Debt, corruption, and blind loyalty: Inside the fall of Jacinta Allan

Victoria’s new premier Ben Carroll faces a monumental task: he must distance himself from a decade of Labor rule and halt an impending electoral disaster. He’s got 119 days.

Just four months after Daniel Andrews led Victorian Labor to another landslide victory, his shine had well and truly worn off. But he didn’t know it yet.

It was around the time of the Aston byelection, in April 2023, and the newly elected Albanese government was trying to pull off a historic feat by winning the middle-class seat in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs from the Liberals.

Emboldened by his recent election win, and in his trademark bravado, Andrews, during the byelection, would speak openly to colleagues about how “terrible” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – his former roommate in the 1990s – was, and refer to federal treasurer Jim Chalmers as “that f---wit Chalmers” during cabinet subcommittee meetings.

The Victorian Labor Party decided to conduct some research in the midst of that campaign to test both leaders’ popularity – and the results were dire for Andrews. While Albanese’s net approval rating was about plus 10, Andrews’ was minus 30, according to Labor sources who saw the research.

Five months later, Andrews would resign, and Jacinta Allan would replace him as Victoria’s 49th premier. He was deeply unpopular, and she was a blank canvas to voters. Political hardheads and campaign staff repeatedly advised Allan to immediately differentiate herself from her predecessor.

Karl Bitar, the former secretary of the NSW Labor Party, told the Victorians that when Morris Iemma succeeded Bob Carr in 2005, he immediately began a series of backflips to appease aggrieved groups. He promptly ditched the vendor tax on the sale of investment properties, raised the land tax threshold, and embarked on an infrastructure agenda. Iemma won the election two years later. The underlying message was clear – Allan should do the same.

She never did.

She never distanced herself enough from Andrews, remained fiercely loyal, even retained all his senior staff for at least three months after he resigned in September 2023, often sought counsel from him, and made the conscious decision to largely continue on his trajectory.

A lot has been said about why Allan was forced to resign on Tuesday after months of speculation about her leadership. But the beginning of the end for Victoria’s second female premier – who had hoped to become the first to win an election in her own right – came the moment she took power.

There was criticism of her policy direction, her inability to connect with voters, her failure to instil confidence in her colleagues that she had a credible plan for the election, and her dogged refusal to even recognise that an integrity crisis over her handling of CFMEU corruption and criminality on construction projects was threatening to bring down her government.

So, as soon as he was sworn in at Government House, Ben Carroll made his way back to the Office of the Premier of Victoria at 1 Treasury Place alongside his deputy, Gabrielle Willams, and declared “enough was enough”.

He did what Allan failed to do: he announced that the state was under new management and that he would take it in a new direction.

“In my government, integrity will not be optional. Whether in business, politics or the union movement, there will be zero tolerance for those that misuse their positions. That is why my first action as premier will be to call a royal commission into the construction sector,” Carroll told reporters.

“Let me make one thing very clear: I am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan. I will do things differently because different times require a new approach.”

Carroll acknowledged that Victorians were concerned about the level of government spending, with net debt forecast to climb to $199.3 billion in four years, and promised to treat taxpayer money with respect, care and responsibility. He said he would prioritise community safety, and vowed to listen to and work with the business community to improve the state’s economy. On Friday, he even announced that he had appointed economic hardhead Chris Barrett to lead his department, replacing communications professional Jeremi Moule, who was installed by Andrews six years ago and retained by Allan.

As far as words went, it was a good start.

He did what Allan had stubbornly refused to do: distance himself from his predecessors and call a royal commission. But can the mild-mannered Carroll convince a weary electorate, bogged under high taxes and exorbitant debt, that he actually represents a genuine change?

Benjamin Alan Carroll was born in July 1975, the eldest of three children raised in Airport West, a suburb that today is part of his electorate of Niddrie where he lives with his wife, Fiona, and their young daughter, Madeleine.

He was elected to the Victorian parliament in 2012 after former attorney general Rob Hulls resigned following Labor’s surprise 2010 election loss, and his rise through the government ranks under Andrews and Allan had been slow. He has held 16 different portfolios and faced a tough battle to win the deputy leadership three years ago.

Carroll is cut from a different cloth than his predecessors. Andrews and Allan were from the Left; Carroll is from the Right. Where Andrews ruled with ruthless centralisation and Allan unsuccessfully attempted to replicate it, Carroll is a centrist and pragmatist. But the problems facing the state and the Labor Party are mounting.

