Regardless of the result in Werribee, Allan has already heard the message

Before a single vote had been counted in Werribee, Jacinta Allan understood her leadership and government must change.

It is a change already under way.

On the morning of a byelection where a potent amalgam of safe-seat neglect, financial pressure and anxiety about community safety was expected to take a big bite out of Labor’s vote, Allan had a clear message for people heading to polling places.

“We are focused on supporting families and we are focused on looking at what more we can do, particularly at this point in time when we know families are doing it really tough, really tough,” she said.

“We know that Victorians, like communities right across Australia, are looking for their governments to do more.”

The promise to do more, one Allan repeated several times in as many breaths, was less about Werribee than what happens next.

It signalled two things.

The first is Allan’s belief, one shared by Labor strategists, that the financial pinch caused by persistent high interest rates, the post-pandemic inflation spike and the disconnect between average big-city house prices and wages requires further government interventions rather than a retreat from spending.

This puts her at odds with ratings agencies such as Standard & Poors, which last week warned that Victoria and other states would likely cop another credit downgrade unless they took a firmer grip on the government purse.

Having been at odds with S&P over many things, including the best way to measure Victoria’s cumulative debt, Allan won’t be too fussed about that.

Her bigger battle is with her own cabinet and caucus. This brings us to the second thing signalled by her “do more” promise.

Allan comes from the same Socialist Left faction that produced Daniel Andrews, but she does not share its – or his – passion for social reforms.

This is reflected in her lengthy parliamentary CV. Since 2007, when she briefly served as minister for women’s affairs at the tail end of the Bracks government, she has not held a social policy portfolio.

For the life of this government, she has been in charge of transport, infrastructure, employment and agriculture. Her political happy place, with apologies to Richard Scarry, is trains, trucks and things that go.

Allan’s essential, go-to place between now and next November’s elections is the meat-and-potato concerns of suburban and regional voters. It’s also the natural habitat of JA, Bendigo mum.

These centrist instincts are not shared across Victorian Labor’s highly progressive caucus, which last year sought to hold Allan to an inherited promise to further raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 before she quietly dropped it.

This year, Allan is demonstrating a clearer intent to delineate her leadership from that of her predecessor and bring more of her personal pragmatism to Labor’s brand. After the shock Resolve poll published by this masthead showing Labor’s statewide primary support collapsing to just 22 per cent, caucus is more willing to give her the licence she needs.

We saw this last week with the Premier’s attempt to take a tougher line on crime. Although her promise to review bail laws was badly muddled, its significance was that she wanted to talk about crime at all.

She didn’t warn her party colleagues during the two days they spent together the previous week at a caucus retreat that she’d be announcing a review of bail laws, but she didn’t need to. There is a growing acceptance among Labor MPs, albeit belated, that crime is a serious problem requiring a serious response.

With a big negative swing baked into Labor’s expectations ahead of the byelection, Allan’s course was set well before she addressed party supporters at the Werribee Centrals Cricket Club on Saturday night.

“I am listening, my government is listening,” she told them.

She knows voters want her government to do more. Just not more of the same.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.