There are a couple of ways to get into controls/automation - none of them easy and all requiring luck.
1. Electrical engineering degree (Industrial Automation etc.) Get your degree, work for a large company/multi-national as a 'graduate engineer' for a couple of years - basically for nothing. Depending on the company you may do something meaningful, in which case someone else will take all the credit for your work, or some mind numbing drudgery like counting fire extinguishers & making shadow boards.
2. Electrical fitter apprenticeship - depends on your age - they like under 21's so they don't have to pay adult wages. This is panel building etc so any 'path' to PLC programming etc will require a lot of post-trade study - Cert 1V/Diploma types at TAFE.
3. Electrical apprenticeship - again depends on your age, but I have noticed that in the last few years there seems to be quite a lot of adult/mature age apprentices - my understanding is that this is due to poor attitude & high attrition rate of 17year olds coming straight out of high school. Also you will have to do plenty of post-trade study.
Domestic/commercial electricians will not get a look in, so an apprenticeship with a manufacturing company is almost essential, or at the very least a company doing industrial installs (and a lot of luck).
A little bit of general information - over my last four places that I have worked there have been exactly 3 apprentices. This is shift maintenance in the food & beverage industry over the last 18 years (8 - 10 sparkies on site) in Melbourne. Prior to that in the 80's & 90's we always had at least four+ apprentices (one from each year). I have always worked on union sites and the ETU has always campaigned to get the companies to take on more apprentices, but they are not interested, preferring to leech off more proactive companies.
In Australia, or at least Melbourne, maintenance electricians are required to be competent with PLC's and almost without exception all programming mods, additions, HMI upgrades etc are done in house by the sparkies. So there is plenty of opportunity to learn if motivated.
A lot of the older programmers are ex-sparkies with years of hands on experience, the younger ones tend to be engineers. It is definitely a different era now. When I was young(er) in the mid 70's/80's there seemed to be a lot more opportunity & it was easy to get a job with zero experience. I did two apprenticeships - electrical & electronics - and basically just walked in off the street - Australia was the lucky country but now the politicians have succeeded in totally f****** it. the gov have driven manufacturing into the ground.
Which brings us to Geelong - I would say he will have zero chance in Geelong. Ford closed 5 years ago, Alcoa smelter has just closed & there is talk of Shell closing the refinery. Run into a lot of sparkies & fitters working up in Melbourne - none of them will work in Geelong because the hourly rate has been driven right down - you would be better off working at Aldi or Bunnings.
Sorry if this sounds discouraging.
Move to Melbourne
Get an electrical apprenticeship even as domestic/commercial to get your foot in the door. If the worst comes to the worst you will still have a trade - the hourly rate & conditions on big building sites & government infrastructure jobs is really good.
Check out the ETU website - you will probably lose interest in programming PLC's.