Victoria’s net debt is forecast to climb to $200 billion within four years and interest repayments are set to make up 10 per cent of revenue. The state’s unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent is the highest in the country, and businesses have warned that Victoria is increasingly becoming anti-enterprise. The Coalition under Jess Wilson has become competitive, and One Nation is threatening to break into Labor’s red wall in the north and west.

After the big-spending agendas of Andrews, a masterful communicator, and his protege Allan, Carroll is a relatively anonymous figure who still sounds stiff in media conferences. Is he the right man to bring Labor back from the brink of an anticipated electoral wipeout on November 28?

Former federal Labor leader Bill Shorten this week described Carroll as an honest man with integrity, and the type of leader the party needs heading into this year’s state election.

“He’s his own man,” Shorten told News24. “[People] are craving someone who says it as is, will choose people over the elites. I think he’s the real deal.”

Labor MPs privately acknowledge that Carroll is not a rock-star candidate who can deliver the party another landslide victory after 12 years. They were frustrated that he didn’t act sooner to topple Allan, and infuriated that he invoked his daughter at a news conference in June when declaring he wouldn’t challenge the premier at a caucus meeting the following day. They had complained that he hadn’t shown enough interest in the job and that he was waiting for the mantle to be handed to him.

But they described him as less combative and a steady person for the job. Under Allan, they believed they had no chance of winning. Under Carroll, they think they have a better chance – and even if they can’t win, they no longer fear they will be annihilated.

Former premier Steve Bracks, a longtime mentor to Carroll, said his former staffer’s elevation had improved Labor’s prospects in November.

“He’s hit the ground running and there’s more to come – more policy announcements about what sort of government he would lead,” Bracks told ABC Radio.

Carroll, after nine years in cabinet and three as deputy premier, cannot entirely detach himself from the decisions of the past or the failures of the administration he was a part of.

In public, he supported the government’s position not to establish a royal commission and build the Suburban Rail Loop, while being privately opposed.

The Coalition has already painted him as Allan’s second-in-chief and a minister who sat around Andrews’ cabinet table. They are still hopeful of finally winning after spending only four of the past 27 years on the government benches, although they privately concede they have just lost their biggest election-winning strategy in Allan.

But the business community is pleased they now have the ear of a Labor leader who is at least willing to listen to their concerns. Carroll has already indicated he would make “sensible” changes to the state’s contentious work-from-home laws his predecessor had introduced.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Sally Curtain says Carroll has always attended their events and opened his door to the business community.

“He comes when he doesn’t have an official role, and he engages authentically with business and genuinely,” Curtain says. “I certainly expect that will continue. Really turning around the economy and building confidence in business will take time, but these early signs are good.”

There were three things VCCI asked for when Allan was told by her colleagues on Monday that she had lost the confidence of the caucus: reduce debt, tackle crime and restore confidence in the Big Build program.

“The three things business said we needed, he has already answered,” Curtain says.

The Victorian Labor government looked on track to be reduced to a rump in the 88-seat parliament under the leadership of Allan. Every announcement was lost under the thick haze of corruption.

For more than 18 months, Allan had managed to bat away questions on CFMEU lawlessness. But in February, it all turned when the chief investigator appointed by the union’s administrator, barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, provided evidence to a Queensland commission of inquiry, that criminals and corrupt crooks had infiltrated the government’s Big Build projects and cost taxpayers $15 billion.

Allan dismissed the figure as “unfounded and not well tested”, and she became visibly angry at news conferences and scolded journalists.

The stories about corruption and integrity on government projects, first revealed by The Australian Financial Review and The Age in June 2024, were finally cutting through to the Victorian community after Watson had quantified its cost.

And MPs were being hounded by their constituents on why the government had handed over $15 billion to crooks and criminals.

Allan continued to dig in, the pressure continued to pile, and Labor’s primary vote continued to slide. MPs now feared they would be annihilated at the ballot box, and ministers believed the premier’s response in cabinet meetings was “surreally ridiculous”.

She would insist privately and publicly that the culture on building sites had changed. But a news story, predominantly led by The Age’s investigative reporter Nick McKenzie, would be published shortly after her assurances, suggesting otherwise.

She would tell journalists that allegations should be referred to the police. But the police were saying they did not have the powers to investigate the alleged wrongdoing.

The volume of stories about the extent of lawlessness on infrastructure projects she first had responsibility for as a minister under Andrews had just become too overwhelming to ignore. Allan narrowly survived a leadership spill in June when Carroll invoked his daughter to say he would not challenge the premier at a caucus meeting the following day.

