience who was generous enough to share that experience and teach me a technique, a philosophy and a way of thinking about the possible job that I was about to embrace, was a really, really special opportunity. I know Anthony is probably not watching this, but if he is, I thank him for all those lessons.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:01 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.

The SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery former minister and member for Bayswater the Honourable Heidi Victoria.