Inside the rise of Victoria’s new leader, Premier Jacinta Allan
Political insiders report that newly minted Premier Jacinta Allan’s leadership has provided welcome change in Victoria’s parliament. But who is she, and how did she get here?
Victoria
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There’s something about Jacinta Allan.
It might be the country girl charm, it might be the unassuming manner, or it might simply be the fact she’s not Daniel Andrews.
Whatever it is, spend five minutes walking the streets with her and you soon realise people are instantly attracted to our 49th Premier.
On a quiet Thursday morning in Melbourne’s outer east, Allan is waiting to board a train to parliament.
The verified train nerd is keen to inspect works along the Lilydale line that is set to become the city’s first boom gate free rail corridor.
She mingles with passengers who go out of their way to come and say hello.
Some are too shy, so Allan goes over to introduce herself.
“People will often share with you a little personal thought or an experience that you can take away and reflect and think about,” she says.
“How can we make decisions that support either the challenge that they’ve shared with you or the hope and aspirations that they’ve shared with you?
“That’s where I get my energy from.”
As a mum of two — to Peggy, 11, and Cormack, 9 — Allan needs every ounce of energy she can muster.
If the demands of being a senior minister were onerous, they’re nothing compared to the demands of running the state.
She admits taking the top job has been an eye-opening experience, especially the sheer breadth and volume of issues that come across her desk daily.
She is, in some ways, an accidental Premier.
She may have been primed for a leadership role from soon after being elected the member for Bendigo East the day before her 26th birthday in 1999.
But if you’d have asked her three months ago her chances of being Premier by Christmas, she’d have said zero to nil.
She’s now been in the role 10 weeks, and it appears to still be sinking in.
Allan — who was told of Andrews’ resignation just hours before he made the abrupt public announcement — insists it took her completely by surprise.
Just a week earlier she had been celebrating her 50th birthday, and might still have been feeling the effects of an epic party.
“It was at that point where I guess I really fully crystallised that, with that experience that I had as a long serving member of parliament and minister … I could bring to the role that experience and depth,” she says.
“It was not on my bingo card as something that was going to happen in my birthday month,” she says.
If anyone thinks Allan isn’t cut out for the job, they are in the minority.
Even her critics inside government are full of praise for the new leader.
“She’s collaborative, calculating and sometimes underestimated,” one colleague says.
“Jacinta knows politics. People forget that, which is why I think people underestimate her.
“It genuinely feels like a new government at the moment.
“People seem to have forgotten about Daniel, like he never existed, except when we have to deal with his personal pet projects and need money for other programs.”
Treasurer Tim Pallas said this week he had noticed a shift to a less centralised government under Allan’s premiership.
“It’s a much more engaging process of discussion that goes on around ministerial decision making processes,” he said.
For Allan’s part, she says her experience as an MP and minister is invaluable.
“What hasn’t changed in the 24 years I’ve been a member of parliament is the values that drive me and my approach to the job,” she says.
“If I think back to the very first day I entered the Victorian parliament, you know, I was driven by values of fairness and equity and particularly coming from regional Victoria, a view that no matter where you lived, or what postcode you were from, what school you went to, people and families deserved an equality of universal services and to support them to protect and, and grow jobs in local communities.
“So it’s those kind of values that continue to drive me to this day.”
Despite a life in the public eye, Allan has kept a remarkably low profile.
She was educated at St Joseph’s Quarry Hill Primary School in Bendigo and Catholic College Bendigo, which is now McAuley College.
Her grandfather, Bill, was president of the Bendigo Trades Hall and her father, Peter, was on the board of trustees.
She was briefly married to Australian Workers’ Union Victorian branch secretary Ben Davis before she married Labor adviser Yorick Piper.
She loves gardening, basketball, baking, and spending time with her family.
Asked who her heroes are she says ICU nurses.
It’s more than just a polished political answer.
Her brother Bradley is an ICU nurse, and personal experience involving one of her children means Allan knows all too well the miracle work such nurses do.
Asked who she’d have to dinner it’s Kylie Minogue, Neil Finn and her best mate Justine.
She might run the state, and have access to Melbourne’s movers and shakers, but Allan doesn’t forget her roots.
She is a country girl turned small town mum, and she makes no apologies for that.
She does school pick-ups and drop offs when time allows.
Something she never misses is Friday night basketball with her kids, who she remains fiercely protective of.
She knows they haven’t chosen a public life, and fiercely protects their right to privacy.
“One of the great benefits for them living in Bendigo and going to a great local public school, mum and dad are close by, they’ve got a really lovely community around them,” she says.
“I’m not just the local member of parliament, I’m a mum at school. My kids see me as part of their community as well as their mum.
