news

Jacinta Allan has used Labor’s final state conference before the election to announce a plan for a government-owned electricity body to hire apprentices to address significant workforce shortages and job insecurity.

The Victorian premier announced the plan in a speech that drew on her father’s experience as a linesman at the State Electricity Commission (SEC), which was revived by Daniel Andrews in 2023 after being privatised by former premier Jeff Kennett in the 1990s.

Allan described Victoria’s former state-owned energy provider as a training ground for “thousands of apprentices” before it was shut down.

“You joined young, got trained, got qualified and built a career for life. And you were part of a community that looked out for your family. That bond that kept people together,” she said.

“Until one day when I came home, and mum said to me quietly, ‘I think your father’s lost his job.’”

Allan said that was the second time in her life she’d seen her father cry.

Under the $50m plan, the SEC would offer 2,000 electrical apprenticeships over four years across two training facilities in Melbourne and regional Victoria, with the first intake in January 2027.

The apprentices would work on SEC projects or be sent out to work on private projects such as windfarms or datacentres. Allan said it will be the first time since the SEC was privatised 30 years ago that the government has employed such apprentices.

It comes as apprenticeship numbers have been declining nationally even as demand for electricians rises amid the clean energy transition, prompting concern from industry and construction groups.

Research from Jobs and Skills Australia projects a shortfall of up to 42,000 electricians by 2030, thanks in part to students being steered away from apprenticeships toward higher education, employers not having a clear return on investment, and a shortage of qualified trainers.

Allan said apprentices were finding it “hard to get a start, there’s no sense of belonging and no guarantee of a job” at the end.

Peter Allan, who was awarded Labor life membership on Saturday, introduced his daughter to the crowd, describing her as someone who “always stood up for the working classes” – even as a child.

“When she thought something was unfair, she’d stand up in the class and tell the teacher what she thought,” he said.

The state conference is a soft launch for Labor’s election campaign, with Allan’s speech her most personal since she became premier in 2023. She characterised the November poll as a choice between her party’s reforms to “make life easier, safer and more affordable” and Liberal “cuts”.

On Saturday, members will sign off on the party’s election platform, a draft of which includes proposals to “consider the benefits of a reduced workweek”, introduce a minimum of 12 days’ reproductive health leave each year, and decriminalise the personal and recreational use of cannabis to free up police resources and reduce the “unnecessary criminalisation of vulnerable communities”.

Allan told reporters she would “consider” the proposals.

Rank-and-file members and unions will also get the chance to debate urgent resolutions on Sunday. These include motions calling on the federal government to impose higher taxes on gas companies and to support the full recommendations of Peta Murphy’s inquiry into gambling harm.

Motions are also directed at the Victorian government, calling on it to make public transport free permanently, end imprisonment as a punishment for unpaid fines, abandon its plans to absorb VicHealth into the Department of Health, secure the future of cohealth and ensure public hospital patients are no longer charged up to $15 a day to watch free-to-air television.

Another urges the government to introduce a framework for datacentre development, which would include a requirement that all new datacentres “fully offset emissions and become a net contributor to renewable energy production”.

While non-binding on state or federal Labor MPs, the motions represent one of the most effective ways for members and unions to influence party policy. Last year, the Victorian conference carried a motion calling on the federal government to recognise Palestine, which it did three months later.

Meanwhile in Caulfield, the Liberal party also gathered for its annual state council, with the opposition leader, Jess Wilson, using the event to revive a commitment from the 2022 election to allocate 25% of all new infrastructure spending to regional Victoria.

The Liberals’ state executive was also elected, with the former federal director Brian Loughnane appointed unopposed to replace party president Philip Davis. All moderate-aligned candidates in the vice-president positions were re-elected, despite the fallout from the Moira Deeming preselection saga and a $1.55m loan awarded to former leader John Pesutto.

Loughnane told members they needed to be wholly focused on the election campaign going forward.

Amid concern about the rise of One Nation, Wilson said the “only way” to change the government was to vote Liberal.

“You can’t vote teal, you can’t vote orange, you must vote Liberal. Any other choice leaves a pathway for Labor to cling to power and continue to drive this state into the dust,” she said.

“You know how bad things are in Victoria today after 12 years of Labor – imagine how bad they’ll be after 16.”