Jaclyn Symes to be Victoria’s first female treasurer

Jaclyn Symes will be sworn in on Thursday as the first woman to serve as Victorian treasurer after accepting one of the most difficult challenges in politics: turning around the fiscal fortunes of Australia’s most indebted state.

Symes was tapped by Premier Jacinta Allan following Tim Pallas’ retirement from politics at the start of this week. The move continues a steady career rise for the former union lawyer from Benalla who has served as attorney-general for the past four years.

Jaclyn Symes will be moved to the key portfolio of Treasury.Credit: Jason South

Her appointment reflects the dearth of current ministers with economic or financial backgrounds in the Victorian government and the faith Allan has in Symes, one of the government’s most competent and reliable performers, to reset the state’s debt-reduction strategy before the next Victorian election.

Symes is understood to have narrowly pipped Minister for Government Services Gabrielle Williams for the job and will follow retired treasurer John Lenders in performing the role from the upper house.

Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, who has previously expressed an interest in serving as treasurer, did not put himself forward for the job.

Symes was first elected to parliament in 2014 when Labor returned to power after a brief stint in opposition. She previously worked as a legal adviser to Daniel Andrews, when he was opposition leader, and former attorney-general Rob Hulls, a career mentor. She has sat on the frontbench since 2018 and since 2019 served as government leader in the upper house.

She is a member of the government’s budget and finance committee, responsible for all expenditure decisions.

Symes is from the Right faction of the Victorian ALP but was selected by Allan, who comes from the dominant Left faction, to replace Pallas as treasurer after his 10 years in the job.

Symes’ swearing-in at Government House will be accompanied by a more significant cabinet reshuffle than previously expected.

Four government sources said Sonya Kilkenny, the current planning minister, would take over from Symes as attorney-general. This would probably require Allan to give another frontbencher responsibility for her government’s signature housing plan for greater density development across Melbourne’s suburbs.

Two sources confirmed that Natalie Hutchins would lose Jobs and Industry from her range of portfolios but gain Government Services and Family Violence Prevention.

Further changes were being mooted on Wednesday night as Allan reshaped her frontbench line-up for the first time since she became premier in September last year.

On Wednesday, Nick Staikos, the MP for Bentleigh, was elevated into the cabinet spot vacated by Pallas. He said he felt the same energy when he began his political career in local government 19 years ago.

“Tim has been a dear friend and an adviser and wise counsel for a very, very long time,” Staikos said. “It is bittersweet. I am going to miss him, but Tim and I are going to be friends for life, and I’ll still be picking up the phone to chat to Tim whenever I need him.”

Pallas’ abrupt exit, which blindsided the party leadership, was less welcomed by Labor HQ. It leaves the ALP having to marshall resources to defend its nominally safe seat of Werribee, a mortgage-belt electorate in Melbourne’s outer-west that will be fiercely targeted in a new year byelection by the Liberals and local independent candidate Paul Hopper.

Nominations for the Labor candidate for Werribee opened on Wednesday and are due to close next Monday. Local teacher and Country Fire Authority volunteer John Lister is considered a frontrunner. He declined to comment when contacted by The Age on Wednesday.

Jon Barlow, an associate at Shine Lawyers, former national secretary of the National Union of Students and the son of former Wyndham mayor Henry Barlow, was also encouraged to consider putting his hand up to contest for Labor but has decided against it.

Pallas’ final budget update, released three days before he quit parliament, confirmed the Herculean task he has left his successor to turn around the state’s finances.

According to the updated forecasts, Victoria’s general government sector will spend nearly $40 billion more that it earns over the next four years.

Victoria’s net debt, which stood at $133.2 billion on July 1, is forecast to reach $187.3 billion by the end of the 2027-28 financial year.

Pallas’ parting claim that he had overseen a “dramatic improvement in the fiscal position of the Victorian government accounts” is at odds with the view of leading economists and the state’s auditor-general, Andrew Greaves, who reported in November that the government had “no clear plan for long-term fiscal management”.

Senior government figures are hoping the change of treasurer will shift the narrative about Victoria’s financial future.

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