Thursday, 27 August 2026

 Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (14:40): I am very happy to continue my contribution on the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. This bill does two main things: it fixes up the rules that protect apprentices and trainees at work and it gives our schools better tools to help keep staff and students safe, including from abuse that now happens online as much as it does in person. Both matter to Victorian families.

First, let us start with the apprentices. We have got 62,000 apprentices and trainees across Victoria. Most are under 25 and a fair few are under 19, and that means many are new to the workforce, still learning their rights and still working out who to call if something is not right on the job. The current rules protecting these young workers are around 20 years old. The framework has not kept pace with how apprenticeships and traineeships actually work today or with the size of the risks. There have been safety incidents in this state resulting in serious injury and death among apprentices, and I believe there have been five deaths in the last five years, and that is not acceptable. So the government set up the Apprenticeships Taskforce in 2023, and the taskforce spoke with apprentices and trainees, employers, unions and regulators and delivered its final report in March 2024 with 16 ‍recommendations. The government, I am glad to say, has accepted all of them in full or in part, and this bill delivers the legislative response. Regulation of apprenticeships and traineeships moves from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria, a body with stronger capability in industry regulation. This frees the VRQA to focus on its core job of regulating schools and vocational education.

Second, the regulator gets a proper set of enforcement tools. At the moment, the options are limited to cancelling an approval or prosecuting an employer, nothing in between. This bill introduces notices to produce compliance notices, infringement notices, official warnings and enforceable undertakings, so action can be proportionate to the risk. Third, employers will now need an annual licence to take on apprentices and trainees, replacing the current one-off approval. That means ongoing oversight rather than a single check at the start. I believe this makes things safer for trainees and apprentices. Fourth, there is stronger regulation of labour hire providers who employ apprentices and trainees, an area the taskforce identified as higher risk due to limited oversight when a third party is involved.

These changes are about giving apprentices and trainees the protection the current system was never built to provide and giving good employers a fairer system to operate in. Training plans are also getting a shake-up. That is the document that spells out what an apprentice is actually supposed to be learning, what trade they are training in, what the employer needs to teach them and how often someone checks in on their progress. This bill makes sure that document actually has to include the basics so nothing is left vague and everyone knows what is expected day to day and from day one.

The bill also gets the different regulators talking to each other properly. Right now, if one agency spots a problem with an employer, there is no guarantee that that information gets passed on to whoever else needs to know. This fixes that. It means regulators can share what they know and work together on the tricky cases, instead of everyone working on their own in a silo. On top of that, there will be a dedicated commissioner just for apprenticeships and traineeships sitting within Workforce Inspectorate Victoria to drive this new system. There will also be a committee made up of industry, employees and other key voices to keep the commissioner across what is actually happening on the ground. To make sure all this is working the way it should, the bill locks in a review within five years, which will come back to this Parliament.

The changes will be in place on 1 July 2029 at the latest, and the government is aiming to get there sooner if it can. That timeframe is about doing it properly. New computer systems need to be built, staff need to move across to the new set-up and there is a lot of talking to do with employers, apprentices, trainees and unions before any of the new rules kick in.

All of this builds on support that is already up and running. Right now there are 29 apprenticeship support officers working across 13 TAFEs, and last year they made over 150,000 contacts with more than 21,000 apprentices. There is also the Apprentice Helpdesk, which has handled more than 3430 ‍cases since it opened in mid-2025. This bill just puts that support on a firmer footing going forward, and that is a good thing.

The bill introduces a new statutory principle, enshrining the expectation that all Victorian schools are safe and respectful places of learning and work. It also strengthens the school community safety order scheme following a statutory review, giving principals simpler and more effective powers to protect staff and students from harmful, threatening and abusive behaviour. This is a very good thing. I have principal morning teas in my office at least four times a year, and the dangers that principals and school staff face from students and also parents of physical abuse is really quite extraordinary. So I am happy that this is happening. For the first time this includes digital content school community safety orders. These allow actions against people using social media or messaging platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and services like WhatsApp, to harm school staff or students. That is a gap in the current scheme this bill closes. The process for making these orders is also being streamlined. Immediate orders no longer require proof of imminent risk, a threshold the review found ruled out most situations where urgent action was actually needed. Ongoing orders can now be extended by up to 12 months without having to repeat the full process, while still requiring reasonable and proportionate procedural fairness for the person in the orders to apply.

There is a lot in this bill, and a lot of it sits alongside the government’s ongoing investment in training more broadly. More than $16 billion has gone into Victoria’s TAFE and training system since 2014, including over $660 million into 45 new and upgraded campuses. Since 2019, more than 245,000 students have benefited from free TAFE, saving them more than $816 million in tuition fees, an average of over $3300 per student. As I said earlier, I am quite jealous of the facilities that our students have now with TAFE. If I could start over, I would. I commend the bill to the house.

 Anthony CARBINES (Ivanhoe – Leader of the House, Minister for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy, Minister for Major Events, Minister for Medical Research, Minister for Racing, Minister for Economic Development) (14:47): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.