Shannon Deery: Jacinta Allan’s honeymoon period as Premier over in a flash

After a rocky start, Jacinta Allan has been given an early chance to differentiate herself from her predecessor — she can lift the veil of secrecy that has cloaked the government for years and chart her own course.

If Jacinta Allan had a honeymoon period as Premier, it’s well and truly over.

Opinions will vary as to precisely when the honeymoon ended. Most would agree it was about the same time Treasurer Tim Pallas announced a surprise new tax at an industry breakfast last Tuesday.

At that very moment, Allan had been in the job less than a week, and was out spruiking the government’s bold housing reforms.

Pallas’s announcement torpedoed Allan’s, and shot down any lofty ambitions she may have harboured of enjoying her first day in parliament as Premier.

Because so much of politics is about perception, it also deflated hopes of a renewed commitment to fiscal responsibility under an Allan government. In announcing the tax the way he did, the Treasurer ensured that the first major initiative of the Allan government was to introduce new taxes.

Not the start Allan would have wanted.

If Jacinta Allan had a honeymoon period as Premier, it’s well and truly over. Picture: David Crosling

She already enjoys a reputation for fiscal frivolousness by virtue of her history overseeing cost overruns as the minister for major transport infrastructure.

That won’t be helped by claims on Monday that she knew months before the Commonwealth Games were cancelled that the event faced billions in cost blowouts.

Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions secretary Tim Ada said Allan was first warned of cost blowouts of up to $2bn in March.

Bureaucrats had become concerned about substantial cost increases in February, and formally briefed Allan, the Commonwealth Games minister, in March.

They told her $4.6bn was what would be required, well above the $2.6bn budgeted by the government.

The government sent bureaucrats back to the drawing board, insisting they find ways to do the Games cheaper. Four months later, the Games were cancelled.

We know that until mid-June, just a day before lawyers were asked to investigate cancelling the event, Allan wanted them to go ahead.

“The Games are in 1008 days. In terms of the time that is needed to be taken to deliver these games, I am confident,” she told parliament on June 13.

Sources close to Allan insist she had no intention of pulling the pin on the Commonwealth Games. Picture: David Caird

Sources close to Allan insist she had no intention of pulling the pin.

And yet, the writing was on the wall in some senses.

By May, all government spruiking of the Games fell silent.

While there had been dozens of press releases celebrating the event since it was confirmed in July last year, there was none after May 9.

There was also, according to government sources, a reluctance from the Premier’s Private Office in continuing to sell the event from about that time.

With what we know now, it appears Allan knew much more than she has let on about the dire budget issues facing the games.

What’s unclear is whether if she was Premier at the time, would she have persisted with the event?

After a rocky start to her premiership, Allan has been given an early chance to differentiate herself from her predecessor.

After nine years of Andrews rule the ongoing comparisons between Allan and Daniel Andrews are inevitable, if even unfair. She follows, arguably, the most effective politician in recent Australian history.

Daniel Andrews was an expert at batting away questions with non-answers. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

And beyond any personal ambition she might have to chart her own course, anything short of that will be seen as a pale mini-me imitation.

The upper house committee probing the cancellation of the Games has now given her a clear opportunity to do something different. It passed a resolution to request her attendance at a public hearing to testify in her capacity as the former Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery.
She has said she won’t attend and can use her numbers in the lower house to formally block leave being granted to do so.

Or, she could show up, and show that she truly wants a more transparent, open style of government than her predecessor.

During almost nine years of the Andrews government it made secrecy the norm.

It encouraged suspicion to cloud much of what the Premier said and did. From pandemic lockdowns to the Suburban Rail Loop, a vast amount of taxpayer dollars was wasted fighting the release of information.

The former Premier held countless press conferences, but he was expert in batting away questions with non-answers.

How many times did we hear “I’m not here to talk about that,” or “that is not my focus,” or “that is a matter for (insert someone else here)”?

The Allan government got off to a rocky start. It faces myriad problems ahead: the economy, the SEC, the housing crisis and other ghosts of the Andrews government.

But Allan has a clear opportunity to chart a different course and lift the veil of secrecy that has cloaked the government for years.

Or, she could choose to leave it firmly in place.

Shannon Deery is Herald Sun state politics editor