Why would Jacinta Allan – or any woman – say yes to a promotion under these circumstances?

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

One of the great things about being 50 is that you’re old enough to remember stuff. Stuff that matters, and admittedly a lot that doesn’t. Like Paul Keating’s recession we had to have, Labor’s 19 per cent interest rates, the first time I saw an ATM (I was 12, and it was during summer holidays with mum’s family in Brisbane). Things like WA Inc. The America’s Cup win. Statements like, “By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty”. When TAB was a drink. Hypercolour T-shirts and flying Ansett. I remember watching the famous Goanna skit on the Gillies Report, with my dad, and I remember the end of the bleak Cain-­Kirner years.

A strange thing to think about perhaps, but following the euphoria (mine) of Daniel Andrews’ resignation it was impossible to miss the breathless gushing from various quarters about newly minted Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan. The Premier is a Woman! Well, glory be!

She sure is, and just like Joan Kirner before, Allen appears primed to sashay down the road towards the same glass cliff Kirner walked off 30-odd years ago.

Joan Kirner as premier of Victoria.

History is not kind to Kirner’s political achievements, despite the fact that it was her predecessor who carried the lion’s share of the responsibility for leaving Victoria in such a state.

Yet still, all the fawning. All the excitement. Just because Allan, an adult human female, was picked after the post-resignation horse-trading that occurs in all political parties. Chosen as what, though?

As the Victorian government’s nightwatchman? The person who is now carrying the can for the absolute train wreck of an economy that Andrews left behind him?

Admittedly, Allan played an ­active role in creating that mess as Minister for Infrastructure Overruns and Botched Commonwealth Games, but it was former premier Andrews who ruled with a rod of iron and dispatched his enemies with equally brute political force.

But as sure as Collingwood are premiers, Allan will pay the price politically, not just for her own messes but Andrews’ as well. He left politics on his own timing. Whether she gets knifed or booted out at an election, Allen won’t get the same privilege.

So why did she say yes to the gig? Why would any woman say yes to a promotion under these circumstances? The same could be asked of Vanessa Hudson coming in on the back of Alan Joyce’s time at the helm, despite her role as CFO meaning she was hardly on the periphery. Surely, she must feel like an industrial cleaner coming in to deal with a crime scene.

Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson appears before an inquiry into Australia's bilateral airservices arrangements at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Watching parts of the Senate inquiry this past week was painful. Hudson presented respectfully in front of the committee while her general council thought it prudent to remind the chair that they had a plane to catch and could the honourable members, you know, hustle?

Women who say yes to the promotion, when that promotion involves a mop and bucket to deal with actions of the bloke who went before them. I absolutely wouldn’t do it. Or would I?

I’d never do it. Not a chance I’d take the gig if it meant predominantly cleaning up after the bloke who just left, I said to a girlfriend this week over an espresso.

She is a successful board director and lawyer whose many exceptional achievements I’ll leave to one side lest I unmask her here. She smiled broadly and, it should be noted, with a hint of mischief as she put down her coffee.

Actually, she said, I’d probably have a crack. Might be the only chance I got to be a premier and I just might manage to turn it all around. Ditto, Qantas.

Just when I thought my position couldn’t be any more strident on that, my friend’s short, sharp “Yeah, I’d have a crack” spun me 180 degrees. Maybe I would too?

Conceptually, ideologically, for me at least, there’s a huge wrestle at play. But gosh when you get whacked in the face by pragmatism it’s a whole other matter.

Perhaps it’s all about perspective, not preconceived ideas. Would I back myself in a similar situation? Maybe I would. Maybe I already have.

Reflecting on my own career, I must admit I’ve done exactly the thing I’m deriding. My first job in television, a lifetime ago, was to replace a bloke whose departure was somewhat coloured. In my day job, we have agreed to work with clients whose previous advisers had left behind massive issues and problems. Why? Because at the heart of it, I’ve backed my team and me to do a better job. I’ve looked at the mess and said, not only can we do better, but we will, and I can’t wait to show you.

That aside, though, I think there’s merit in teasing out some of the things in this dynamic here that are potentially unanswerable. And to be very clear, this isn’t a conversation about whether women can do the job. Of course they can. A thousand times a day and twice on Sundays.

My question is, why do we?

Is part of the reason because very senior opportunities come around so rarely? It is the allure of political power. As someone who has been asked multiple times to go into politics, I can promise you I’d rather slap myself in the head with a frozen salmon.

I’ve never run an airline but am happy to concede it’d be a tricky role, even if as an incoming CEO the road ahead was smooth, crisis-free and firmly entrenched in the vanilla of business as usual.

Is it the thrill of a challenge? The idea that we can do better and who cares how bad it looks?

Women have spent generations fighting for equality. I often think of my own mum, a magnificently talented women who was born into a generation when she had to quit her job when she got married. The unfairness of it.

The fact that a whole generation of women were denied the right to live the life of their choosing. So perhaps it’s actually about perspective. Doesn’t matter how the opportunity presents, it’s a chance to show your stuff.

Rather than seeing a poisoned chalice, maybe these women are seeing it as a challenge to be taken by the proverbials and run with at speed. If that’s the case, then more power to them all.