Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP
Jacinta Allan was in her comfort zone.
The morning after being sworn in as Victoria’s 49th premier, the outgoing transport infrastructure minister had travelled on Thursday morning to Melbourne’s south-east, where a level-crossing removal project was taking place.
She wore the hard hat, hi-vis, steel-capped boots and a pair of jeans that has served as her de facto uniform while overseeing the government’s “Big Build” – arguably the most extensive infrastructure program in Victoria’s history. The North East Link. The Suburban Rail Loop. The West Gate Tunnel. The 110 level crossings set to be removed by 2030.
Most are behind, over budget or both. Yet they have proved popular with Victorians.
But political commentators and experts say Allan will need to broaden her public image and ramp up her commitment to social reform policy, considered a key part of Daniel Andrews’s legacy.
The state’s debt bill – predicted to reach $171bn in the next four years – is likely to constrain the breadth of this, while affecting other major infrastructure plans.
This is why Andrews’s shock departure this week, after nearly nine years as premier, has caucus colleagues and political experts wondering how Allan – his close friend and chosen successor – will chart her own course and navigate the major challenges ahead for Victoria.
How will the new premier shape Victoria, despite so much of her work to date being inextricably linked to Andrews?
‘She needs to make her own mark’
Dr Zareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, says Allan’s premiership will be constrained by the economic climate in which she finds herself.
“If the resources are not there, no matter how grand a vision, it’s going to be very difficult to execute,” he says.
Kos Samaras, a former Victorian Labor assistant state secretary turned pollster, says Allan must separate herself from Andrews and offer a “future to Victorians”.
“People are really grim about what’s going on economically at the moment … She needs to make her own mark and she probably needs to walk away from just focusing on infrastructure.”
But an MP aligned to the right faction questions whether Allan can differentiate herself from Andrews. “She worked alongside him for years, they made their way up the ranks together,” the MP says. “Once we got in, in 2014, she became his right hand on all the signature projects, then became his deputy.”
The “Andrews way”, the MP adds, is “all she knows”.
Social issues to the fore
Allan allowed a rare show of emotion after taking over the leadership on Wednesday, as she reflected on being the second woman to become Victoria’s premier.
She also offered some insight into her initial priorities. The housing crisis was the number one challenge facing Victorians, she said. A commitment to working with the state’s First People’s Assembly – the democratically elected Indigenous body – towards a landmark treaty was also made.
Jill Gallagher, the state’s former treaty advancement commissioner, commends Allan for making this a priority just minutes after securing the leadership. “The fact that she mentioned it in her first speech is quite amazing and tells the story she is committed to seeing it through, which is outstanding.”
Allan has also committed to campaigning for a yes vote in the coming referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament.
Several of her Labor caucus colleagues say this week has been the most vocal Allan has been on social issues, despite being a member of the party’s progressive left faction.
“Allan has largely avoided weighing into the social issues, not because she doesn’t believe in them but because she’s always been focused on her transport portfolios,” one MP says.
Another says Allan had previously made a “conscious” choice to avoid “politically sensitive” portfolios, such as health, education and youth affairs, which many women from the left have taken on.
Samaras, who is married to Labor minister Ros Spence, says Allan needs to distinguish herself beyond the “hard hats and steel” image and begin to champion social policy issues like the cost-of-living and housing crises. This will ensure she is able to attract the growing millennial vote, who lean towards progressive political issues.
“She needs to start talking about a generation of workers largely under the age of 45 who work in a range of professions across Melbourne, and they’re largely women,” he says.
Samaras argues Allan’s strongest attribute will be that she is a woman, given the females are the fastest growing cohort of voters swinging to the left of politics.
“She’s the perfect candidate for that … she’s a woman in a state that is largely progressive and a state where women are playing a greater role in determining the fate of political parties.”
But Allan will need to watch her back. The party room meeting on Wednesday was expected to be a rubber-stamp exercise to make her premier. It ended up taking close to three hours after Labor’s right faction pushed for a leadership ballot.
If Ben Carroll nominated for leader, as was being threatened during the meeting, it could have forced a lengthy vote of the Labor membership. Instead, a compromise was reached and he is now the deputy premier.
Samaras says Allan is unlikely to be able to sustain the same leadership style as Andrews, marked by his iron grip on his party, caucus and cabinet.
“Carroll nominating against her is code for: ‘no, the rules have changed, you’ve got to run a cabinet-government,’” he says.
“Having a much more porous, open government is probably a good thing, as it will differentiate her from [Andrews] and she’ll have a lot more loyalty as a result of it.”
Kirner comparisons
In 1990, Victoria’s first female premier, Joan Kirner, took over from a similarly reformist John Cain Jr. But Kirner did not win at the ballot box.
Several similarities are being drawn between the two women, both members of the party’s left faction. Like Kirner, Allan’s transition to power comes at a time of economic challenges, as Victoria faces a constrained budget due to pandemic spending and infrastructure project blowouts.
Kirner came to power at a time of high unemployment and spiralling state debt. One of her first major actions was to sell the debt-laden state bank – a significant factor in the 1992 loss for the Labor government.
But Deakin University’s Geoffrey Robinson says that while the comparisons are inevitable, Allan is facing a different economic climate, with drastically lower interest and unemployment rates.
“People complain about levels of state debt, but it’s a very different situation to what it was 30 years ago,” he says. “The government is in a pretty strong position for a government that has been in power for so long.”
The Coalition is already exploiting the cost overruns of major projects, as well as the axing of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which Allan was charged with delivering. But she has been quick to say that the state’s borrowing is tied to productive infrastructure investments and argues the government has a plan to reduce debt.
So what will she do differently?
In her own words, she will build on the work promised by Andrews and is flagging a new style of leadership. She hopes to lead her colleagues in a “collegial” and “collaborative” way.
“We intend to deliver the commitments that the Labor team has made to Victoria,” she said at the level-crossing removal site. “But … there will be the opportunity to further build on that program.”
How exactly that program will be built on remains to be seen.
