Rita Panahi: Jacinta Allan has contributed to her own fine mess

Jacinta Allan was handed a poisoned chalice when she became Premier but don’t feel too sorry for her, she’s been complicit in the gross ineptitude that has plunged the state into economic and social turmoil — and now there may be a reckoning.

Jacinta Allan was handed a poisoned chalice when she was elevated to premier. Gross mismanagement over a decade has seen Victoria crippled with record debt and facing serious societal issues including a law and order crisis that saw the crime rate increase by more than 13 per cent last year. It’s little wonder that Daniel Andrews and Tim Pallas jumped off the sinking ship, after scuttling it.

By any objective measure Victoria is a sick state and a growing number of Victorians, who have for so long been deprived of real political options, are ready to punish Labor at the ballot box.

Jacinta Allan was handed a poisoned chalice when she was elevated to Premier. Picture: David Crosling

Mark Knight cartoon on Jacinta Allan's poor opinion polling.

With the next state election more than 18 months away, it’s the Anthony Albanese government that is in the firing line. And, as reported exclusively in Thursday’s Herald Sun, if that translates to federal Labor losing three or more seats in Victoria on May 3 then Premier Allan will be under intense internal pressure to step down.

Of course the unions would have to approve the move, they are after all who run this state, but the current frontrunner to replace Allan is her deputy Ben Carroll.

The Right-aligned Carroll would be a departure from the Socialist Left faction that delivered Andrews and Allan.

It would see Victoria join NSW and South Australia in being led by premiers from Labor’s Right faction.

The Right-aligned Ben Carroll would be a departure from the Socialist Left faction that delivered Andrews and Allan. Picture: Aaron Francis

Carroll became deputy only after mounting an 11th-hour challenge to Allan that so enraged Andrews that he launched into one final expletive-laden diatribe at a caucus meeting.

Labelled “treacherous” by colleagues, Carroll launched the short-lived challenge after learning that he was to be overlooked for the deputy role with Andrews planning to have an all Socialist Left leadership team of Allan and Pallas installed.

Caroll is the most likely to replace Allan. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

At the time Carroll was attacked by Labor MPs with one telling the ABC: “It’s a terrible look … all for this wooden pretender to run against JA because of his delusions of grandeur”. Eighteen months later Carroll is the most likely to replace Allan.

The premier is the most unpopular leader in Australian politics and has the poor luck of facing an opposition leader who is actually electable.

But don’t feel too sorry for her, she has been complicit in the gross ineptitude that has plunged the state into economic and social turmoil.

Her political problems are entirely self-inflicted but unlike her predecessor there may be a reckoning for what she has inflicted on this state.

Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

Originally published as Rita Panahi: Jacinta Allan has contributed to her own fine mess