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- [00:01]
A
After speaking with my colleagues overnight, I have made the difficult decision to step aside as leader of the Victorian State Parliamentary Labor Party and as Premier of Victoria.
- [00:13]
B
Victorian politics is in turmoil. On Tuesday morning, Jacinta Allen stood down as the 49th Premier of Victoria. Her resignation came after more than 25 years in the Victorian Parliament.
- [00:26]
A
Benjamin.
- [00:26]
B
I'm Benjamin Price, guest hosting today's bonus episode of the Morning Edition. Today, state political reporter Kieran Rooney on the Victorian Premier's resignation and what might come next. Kieran, thanks for joining us.
- [00:41]
A
Great to be here.
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B
Get us up to speed. Why did this happen to Jacinta Allen?
- [00:46]
A
I guess it would be safe to say that this has been in the works for a while. I think many murmurings about Jacinta Allen's leadership have been on the cards since pretty much before the 2025 federal election. Some people within the party were sort of saying that if labor did work badly in Victoria at a federal level, that might be an opportunity to remove Jacinta. Amid some concerns that the party was tanking, Obviously Ezi Albanese actually gained seats in Victoria, which is off a pretty high watermark already. So that really bought Jacintra a lot of time. What we found in the last year is that polling consistently shows that the Alan government is not only unpopular, but Jacinta Allen as premier was incredibly unpopular. The Resolve Political Monitor most recently had her likability at negative 36. And historically, that's a very hard position to win an election from. Not many leaders can ever win from that space. Alongside that, you had the Ages and the Sydney Morning Heralds and presidential review in 60 minutes all reporting on building Bad. I look into corruption of the Big Build in Victoria, the massive infrastructure agenda that has defined the labor government here. As that reporting has continued and exposed more and more wrongdoing, it has really become a bit of a lodestone on this government. And Alan, as the responsible minister for transport infrastructure, has been really sort of tied to that. So as there's been more and more momentum and support for a Royal commission, she has dug in and that has also turned a lot of her MPs against her. So you had this sort of growing sentiment of dissatisfaction with the premier. She wasn't able to sort of shake questions about the Big Build corruption. She wasn't able to sort of get away from it. Her popularity was going down and Labor MPs were door knocking ahead of the election and getting more and more concerned that they were about to be booted from their seats. And once MPs are worried about their electoral future. Then the leader suddenly in a lot of trouble.
- [02:42]
B
At the same time though, you. She has had an extraordinary career. She was incredibly young when she was elected to parliament. She was just 25 years old. Can you take us through some of her achievements?
- [02:55]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, for one, being one of the youngest ever elected parliamentarians. She was there when Steve Brack swept into power and she was very representative of his ability to win back those regional centres in Victoria which saw Jeff Kennett turfed out of office a lot earlier than people thought. And you know, she's always been tied to sort of the Brax Brumby era, which is seen as a pretty responsible good government until it was elected out in 2010. She was promoted to the Ministry pretty early and always seems like a really good operator. When Daniel Andrews became premier and she was elected, she was given the transport infrastructure portfolio for a good reason, because that was their big agenda, the removal of level crossings, the development of the Metro tunnel and the Westgate Tunnel. They're all big projects and really difficult to manage. And she was overseeing them and delivering them in a way that was really impressive to the Victorian public. And people credit that level crossing removal program as instrumental in the government's fortunes. It showed people, you know, it showed the government was delivering things for people in their own backyard. And she was essentially in charge of that in a big way. So she has to be credited with, you know, that infrastructure agenda quite significantly. And even as premier, she was the premier who oversaw and introduced treaty legislation, which will be seen as a pretty historic moment in Victorian history. She has led an inquiry into women's health, something that she highlighted today in her resignation speech as something really important to her. She really staked a lot of her reputation and personal beliefs in putting that inquiry up and doing something a bit different.
- [04:26]
B
It's really interesting because on the one hand, MPs in the government seem like they're worried about their own seats, but at the same time, Jacinta Allen was part of the election winning machine that steamrolled the electorate and that was partly thanks to the level crossing removal program and other projects.
- [04:43]
A
Yeah, it just goes to show that in politics loyalty only lasts so long. I guess you're right. Like I would say, her and Dan were instrumental in their election victories and that, that big build agenda, that sort of getting it done mantra was totally fundamental to the government cell. I think. I guess the, the perplexing situation is that when the thing that you're best known for, getting on and delivering things, becomes associated in a negative light, then suddenly all that goodwill you've built and burned suddenly gets lost overn. That's why we're seeing this move so quickly and transform so quickly.
- [05:18]
B
So now that she has resigned as premier, who's taken over?