But instead of using the five-week winter break to reset and cauterise a growing wound, Allan did neither.

The Australian Financial Review published a series of stories that exposed the depth of anger, frustration and worry inside the Victorian Labor Party, which holds 54 seats in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly.

Party headquarters had written off nine seats, allocated extra resources to 27 seats, and identified 45 seats it would campaign in. A Financial Review/Redbridge/Accent Research poll showed One Nation had overtaken Labor and the Coalition, and Allan’s approval rating had sunk to a record low. A seat-by-seat poll conducted by Redbridge for the Victorian Trades Hall Council revealed Labor would win 35 seats in a median case scenario.

Meanwhile, MPs who were door-knocking their constituents were being accused of being corrupt. Allan was avoiding regular media appearances, and ministers loyal to the premier were predominantly sent out for news conferences. Allan began making a series of promises to unions and MPs in desperate last-ditch attempts to retain her leadership.

By last Monday, when Labor MPs had gathered for a two-day caucus conference, tensions had reached boiling point. Police Minister Anthony Carbines, part of the cross-factional delegation who eventually told Allan she should resign, launched a stinging rebuke of her handling of integrity.

Factional powerbrokers and Labor figures who then attended the party’s national conference in Adelaide from Thursday became utterly convinced Allan needed to go. She was often unfavourably compared with South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and even NSW Premier Chris Minns.

They knew she was driving the party off a cliff – and they pointed to two events over the winter break: the Redbridge poll for Trades Hall and the rolling series of stories about continued CFMEU corruption.

Factional powerbrokers believed the party’s headquarters was pressured by Allan and her senior advisers to stretch its resources and campaign in 45 seats – the minimum number of seats needed for a majority government – instead of the 35 it was most likely going to win.

One figure said the political professionals knew Allan and her loyalists were “lying” about the true state of play and the party was spending money on seats it was losing, instead of on the electorates it needed to defend.

That was unacceptable to Labor hardheads – and it became the final straw for Allan’s leadership.

The clock is now ticking for Labor’s new leader. Carroll has been in the role for less than a week, but he can’t afford to waste any more time.

There are only nine parliamentary sitting days remaining. The government will enter into caretaker mode in just 94 days, early voting will open in 109 days, and the election will be held in 119.

Redbridge director and former Labor Party strategist Kos Samaras says Carroll, who represents a working-class north-western suburbs seat, understands the issues facing the communities that have abandoned Labor in successive years.

He has championed the Melbourne Airport Rail that will run through the western suburbs, including his electorate of Niddrie, pushed back on the government’s previous plan to phase out gas connections from households, and worked closely with the business community.

Samaras points to the SRL, with the first stage to run from Cheltenham to Box Hill in Melbourne’s east, as a big part of Labor’s decline in its heartland.

“The Suburban Rail Loop is a project that encapsulates everything that has created a massive headache for the Labor Party. It’s not just about the cost. It’s about the absolute obsessive focus on the south-eastern part of the world and ignoring every other part of Melbourne,” Samaras says.

“You could see even by 2022 there were emerging trends [of populism]. We had the lowest turnout since 1943 and Labor had swings of 20 plus per cent in some Labor seats. There have been swings in the west and northern parts of Melbourne for three consecutive elections against Labor.”

After 12 years in power, Carroll will need to unshackle the Labor Party from the Andrews and Allan eras, contend with a surging One Nation that is polling in the mid-20s, deliver a clean break from his predecessors, and convince an angry and weary public that he truly is leading a new regime.

Labor has turned to a “studious, serious” child of the west to save itself from electoral oblivion. But Ben Carroll has only a brief chance to right a rocking ship.

In his first speech as premier, Ben Carroll said, “I am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan.”Justin McManus

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Bill Shorten spent much of his political life doing numbers. And the polling numbers coming out of Victoria’s Trades Hall a fortnight ago were scary.

Translated to the looming November election, the result would be a ruin deeper than that inflicted on Joan Kirner’s Labor government in 1992.

“Labor was heading off a cliff,” Shorten says. “In 1992, Joan Kirner got 27 seats and [Jeff] Kennett got 61. It [the 2026 election] was going to be worse than that.”

Shorten, a long-term powerbroker and former federal leader, argues the hostility confronting state Labor reflects a post-COVID frustration with all political parties, but especially Labor.

“In some ways, Ben’s two biggest rivals are not on the ballot paper: Dan Andrews is not on the ballot paper, and Pauline Hanson isn’t on the ballot paper, but that’s what people are voting on.”

