Above all else, Jacinta Allan says she wants to be remembered for her work on women’s health.
In an emotionally charged speech amid a tumultuous 48 hours for Victorian Labor, Allan announced her resignation as Victoria’s premier on Tuesday.
She took stock of what she saw as her achievements over nearly three years in the role: tackling rising crime rates, making housing more affordable, reducing public transport fares, and seeing the Metro Tunnel open.
But what was most important to her? “I led a government that listened to girls about their health.”
“I’m a woman, I’m a mum,” Allan said. “I have lived with endometriosis and I almost lost my daughter at birth. These experiences not only defined who I am, they defined what I believe government should do for working women.”
Allan said she watched her government open 15 women’s health clinics focusing on treatments for conditions including endometriosis; made the pill available over the counter; made the “green whistle” (Penthrox) available as pain relief for IUD insertion procedures; and held an inquiry into women’s pain, which drew in more than 10,000 submissions.
“This is what happens when women are heard,” Allan said. “I’m proud to be Victoria’s second female premier.”
From rising star to Daniel Andrews’ inner circle
When she won the seat of Bendigo East in 1999 at the age of 25, Allan became the youngest female state MP elected in Victoria.
The granddaughter of a longstanding president of the Bendigo Trades Hall, Bill Allan, she had joined Labor at 19 and began working for MPs soon after.
Her profile rose when she campaigned against a lapdance venue opening in her home town. She held a public meeting on its opening night, secured the support of the then attorney general to change the state’s liquor licensing laws, and gained plenty of media coverage.
Two years later, she was elected to parliament, when Labor’s Steve Bracks defeated then-premier Jeff Kennett in a shock victory. Later, she would note how parliament at the time did not have very many women’s bathrooms, “because there just hadn’t been a lot of women up until that point”.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailIn her first speech to parliament, Allan described herself as the “daughter of workers” who had instilled the importance of the union movement, and said she intended “to ensure that every piece of legislation has been considered for its impact on women”. After just three years in parliament, she was promoted to cabinet and remained on Labor’s frontbench ever since, gaining a reputation as a hard worker.
When Labor was in opposition under Daniel Andrews, Allan became a key part of his inner circle. As manager of opposition business in the lower house, she led Labor’s combative approach to question time. And when Labor won government in 2014, she was appointed minister for public transport and employment.
She later took on key infrastructure portfolios, putting her in charge of signature projects like the suburban rail loop and overseeing the delivery of the since-cancelled Commonwealth Games.
And she also oversaw the Big Build, the government’s most significant infrastructure scheme – and one that would later become a millstone round Allan’s neck as allegations of wrongdoing and criminal conduct on that project were aired.
Rise to top job
She became deputy premier after James Merlino retired in 2022. But her ascension to premier the following year was not as smooth as she might have expected.
Andrews, upon his resignation, had intended to anoint Allan as his successor and Tim Pallas as her deputy. It was Ben Carroll – then a relatively little-known junior minister from Labor’s diminished right faction – who threw a spanner in the works.
What was meant to be a short, box-ticking caucus meeting turned instead into a fiery debate, with Carroll threatening to challenge Allan for the leadership unless he was made deputy. Carroll got his way, and the deputy role.
As premier, Allan continued to champion infrastructure-related projects, including attempting to tackle the housing crisis.
She oversaw the introduction of a temporary stamp duty concession for new builds and led the rezoning of 50 areas around train and tram stations to higher density, allowing fast-track development approvals. Recent data suggests these and other Andrews-era reforms may have contributed to Victoria seeing the number of first home buyers increasing where other states have not.
Her gender also made her a target. The most recent manifestation of this was a truck-mounted billboard travelling the streets of Melbourne for weeks, featuring AI-generated images of Allan wearing a black pointed hat with warts on her chin alongside the phrase “ditch the witch”, in between advertisements for a brothel.
Leadership challenges
Eventually, Allan’s close ties with Andrews began to weigh on her leadership.
While she made significant policy departures from her predecessor – shelving a ban on duck hunting despite the recommendation of her own MPs, abandoning plans to lift the age of criminal responsibility to 14, introducing some of Australia’s toughest bail laws and failing to deliver a second supervised injecting room – the shifts have alienated parts of Labor’s progressive voters without convincing others she represented a genuine break from the Andrews era.
Polling also suggested Labor was on track to lose the November election, despite having won in 2022 with an 11-seat buffer, and Allan’s personal approval ratings were below those recorded by Scott Morrison before the 2022 federal election and Peter Dutton before the 2025 federal election.
Allan’s decision to resign as premier on Tuesday was not without a fight.
“I was prepared to put my record and my plan to a ballot of members – as our rules allow. I believe I would have won,” she said. But her decision to make way for Carroll means the party ultimately avoided a weeks-long contested leadership balloting process just four months out from the state election.
“At the end of the day, I am – and always will be – a team player,” Allan said.