- [05:22]
A
Yeah. So the deputy premier, Ben Carroll, has just been sworn in as premier after a pretty tense caucus meeting where there was still some Labor Party infighting. But he's now the leader. He has been the Education Minister, he's been Jacinta's deputy from the moment that she was sworn in in September 2023. And he's promised immediately to call the royal commission into a construction sector. He's promised to be more focused on the economy and he's gone to the crime issue as well. He's promising a lot more policies on community safety. So he's acknowledging that the crime issue might still be hurting the government quite a bit.
- [05:57]
B
So he's sort of hit the road running, as it were.
- [06:00]
A
Yeah, he's clearly been thinking about what he wanted to announce, and his whole pitch is a new direction. He did a video and he did a press conference, was saying, it's clear that Victorians want a new direction. Now, one could argue that, you know, that's what the election is for. But he's decided, I think I'm going to get ahead of that change and deliver a new direction myself. So he had to come out really strong with something and he's decided that that one thing for his first day is going to be a royal commission. And that really sets him apart from Alan, who was really making an effort to dig in and not call for a royal commission. And even in the party room, as she resigned, she was urging her colleagues not to. Not to support a royal commission, but she was losing that argument. And she has lost that argument.
- [06:39]
B
Well, you've just raised the election in November. What does all this, in your opinion, do to Labor's chances of holding government in that election?
- [06:48]
A
Well, the negative side would be a government that has seen multiple opposition leaders in Victoria. It has become recently a sport that every year we get a new Liberal leader. The coalition's been in chaos, basically, since 2014, and so labor has always made a big brand identity of being the party of responsible adults that don't fight internally, that don't argue with each other. So to have a pretty bruising leadership contest play out this close to an election kind of undermines that a lot. One thing working in the government's favour, or I should say Labor's favour, is that, as I said, Jacinta Allen seems to have been really unpopular. Whether she was fairly associated with Daniel Andrews or some of the other bugbears of government, she just couldn't really shake the negative associations people have with the government at the moment. So Ben Carroll, who's seen as someone who has a bit of friction with Daniel Andrews and had a bit of friction with Jacinta, he has a very good opportunity to differentiate himself and say, I'm not those people. And he made that actually that point in his press conference. One of his opening remarks was, I'm not Daniel Andrews, I'm not Jacinta Allen. I'm going to do something different. And that's a really good message for Victorian labor to be able to sell. If at a time when they're not doing well poll wise, it gives them a whole new suite of policies and messages that they can give to the Victorian public. It's like starting from square one, which has its own challenges but also creates a lot of opportunities.
- [08:09]
B
So what did Jacinta Allen say about her political future? Is she quitting politics and Parliament altogether or is that not quite clear yet?
- [08:19]
A
It's not quite clear yet. She didn't take any questions at the press conference, so we're still waiting on those answers. She wasn't in question time today. She left Parliament and has gone back to Bendigo where she lives. The one thing she did say in the press conference is that she's looking forward to spending a lot more time with her kids. Whether that means that she'll, you know, remain in politics or quit is to be seen. If she quits parliament tomorrow, it won't have an effect on the election in the sense that there will, there won't be a by election, there'll be an election in November. One thing that should probably worth noting as well is that Centrally was under a lot of pressure in her seat. There were some real concerns that one nation and the nationals could win that seat off her. So if she does contest again, she'll be finding a pretty difficult battle to, to hold onto that Bendigo east electorate.
- [09:03]
B
So, Kieran, can you talk us through the national implications of what's kind of just played out in Victoria?
- [09:09]
A
Yeah, well, one, the one thing that I guess is missing from this whole conversation is that this is looming as the first truly three way contest in state politics for a long time or in Australian politics. You could draw some comparisons to the Queensland elections in the 90s. But you know, labor and Liberal people both agree that this is going to be a proper three party contest. With one nation for one nation, that represents a massive opportunity for them to prove that they are not just a grievance party, but a party capable of winning seats and forming an actual identity across the nation. They've got a couple of MPs in South Australia as well. So, you know, for one nation, this is really important. But interestingly, they don't have a leader and they don't have any candidates at the moment. So, yeah, it's a bit of a riddle that one. But the other, I guess, thing to consider as well is traditionally federal governments that are from a different party to the state governments do well. So a Labor federal government would sort of, you know, they would never admit this, but they would probably welcome a liberal state government or a one nation state government down here. One, because it creates, you know, a point of tension for them to test their values. And also because if there's, as labor say, the opportunity for a liberal one nation government, then if that's extremely chaotic and dysfunctional, then Anthony Albert Easy will have that sort of attack message ready. He'll have an example to point to when he goes to the polls next to say, see, this is what happens if you vote for these people. And here's why. You should stick with what, you know, convenient enemies.
- [10:36]
B
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
- [10:38]
A
Yeah, exactly. It's, yeah, it kind of feels like we're going through this weird Repeat of, of 20, 30 years ago in some ways.
- [10:45]
B
Well, thank you very much for joining us on the Morning edition. Kieran.
- [10:49]
A
Pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [10:54]
B
Today's episode was produced by Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Spotify or Apple. Thanks for listening.