Four in ten trade apprentices in Victoria do not finish. Think about that. Nearly half the young people who sign up to learn a trade walk away before they get their ticket. That is not a shortage of talent. It is a system that fails them.

The reasons are not a mystery. The pay is too low to live on. The paperwork is endless. And too often the system signs a kid up, takes its cut, then leaves the apprentice and the employer to fend for themselves.

This is not about a lack of hard workers. Victoria has plenty of young people willing to put in the hours on the tools. It is about a state that makes it too hard to start, too expensive to keep going, and too tangled to finish.

The people who feel this are not hard to find. They are the sparky trying to bring on an apprentice but staring down another tax bill. The plumber buried in portals and audits instead of being on the job. The young worker who cannot make rent on apprentice wages. The mum and dad watching their kid give up on a good trade because the numbers do not add up.

That is a waste. A waste of skills we need, jobs we need, and young lives ready to build something.

The demand is simple. Fix the apprenticeships.

I will fight for a system that backs the apprentice and the employer, instead of taxing and drowning them both. Reward the businesses that keep a kid on the books. Let the apprentice earn enough to stay. Cut the paperwork so training happens on the tools, not behind a desk.

I call on the Victorian Parliament to:

• Take the state’s hand out of the till. No payroll tax, no WorkCover loading and no other Victorian tax on apprentice wages. Where a tax still sits on that wage, rebate it in full to the employer who keeps the apprentice on the books.
• Cap the forms. Set a hard limit on the returns, portals and audits a small employer must complete to hire and finish an apprentice. Training belongs on the tools, not behind a desk.
• Put the money back through the shop. Use Victoria’s budget, including the share of GST and federal skills funding it already receives, to pay a completion rebate to businesses with apprentices still employed.
• Give the apprentice a kickstart. A Victorian rebate so a trade apprentice keeps the equivalent of income tax on earnings up to $75,000 while indentured. The kid can pay rent. The ticket gets finished.
• Tell the truth first. No new levy, no speech and no “skills summit” until commencements and completions are published every year.

These are not radical ideas. They are the basics of a state that respects work, backs local employers, and gives a young person a fair shot at a trade.

A kid who wants to learn a trade should be able to finish it. A business that takes one on should be rewarded, not punished. Neither should be lost to red tape and a tax bill.

Sign the petition. Back the apprentices and the businesses that train them.

Add your name  to fix Victoria’s apprenticeship system. Then share it with a tradie, a business owner or a parent who wants young workers to finish the job they started.