“I hope for other kids, that in some ways that normalises the role and makes people realise that if you want to do these things that there is a pathway.”
Allan doesn’t entertain comparisons with her predecessor.
She says she’s learnt from all three Premiers she’s worked for, Steve Bracks, John Brumby and Andrews.
But colleagues say she has shown herself to be infinitely more approachable than her predecessor, in public and in private.
“She’s one of those people who makes everyone feel special,” one says.
“You’d want her as a friend. You wouldn’t really want to be friends with Daniel. But you’d just want to be her friend.
“When she gives you a wink, or pays you a compliment, she’s just very warm.
“She lives and breathes her values, which is why there’s no difference between the public and the private.”
Unlike her predecessor, who had a bullyboy reputation, Allan doesn’t have the same manner.
“She really, really deliberately surrounds herself with people she knows she trusts and she knows are good,” a colleague says.
“So she doesn’t really need to kick heads because she makes great choices about who to have around her.”
Staff have noticed she is a stickler for detail in a way Andrews never was.
It may have been his experience that allowed him to bluff his way through policy and media briefings.
Conversely, Allan has impressed, and at times frustrated, staff with her relentless attention to detail.
Her dad, Peter, says Allan showed a keen interest in politics from her early teens.
It was hard not to, given her family’s prominent role in Bendigo political life.
Now, her family plays a key role in “keeping her feet on the ground.”
“She’s a very well grounded person. We like to believe we have a bit to do with that,” Mr Allan says.
“My father (Bill) always said to her when she first got elected, ‘don’t forget where you came from’.”
Mr Allan is the first to concede the task facing his daughter is a mammoth one.
Victoria is on track to hit between $171bn and $226bn in debt by 2026-27, a statistic that will remain a millstone around Allan’s neck.
“When we talk to her about this, she takes the view that we worry about the children and she’ll worry about the politics,” Mr Allan says.
“’I can handle it’, she tells us.
“She’s got a job ahead of her, and it’s going to be a bit difficult in the next little while, but hopefully when she gets on top of it all that will be behind her, and by 2026 things will be a lot more positive than they are at this point in time.”
The easy go manner belies the seriousness with which Allan is approaching the task of getting Victoria back on track.
Not that she agrees with any characterisation that suggests the state is in a mess.
The transition from Andrews to Allan might be drawing comparisons to that of the handover from John Cain to Joan Kirner in the early 1990s.
Allan doesn’t agree.
Still, when asked about her priorities for the next three years, Allan says repairing the budget is key.
Continuing the state’s big build as a way of investing in jobs, and reforms to early childhood services are also critical priorities.
Just days into the job Allan announced a new children’s portfolio, in a clear sign of her social agenda for the next three years.
“It’s about how we can make sure that we have significant universal service delivery,” she says.
“How do we make sure that through that service delivery that we hold on to people who might be finding challenges and stresses.”
She has copped plenty of criticism for her contribution to Victoria’s record debt as former minister responsible for major projects and the Commonwealth Games.
But she doesn’t cop the criticism lightly.
“I’m very focused on our budget settings and very focused on working with the treasurer on that fiscal strategy that was laid out in this year’s budget, and ensuring that remains the focus on the government going forward,” she says.
“Just as households are feeling the challenges and stresses that come with cost of living and interest rate rises, we have seen that our government also needs to respond to those challenges.”
Allan has come under increasing pressure to consider scrapping the $125bn Suburban Rail Loop project in a bid to rein in spending.
It’s not up for negotiation.
“What’s the alternative? To not build the Suburban Rail would be just accepting that our roads are going to be congested in the years to come,” she says.
“It’s accepting that you’re going to be stuck in congestion. It’s accepting that people don’t get to choose the uni or TAFE they want to go to because they can’t get there on public transport. It’s accepting an inequality of opportunity.
“Yeah, it’s a big project. But we have to build it because otherwise, our current hub and spoke rail network will not serve a growing city.”
Allan is obsessed with trains.
As a country girl trains represented connection to opportunity.
As a politician they present an opportunity for growth that she firmly believes in.
Allan credits Jeff Kennett with being a key figure in her political life.
His privatisation binge in the 1990s prompted Allan to seriously consider a life in politics.
“The Liberal government of the day chose to hurt country communities,” she says.
“They made deliberate decisions as a government to close country schools and country train lines and country hospitals and my very personal family experience was through the privatisation of the SEC.
“Dad worked for the SEC … people like my dad were just cut off by Kennett and his privatisation.
“It was that experience of seeing governments making decisions that hurt people who didn’t seem to care about what those impacts were having.”
“I have been presented with a tremendous privileged opportunity to keep working hard, to keep focused on jobs and families and children and understanding how we as a government can make decisions to support them. That’s a privilege.”
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