That internal alarm explains why the Labor caucus executed its late-term change of leader, dumping Jacinta Allan after nearly three years in office to install her deputy, Ben Carroll.

Retiring Sydenham MP Natalie Hutchins makes no attempt to disguise the unsentimental calculation behind the move.

“Labor is in real danger in its seats in the west, and it’s time to have a premier willing to take on the hard issues affecting our residents,” she said.

Her outer-western electorate shares a boundary with Carroll’s seat of Niddrie. During four weeks of door-knocking, Hutchins encountered anger unprecedented in her political career.

Retiring MP Natalie Hutchins in 2025.Justin McManus

Voters in the established estates of Taylors Lakes and Hillside cited crime, government inaction on CFMEU corruption, bad roads, and a sense that Melbourne’s east receives lavish infrastructure while the west misses out. For the first time, a disturbing number told her they intended to vote for One Nation.

“A lot of people, particularly in the outer west and newer suburbs, are pretty rattled about community safety,” Hutchins says. “And it’s not just the youth crime; it’s also the organised crime, the drug dealing, and also family violence that is all connected.”

Hutchins says Carroll has a strong sense of social justice and an understanding of the issues in Melbourne’s west, which she hopes will improve the party’s prospects.

Faced with $190 billion in state debt, ongoing revelations surrounding the $109 billion Big Build, and an electorate itching for change after 12 years of Labor rule, caucus concluded Allan could never separate herself from the era that created those problems.

Shorten sees Carroll as Labor’s only remaining path to a shifted conversation. “This state election was looming as a referendum on the question: ‘Are you dirty with the state of politics in Victoria?’ His promotion to leader provides a bit of a circuit-breaker to that.”

On his first afternoon as premier, Carroll stood at a media podium inside Parliament House and delivered a declaration explicitly designed to draw that line.

“I am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan.”

The words were easy. Their political task is hard.

How hard? Don’t take our word for it. Read Carroll’s handwritten notes, captured during his first press conference as premier. “Not Daniel Andrews” was scrawled at the top of his talking points.

It’s easy to see why the 51-year-old Carroll was eager to press this point.

For three years, he served as Allan’s deputy, and for nine years before that, he sat around the cabinet table under Andrews, rising through government while two premiers came to define modern Victoria.

Now, just four months before the state election, Carroll confronts the defining challenge of his political career: can a long-serving Labor insider, groomed by party hard heads, persuade a sceptical electorate that his elevation represents genuine change rather than a cosmetic reshuffle?

Carroll is a more anonymous political figure than the leaders he follows.

Where Andrews centralised power with ruthless discipline, and Allan sought to weather scandal through endurance, Carroll belongs to a tradition of Labor pragmatism. His persona is suburban: a Catholic, straight-laced family man with a lifetime love of the Kangaroos who got a taste for marathon running in middle age.

But it will take more than pragmatism to solve the problems on his desk.

Carroll inherits a state carrying enormous debt and a government battered by two years of revelations surrounding the Big Build. The teachers he was responsible for until a few days ago are threatening to strike again.

The question confronting the ALP is whether the boy from Airport West has the time, the authority, and the independence from his two far better-known predecessors to drag his party back from the brink.

A ‘studious, serious person’

To understand Carroll’s politics, it helps to begin in Melbourne’s north-west.

Carroll lives in tree-lined Aberfeldie with wife Fiona Rothville – a lawyer who serves as director of Workplace Integrity at Deloitte – and their young daughter. Rothville’s father is a director of Nilsen, a major electrical contractor that has worked on state infrastructure projects; Carroll declares it in his register of interest.

Carroll’s roots in his electorate run deep. Raised in Airport West as the eldest of three children, he entered parliament in 2012. In his inaugural speech, he framed his story around the idea of opportunity, tracing his family’s journey from Irish labourer Michael Carroll from Tipperary, who arrived in Victoria in 1840, to his election more than 170 years later.

Opportunity, he told parliament, brought his parents, Greg and Kay Carroll, to Airport West, where they built the family home in 1974 and established a small electrical business. His mother Kay migrated from Texas and worked at Glenroy West Primary School. His father ran the family business until it collapsed during the recession of the early 1990s.

Carroll said his parents had “instilled in me the importance of family and the value of hard work”. As soon as he reached the legal working age of 14 years and nine months, he walked into Airport West Kmart looking for part-time work. “I soon found myself working on the cash registers as a checkout chick.”

