Portfolio — 29 August 2026

The dominant discourse arc for Narracan in this window runs through trades training and apprenticeship policy, with the Member for Narracan, Mr Farnham, mounting a detailed case against the Education and Training Reform Amendment (Apprenticeships, Traineeships, Schools and Other Matters) Bill 2026. Mr Farnham opposed the bill on the grounds that additional registration requirements would deter employers from taking on apprentices — a concern he grounded in a sharp decline in apprenticeship numbers from 58,620 in 2022–23 to 24,888 in 2024–25 [TA-260827-vichns-1d37da03d766:s068].

He cited industry bodies including Master Plumbers and the Housing Industry Association as having called on the government to pause the bill and undertake further consultation, and contended that the policy direction should instead focus on removing regulatory barriers and raising apprenticeship caps to incentivise employer participation. Mr Farnham attributed the closure of technical schools to the Cain government, explicitly rejecting any suggestion of Liberal party responsibility, and argued that the loss of those foundational training pathways is a structural cause of the apprenticeship decline the bill purports to address [TA-260827-vichns-1d37da03d766:s069].

Separate from the apprenticeship debate, Mr Farnham raised governance and accountability matters in the Assembly. He called for a royal commission into corruption in Victoria to proceed swiftly and to examine former premiers, including whether their defined benefits should be cancelled given what he characterised as $15 billion in state losses attributable to corruption [TA-260730-vichns-06b70b591935:s017].

Mr Farnham also acknowledged community members from Narracan — Cohen Cogo, Sam Richards, and Ella Clarke — who completed the Kokoda Track Memorial Walk alongside him [TA-260730-vichns-06b70b591935:s018].

The two substantive threads — accountability in government and regulatory burden on the trades sector — both reflect a consistent opposition posture: challenging the government's policy settings and calling for institutional scrutiny. The apprenticeship debate is the more developed of the two, drawing on specific enrolment data, named industry bodies, and a historical argument about technical education, and it constitutes the primary parliamentary contribution of this window for the district.