Premier gives thanks to her everlasting gift: the Liberal Party

On the outskirts of Bendigo, a smiling Jacinta Allan opens the front door to her well-kept country home and welcomes me inside. “Just pop those on, please,” she says, motioning to a row of steel-capped boots lined up along the porch in ascending size.

It is the winter recess of state parliament, when Victorian politics shifts down a gear and the busiest woman in the state can afford a few days off to rest and reflect. Allan is dressed for the weekend, with a well-worn high-vis vest paired with her favourite jeans.

In her happy place: Premier Jacinta Allan spruiks the West Gate Tunnel project before taking her winter break. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

I lace up the boots, and through my protective goggles, take in our surrounds. The premier’s home is light and airy, with family portraits hung on one side of the hall and a striking black and white image of a tunnel boring machine on the other.

In the kitchen, Allan’s husband, Yorick, is wrestling with an espresso machine. He takes off his hard hat, wipes his brow and grumbles something about four more years. Allan laughs.

“Alas, poor Yorick,” she says. “When I took this job I assured him that, given what Labor had done to Victoria’s finances, there was no way we’d get re-elected. Now it looks like I’ll be doing this for as long as Dan!”

The premier leans in conspiratorially. “Let me show you why.”

Allan leads us through the backdoor to the rest of her property. It is a peaceful setting, with towering gumtrees and graceful acacia. One of her dogs emits a low growl, reminding me to zip up my high-vis.

As we walk down a gravel path, we come across Allan’s two children in matching boots and hard hats, one carrying a hydraulic jackhammer and the other a set of blueprints. “They are on school holidays and doing some early works,” she says. “Won’t see them till smoko.”

The path takes us deeper into the bush until we come across a grassy clearing and a small bluestone cottage.

“They dug the stone up when they excavated the West Gate Tunnel,” she says. “Yorick hewed the blocks himself. This is where I come whenever I need to escape Rita Panahi’s commentary and clear my mind.”

The cottage is unfurnished other than a red cushion in the middle of the floor and three altars on opposite walls.

On the eastern wall, before a golden butsudan, stands a squat statue in the image of John Pesutto, a former Liberal leader who, on the day he was dumped by his party colleagues, was comfortably ahead of Allan in the polls.

There are offerings on the butsudan – opinion polls showing Labor’s recovery since Pesutto was ousted, a manilla folder labelled “Deeming Dossier” and a microcassette of a party room meeting secretly recorded by David Southwick.

Allan rubs the tummy of the Pesutto buddha – “for luck” she explains – and lights an incense stick.

On the western wall hangs a painting in the style of French Romantic Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People depicting Moira Deeming in a flowing gown hurdling over a prostrate Pesutto to barricade the entrance of a unisex bathroom.

On a marble altar table, a “WOMAN” T-shirt is folded next to portraits of Patrick George and Sue Chrysanthou, SC, the defamation lawyers who helped Deeming take Pesutto to the brink of bankruptcy. An inscription is carved into the marble: “Proudly donated by Hilton Grugeon.”

On the northern wall, there is a sculpture of Brad Battin in neoclassical style, his modesty preserved by a carefully positioned loaf from Baker’s Delight. His face is tilted towards the Deeming painting with a worried expression.

On a wooden altar, there is a replica cruise ship, a policeman’s truncheon and picture of Sam Groth next to an expensive hotel bill.

Above the Battin statue, a message is embossed on the wall in gold lettering. It reads: “We Gratefully Receive the Everlasting Gift of the Victorian Liberal Party.”

The premier kneels on the cushion. She turns to Pesutto, to Deeming and, lastly, to Battin. She looks up at the golden message and solemnly repeats the words.

As we walk back along the path towards her home, there is a calmness about Allan but also a tinge of melancholy. “Politics wasn’t meant to be this easy,” she muses.

Chip Le Grand is state political editor.

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