‘A weak line espoused by people who obviously didn’t knock on a single door,’ Labor insider says of Jacinta Allan’s SRL claim

Labor insiders have slammed Jacinta Allan for her “insulting” comment that the contentious $34.5bn project helped Anthony Albanese secure victory.

Labor insiders have claimed Jacinta Allan is “delusional” after she declared the contentious $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop helped Anthony Albanese win seats in Victoria.

“It is as delusional as it is insulting to federal Labor, its volunteers and MPs for the state government to say SRL had anything to do with Saturday’s result,” one senior insider, familiar with the campaign, said.

“It is a weak line espoused by people who obviously didn’t knock on a single door this campaign.

“Labor’s game plan to win Victoria was to create as much distance between the state and federal government and with this result, it looks like it was successful.”

Premier Jacinta Allan says the SRL helped Anthony Albanese win seats in Victoria. Picture: NewsWire

But Ms Allan said the voting public had now backed the mega project – which would deliver a rail line between Cheltenham and Box Hill – at four elections.

“That’s because it makes sense. It makes sense to people living in these communities,” she said.

Ms Allan said Labor’s “historic and emphatic” win should now silence her critics and cement her future as Premier, despite federal Labor being on track to lose her hometown seat of Bendigo.

While Mr Albanese enjoyed big swings in Victoria, party officials are now probing how big an impact Ms Allan had in driving votes away from their candidate Lisa Chesters.

“It was probably quite unwise for Lisa to be campaigning so closely with Jacinta,” one party figure said.

But on Sunday Ms Allan sought to distance herself from Labor’s lagging vote in Bendigo, denying a 10.5 per cent swing to the Nationals was a protest vote against her association with the seat.

She instead called out a “massively cashed-up campaign” from the Nationals candidate, Andrew Lethlean, who looks set to snatch the seat from Ms Chesters.

“The National Party, well, they ran a massively cashed-up campaign, run from outside of Bendigo, importing people in from Queensland and they did everything they could to distance themselves from Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party,” she said.

An ALP spokesman said the count in Bendigo was “extremely close” and a definitive result wouldn’t be known until at least Tuesday.

But the Premier said the broader result across Victoria should send a strong message to her detractors who had been speculating that her days as leader were numbered in the wake of disastrous polling.

“I think the results yesterday – they’re not despite what’s going on in Victoria – they’re because of what’s going on here in Victoria,” Ms Allan said, referencing Labor’s agenda that includes infrastructure projects and a pledge to build more homes.

Ms Allan said she was not focused on the criticism, coming off the back of surging youth crime rates, a police force in turmoil and whopping budget blowouts for major projects.

“I’m going to leave the commentary to those individuals because I know my Labor team here in Victoria, we’re not focused on the commentators, we’re focused on the Victorian community,” she said.

Instead, Ms Allan took aim at Opposition Leader Brad Battin and his “Liberal outfit”, demanding they “come clean” and answer questions about whether they would proceed with cutting the SRL.

Mr Battin was a no-show on Sunday and his office rejected requests for an interview.

Originally published as ‘A weak line espoused by people who obviously didn’t knock on a single door,’ Labor insider says of Jacinta Allan’s SRL claim