‘Funny, ruthless, a political animal … that’s Jacinta Allan’

Elected at 25 and in cabinet by 28, Jacinta Allan was picked as a premier by her political mentor Steve Bracks from the moment she arrived. Detractors say she’s never returned the favour.

New Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan leaves the Labor caucus room on Wednesday. Picture: Getty Images

Jacinta Allan is “smart” and “fun to be around” – friends are also quick to admit “she’s a political animal”.

One former colleague offered this character assessment on Wednesday, not so much as a criticism but more as a tribute. If you’re going to get into politics and have ambition to lead, a ruthless streak can’t hurt.

Steve Bracks was the first political leader to identify her talent. The three-time election winning Labor premier said he immediately saw enormous potential in the 25-year-old rookie MP who won the Liberal-held seat of Bendigo East in 1999, getting him over the line to defeat the red-hot favourite Jeff Kennett.

Allan impressed her new boss during his first term in office and after his landslide election victory in 2002, Bracks rewarded that by promoting her to cabinet. She wasn’t even 30 when she was appointed minister for employment and youth affairs.

“I promoted two young people into cabinet, and I thought at the time either one of them could become premier,” he told The Australian on Wednesday.

“The two were Tim Holding, who was 28, and Jacinta Allan, who was also 28. I thought one of these two will be premier (and) one of them is.

“She was talented, skilled and articulate. She could handle a brief very well, so I wanted to give her a go.

“I saw in her the potential to go further. Now it’s taken a while, but she is ready and primed.”

Bracks thinks her reputation as a “political animal” is a positive.

“She is good company,” he said. “She has a good sense of humour. She is very good to be around.

“She has got charm and she’s got a common touch.

“But politics oozes from her veins. She has been in politics all her adult life and she does it so well. But they are right (in likening her to a political animal). She understands it, she gets it and she will be a good chairman of cabinet, she will run a collegiate cabinet, she will bring people with her.”

‘She will have to learn how to treat her colleagues with more respect.’

Allan’s detractors – and they can be found across all factions, including her own Socialist Left group – agree that an element of ruthlessness is required in political leadership, but they also say that it doesn’t hurt to show some warmth and charm along the way. Something, they say, she has failed to display.

They say she is often abrupt, isn’t a team player and has failed to show younger MPs the same care and mentoring she received from the likes of Bracks.

Bracks with then-youngest Victorian MP Jacinta Allan in 1999.

With Daniel Andrews in 2006.

“She will have to learn how to treat her colleagues with more respect,” a Labor figure said in the midst of an open factional revolt that for a time on Wednesday ­appeared likely to threaten her succession.

Daniel Andrews ruled his Labor caucus with an iron fist and such an eruption of factional bitterness would never have happened on his watch. But he is now yesterday’s man, and Allan has been placed on notice that while she now has positional authority, she needs to earn the respect and loyalty of caucus to guarantee her more politically important personal authority.

Six months ago, caucus colleagues noticed Allan was being nicer to them, even collegiate, as she launched a belated charm offensive as speculation mounted that Andrews was preparing to exit.

For all of her successes – she’s been a minister in three Labor governments, deputy premier and run complex and massive portfolios – the events of yesterday make it clear she has more work to do with her colleagues.

Her portfolios have included transport and infrastructure, the Commonwealth Games, major projects, agriculture, regional cities, industry, trade, skills, women’s affairs and education services.

Reflecting her political skills, Andrews trusted her with the critical tactical job of being the government’s leader of the house between 2014 to 2022.

When she stood up in the Legislative Assembly to deliver her inaugural speech in 1999, the 25-year-old made it clear that despite her youth, she was up for the fight as she unleashed a tirade against the vanquished Kennett government.

“As a country member of parliament, I say that after seven years of city-blinkered Coalition rule, the government’s distinctive role will be to recognise and appreciate the people of country Victoria, to place their needs back on the political agenda and to bring them back into the decision-making process,” she said.

“Country Victorians were among the prime losers under the regime of economic rationalism that the Kennett government turned loose on the country.”

Convention says that inaugural speeches should not be overtly political and the opposition accordingly complained to the Speaker about the content and tone of what Allan had to say on her first day in ­parliament.

Reading that speech almost a quarter of a century later, as Allan was on her way to Government House to be sworn in as Victoria’s 49th premier, you get a strong sense that the young MP enjoyed defying convention and sticking it to her opponents.

Allan’s enemies – both in the Liberal Party and in the Labor Party – would be foolish to underestimate her and assume she will be a modern day Joan Kirner.

As Bracks noted on Wednesday: “I do believe she will do it her way.

“She is much more a centrist, a moderate. She might be in the Socialist Left but she understands that she has to govern for all of ­Victoria and I think that’s what she will do well.

“She will be a much more inclusive leader than we have had in the past.”