During the middle of the federal election campaign, amid relentless leaking about her unpopularity, claims she was dragging down Labor’s vote and whispers of a possible challenge to her leadership, the Victorian premier Jacinta Allan had a realisation.
“I’ve decided I just don’t care what they think any more,” one of Allan’s ministers says she told them in mid-April.
According to the minister, Allan said she was “done” second-guessing herself and looking over her shoulder for threats – particularly from within her own party. She said was going to do what she thought was right, trust her political judgment and block out the noise.
She even began starting her day with “a few minutes of yoga”, the minister says.
Around the same time, Allan also hired a new chief-of-staff and social media team, hiring those who forged a huge online following for the former Queensland premier Steven Miles.
As the news cycle focused on the federal election, then the latest battle in the never-ending internal war within the Victorian Liberal party, Allan and her team got to work.
The results were on show at Labor’s state conference earlier this month.
Allan arrived to a standing ovation. The conference room at Moonee Valley racecourse had been primed by her deputy, Ben Carroll, and a slick campaign-style video ending with a slogan: “Labor is on your side”.
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Then came the centrepiece of her speech – a promise to legislate the right to work from home two days a week for those who can reasonably do so.
Ministers say the policy came directly from the premier and her office. The coordinating ministers’ committee of cabinet – senior ministers representing each government department – were only told during a Zoom meeting the day before.
That briefing came so late that it’s likely the Labor-red “work-from-home works” backdrop had already been delivered to 1 Treasury Place.
How the state government will legislate this right, given Victoria handed its industrial relations powers to the commonwealth years ago, remains unclear. But this populist policy is one of Allan’s most politically astute moves to date – and a sharp contrast to Peter Dutton’s attempt to force public servants back to the office, a plan he was forced to abandon mid-campaign.
Allan, a mother of two who works from her home in Bendigo two hours from Melbourne on most Fridays, understands how companies demanding a return to the office can create fear and uncertainty for people trying to balance work and family life.
The policy gives her a way to connect with women, who often bear the brunt of that balancing act but are as a group yet to warm to her, party sources say.
It also lets her use a trick out of former premier Daniel Andrews’ political playbook, another minister says. “He always said you have to pick a fight with someone,” they say.
In her conference speech, Allan made her target clear: “There are plenty of bosses who will fight us on this … if it’s a fight they want, they’ll get it.”
The backlash from business and property groups to the proposal was swift – but Jessie McCrone, a managing partner at FMRS Advisory and former senior adviser to Andrews, says it was likely welcomed by the government.
“Good communications is about clarity, authenticity and repetition, and that is what Premier Allan has here. She’s picked an issue that has salience and combustibility – that is clearly something she welcomes,” McCrone says.
“At the same time, the Liberals are in a lose-lose situation. If they talk about it, they’re basically doing the government’s job for them. But if they don’t talk about it, the business community is not going to be very happy with them.”
McCrone draws similarities between work from home and Allan’s other signature policy of increasing housing density across the suburbs, which she announced late last year in well-heeled Brighton.
“They are both targeting key voter groups and they’ve got the same message: ‘I’m on your side’,” McCrone says.
Then, she railed against nimbys and boomers. Now, Allan says she’s backing “workers, especially women, single mums, carers” against big bosses.
But unlike the housing announcement, which was gatecrashed by local Liberal MP James Newbury and angry locals, the state opposition have resisted taking the bait.
The federal member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, was less cautious and compared the work from home policy to apartheid.
Even if, once legislated, the policy faces a court challenge – as many expect – Allan’s team is likely to frame it as another chance to fight for workers and yet another opportunity to talk about it.
She has been talking about it all week: on Tuesday, she announced consultation on the plan was open (and as of Friday it had received more than 10,000 responses, a number most government surveys don’t reach in months).
On Wednesday, she stood with plumbers who said they didn’t “begrudge” those able to work from home, countering the argument used by Wilson and others that tradies would oppose the plan.
On Thursday, Allan appeared with a cafe owner who credited people working from home for their success, countering another argument that it’s bad for small businesses.
Several MPs, including some within the oppositions ranks, said she appeared more confident. This extended to the chamber, where the government used almost all its allotted ministerial statements – the state’s version of a Dorothy Dixer - to spruik the benefits of working from home.
Some links to the policy were tenuous at best – including the minister for outdoor recreation, Steve Dimopoulos, saying it would give people “three hours back” each week to enjoy the state’s parks, waterways and lakes.
It left the opposition and reporters alike bored – but they’re not the audience.
As one Labor MP said: “By the time you and I are sick of hearing of it, that’s when we know it’s cut through to the public.”
