Youth will pay price for WFH

Not Jacinta Allan? Prove it Premier. "I'm not Daniel Andrews or Jacinta Allan," Ben Carroll declared when he took the top job.

One month later, the oldest trick in the Labor playbook. The Premier intends to ram through the Work from Home Bill this week, delay the implementation until next year, and face voters in November, before anyone has felt what it does.

That is not a new direction. It is the Andrews method with a new salesman. But the price will not be paid in Spring Street, it will be paid by young Victorians looking for their first job.

In May, LSE and Oxford researchers studied 243 million hires across four countries, including Australia, asking why youth hiring has collapsed since 2022. The data says it is remote work and not AI.

Entry-level hiring is down 14 to 29 per cent while senior hiring rose. Young people are not being sacked; they are never hired - juniors learn beside seniors, and an empty office turns a first-jobber from an investment into a risk. The government knows it.

Its own bill excludes apprentices, trainees, graduates and probationers - a written admission that young people need the workplace. The day probation ends? Full WFH entitlement, enforceable at VCAT. The government never asked what that means for Victoria's youth. We did. HR Nicholls' modelling, on conservative estimates, finds 1800 junior hires foregone every year - more than 5000 first jobs gone before the government's own review begins. On our upper number, 13,000 a year. A national employer weighing Melbourne against Sydney for its graduate intake decides the jobs appear with an NSW postcode.

Youth unemployment here is 11.8 per cent - up 1.2 points in a year - against 10.4 per cent nationally: about 7700 young Victorians unemployed simply because of the state they live in. Overall unemployment is the highest on the mainland and Victoria is the only state with fewer job ads than before the pandemic. The evidence gave the Premier no pause - just consultation theatre: Business leaders were welcomed into his office, heard politely and then the bill walked out exactly as it went in. Only the date changed.

Premier, the leader has changed but clearly the tactics have not. There is still time. Drop the bill. That is exactly what Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan would not have done. And you told us you weren't them.