Shannon Deery: Why this photo of Jess Wilson should scare the hell out of Premier Jacinta Allan
The image of a smiling Jess Wilson surrounded by hundreds of paid up healthcare worker union members is proof low paid, largely female voters are turning their backs on the Premier.
It’s the picture that should scare the hell out of Jacinta Allan.
A smiling Jess Wilson, flanked by her shadow health minister Georgie Crozier, and surrounded by hundreds of paid up healthcare worker union members.
These are not Wilson’s people.
They are low paid, largely female voters, including many migrants, who are turning their back on the Premier. And they are turning toward Wilson and the new hope she has brought as the new leader of the Victorian Liberal Party.
When hundreds of Health Workers Union members marched on the steps of parliament last week demanding better pay, they weren’t met by Allan or her health minister.
Instead Wilson and Crozier embraced the opportunity to join them in solidarity, hear their concerns, and promise them a better way.
There are political photos that say nothing, and there are political photos that say everything.
The image of Wilson standing confidently in the middle of those workers — smiling, relaxed, and at ease — is the latter.
More than a picture, this is a warning to Labor.
For decades Labor has exploited organised labour as its electoral birthright, and taken for granted that the votes will always flow. And they usually do.
Turn your mind back to 2022, when CFMEU bosses told members to vote for Daniel Andrews. The edict came with a caveat: he’s a prick, but he’s our prick.
The ingrained assumption among Labor is that disputes aside, when it comes to elections union members belong to the ALP.
But allegiances are not unconditional. The more workers are forced to fight for fair, despite the Allan government’s lip service to that right, the harder resentment sets in.
Already this electoral cycle the government has gone to war with paramedics, nurses, teachers and police.
It remains at war with firefighters, who have threatened a targeted campaign to block the government’s re-election.
Now the backbone of the state’s health system — ward clerks, orderlies, cooks, cleaners — are begging not to be taken for granted.
Unlike the CFMEU, which stood to gain years of uninterrupted work through the government’s Big Build, Allan has nothing to offer firefighters or healthcare workers.
Wilson has been strong on her messaging since taking the top job almost a month ago — government blowouts, debt and waste means they have no money for the essentials.
When she met with workers on the steps of parliament last week she would have hammered that home: you’re begging because the government can’t manage money.
With dissatisfaction in some corners of the labour movement very real, Wilson is making a deliberate play for it.
It’s folly to think Victoria’s labour movement will all turn blue between now and next election. But there is a deeper vulnerability here that threatens to undermine the movement which has long held up the Victorian Labor vote.
Wilson knows this, and she was smart to capitalise on last week’s protest.
With one picture and a quick meet and greet she has cleverly pushed into Labor territory with a message: we can be your alternative.
The challenge here, of course, is explaining how.
How will she commit to bringing down debt, cutting waste and reining in spending, while also delivering annual wage growth for public sector workers?
How can she complain that the government should have gone further in its slashing of the public service while also defending these workers?
Wilson will have answers for this, but communicating the message will be the challenge.
The government, and particularly the Premier, is working overtime to paint Wilson’s Liberals as all about cuts. It is a label that will stick and stick hard if Wilson can’t shake it fast.
But the problem is greater for Allan.
Photos like this capture a mood, reveal momentum, and expose weaknesses the government can’t publicly acknowledge.
If the Allan government is already facing a trust deficit and growing anger in the suburbs over cost-of-living pressures and economic management, photos like this don’t help.
The power in the photo is not that Wilson is surrounded by union members. It’s in the fact that it shows very clearly Allan isn’t the only one speaking to them anymore.
And that should scare the hell out of the Premier.
Shannon Deery is state politics editor
Originally published as Shannon Deery: Why this photo of Jess Wilson should scare the hell out of Premier Jacinta Allan
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