Jacinta Allan’s sinking popularity inflicts brand damage on Albanese’s election hopes

Jacinta Allan’s sinking popularity has become a significant drag on federal Labor’s re-election hopes, as a new poll shows three out of four Victorian voters want someone else to be premier.

The exclusive survey, conducted by Resolve Political Monitor for The Age, confirms support for state Labor has collapsed to emergency levels that will shape the federal political contest in Victoria. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will campaign in Victoria on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan at a school in January.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Primary support for state Labor was at 24 per cent in February and March, marginally above the 22 per cent nadir reached in the previous survey in December and January, but 12.6 points below its election-winning vote in November 2022.

The state Coalition’s primary support is at 41 per cent, 1 point down on the previous survey.

The latest survey of more than 1000 respondents found Allan’s personal standing with voters has continued to tank. Whereas 38 per cent of voters preferred her as premier when she took over the job from Daniel Andrews in October 2023, that figure has slumped to 23 per cent, her lowest recorded level of support.

Her once-neutral “likeability” rating has cratered to minus 32 per cent, sliding 8 points since January.

ALP strategists believe this helps explain why Victoria, a state which swung hard against the Coalition at the 2022 federal election, is Labor’s problem child in this campaign.

Resolve founder Jim Reed said his latest state survey results were consistent with trends detected by other polling companies.

“We, and now other pollsters, have been picking up Labor dropping to the low-mid 20s for primary vote,” he said. “That’s a really bad position to be in, and the strength of criticism in the comments suggests that there’s now a hatred of Labor in many parts of the electorate.

“This brand damage obviously impedes the Albanese government’s prospects in the state, which is why the campaign won’t feature the premier as they are in places like SA or NSW.”

Whereas in South Australia and NSW, premiers Peter Malinauskas and Chris Minns are seen as Labor assets, Allan has become a liability for her own party.

As Reed put it: “There are now loyal Labor voters supporting the party in spite of the leader, rather than because of her.”

According to Resolve’s latest national survey, published this week, Labor’s primary vote of 27 per cent in Victoria is 3 points below its primary support in NSW. At the 2022 federal election, Labor secured 33 per cent of the primary vote in Victoria. Resolve does not publish a two-party preferred figure.

Federal Labor ministers and campaigners, speaking confidentially to discuss internal party matters, said the party’s own research showed Victorian numbers worsening for Labor recently despite all other states improving for the government.

Labor is bracing for the potential loss of eight seats in Victoria. The Liberal Party is hoping to gain up to six.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, pictured in Adelaide on Tuesday, has urged voters to judge his government on its record.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese, in comments to this masthead, urged voters to judge his government on its own record. The prime minister dismissed as a scare campaign plans by the Liberal Party to flood Victoria with advertisements seeking to associate federal Labor with Allan.

“People will make their own judgment, but what that says to me is that they don’t have any criticism of my government,” he said.

He offered faint praise for Allan, noting she led a government which had “built a lot”, saving his most scathing assessment for Dutton, referencing claims the opposition leader made in 2018 about Melbourne being unsafe after dark.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie have vowed to withdraw federal funding from the SRL.Credit: James Brickwood

“Peter Dutton is the guy who has run campaigns against Victoria for a long time, including saying that they were scared to go out at night for dinner,” Albanese said. “He bagged Victorians and the effort they made during COVID. He’s someone who’s hostile to Victorians.”

The Resolve survey also reveals that the once-popular Big Build program, for which Allan was responsible before becoming premier, is now being questioned by voters.

Big Build has delivered important rail and road projects: the West Gate Tunnel and Metro Rail Tunnel projects are scheduled to open at the end of this year. But the building spree has also fuelled state debt, forecast to reach $187.3 billion by 2028.

The Resolve survey found 52 per cent of respondents agreed Big Build costs were greater than the public benefits and 67 per cent agreed the government needed to focus on cutting spending to reduce debt.

Some of the comments from survey respondents were damning. “Ten years of corruption, massive debt and now a useless premier have killed the state,” said one. Another said: “I’m not usually a Liberal, but anyone would be a better government than this mob. Worst in our history.”

State Opposition Leader Brad Battin was preferred premier with 36 per cent of respondents, down 1 point, with a likeability rating of 9 per cent, up 5 per cent.

Credit: Matt Golding

The survey was conducted in mid-February and late March. Half the respondents were polled after Allan’s announcement of bail changes to crack down on youth crime and after reporting by this masthead about the infiltration by organised crime of government-funded building sites and the CFMEU construction union.

Dutton has already sought to exploit these issues in the campaign.

On Tuesday, when he announced his intention to withdraw $2.2 billion in federal funding from the Suburban Rail Loop, he described it as Allan’s “unfunded, cruel hoax of a project” and reiterated his promise to deregister the CFMEU.

Allan inherited from Andrews a 10-year-old, debt-ridden government. Since the start of this year, she has worked to differentiate herself from Andrews, his political agenda and fiscal legacy.

Confronting a rise in youth crime, Allan legislated to reverse changes to bail laws Andrews introduced to reduce the number of young people on remand. Seeking to bring government spending under control, she brought in a former top bureaucrat, Helen Silver, to pare back the public service and government agencies.

She remains committed to the Suburban Rail Loop, a long-term project to encircle Melbourne and stimulate higher density housing development and business investment with a 90-kilometre rail line.

Two senior state Labor figures, speaking in confidence to discuss internal party matters, said the state government had to rid itself of the SRL but may need a new leader to make the call.

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