State-sponsored apprenticeships and decriminalising cannabis on the bill at Victoria’s Labor conference

Jacinta Allan will announce a plan to offer 2,000 apprenticeships at the revived State Electricity Commission, as part of a pre-election push

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Jacinta Allan will use Labor’s final state conference before the election to announce a plan for a government-owned electricity body to hire electrical apprentices to address significant workforce shortages. It will be the first time since the State Electricity Commission was privatised 30 years ago that the government has employed such apprentices.

The Victorian premier will announce the plan in a speech that will draw on her father, Peter Allan’s experience as a linesman at the SEC, which was revived by Daniel Andrews in 2023 after being privatised by former premier Jeff Kennett in the 1990s.