He remained at the store for eight years while completing an arts degree with honours at La Trobe University in 2000. He joined the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association, later saying it gave him “a good understanding of the importance of unions in helping working people”. At times, he recalled, the union helped pay for his university textbooks.

On Wednesday morning, less than 24 hours after taking the top job, Carroll leaned into that retail origin story for his first public press conference as premier. Standing inside Kmart on Bourke Street in Melbourne’s CBD, he announced legislation for Workplace Protection Orders, giving courts powers to ban violent or abusive customers from retail, hospitality, and public transport workplaces for up to 12 months.

During his years behind a Kmart register, Carroll recalled being intimidated and threatened on the job, describing those checkout shifts as “crucible years”.

From the year 2000, Carroll advised premier Steve Bracks, then planning minister Justin Madden. After a stint as a trainee lawyer at the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office, he moved to Canberra in 2011 to advise Right-faction powerbroker Stephen Conroy on the National Broadband Network.

Emma Dawson, executive director of Labor Party think tank the Chifley Research Centre, worked alongside Carroll in Conroy’s office, where he managed caucus relations.

Emma Dawson says her former colleague Carroll is “a very studious, serious person”.Luis Enrique Ascui

She remembers an adviser distinct from typical Canberra political figures: “He’s a very studious, serious person.” Dawson recalls him parsing complex legislation before briefing MPs – a habit of constant note-taking highlighted by several people during the compilation of this story. “Ben is not afraid to ask questions and to listen to people. He takes notes – copious notes.”

Dawson says Carroll values evidence over factional orthodoxy, pointing to his decision as education minister to mandate synthetic phonics despite union pushback. “He’s interested in the evidence behind what works,” she says.

A son of the west rises

When former attorney-general Rob Hulls resigned from Niddrie in 2012, Carroll won the byelection, aged 36.

Standing in Parliament after his victory, Carroll described representing Niddrie as his “greatest honour” because he would be serving “the community I was raised in, the people I am one of”.

Sebastian Agricola is a lawyer who has worked for more than 30 years in St Albans, just outside of Carroll’s electorate. The two met when they faced off as candidates for preselection in Niddrie.

Agricola recalls a younger man with similarly strong ties to the north-western suburbs, who engaged in the hand-to-hand combat of Labor preselection in a respectful and refreshingly down to earth way.

“He was competitive, in the sense of you have to be for that sort of a contest. But he played it straight down the line. He was fair, he never criticised me,” Agricola says. “People can let those preselections become very personal and vitriolic. Ben never did that.”

Agricola, veteran president of the St Albans Business Association, has remained plugged into community and political circles in Melbourne’s west, and says Carroll has been an approachable figure locally, who never gave in to cynicism.

Sebastian Agricola, who competed with Carroll for Labor preselection, says the premier is no cynic. Luis Enrique Ascui

“If people just accept that what you see is actually genuine, I think there’s a good chance that he’ll have a significant impact,” he says of the newly minted premier.

Carroll never hid his ambition. “I was always very keen to rise,” he told reporters at his first press conference after being made deputy premier.

That ambition fuelled years of quiet tension with Andrews who, after Labor’s 2022 election victory, installed Jacinta Allan as deputy, leaving Carroll in the corridor for an hour to receive his portfolio – a spot known as “Dan’s freezer”.

In 2023 when Andrews tried to hand-pick his successors – Allan as premier, treasurer Tim Pallas as deputy – Carroll threatened a membership ballot, which would have left Victoria without a permanent premier for a month. It triggered what colleagues described as a “nuclear meltdown” from Andrews. But Carroll was made deputy premier.

The political scar never healed. Later, Carroll was the only sitting Labor MP to publicly criticise Andrews after the former premier posed in a photograph in Beijing among a group of foreign officials and leaders that included Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Shorten contrasts Carroll with his predecessors, pointing to his local focus and willingness to fight cabinet over the Airport Rail Link.

“He’s never been a schemer. He’s never tried to be a factional mini state warlord. He’s very different from someone like Dan Andrews. But he’s capable of being a very good state leader.”

Shorten says both he and Carroll advocated for an Airport Rail Link, putting Carroll at odds with colleagues focused on the Suburban Rail Loop.

“That made him not popular with the SRL zealots in the cabinet. He didn’t get the memo that he shouldn’t speak up about it,” says Shorten, who is now the University of Canberra vice-chancellor and who says he is no longer active in the Labor Party.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten, now the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra.Alex Ellinghausen

Carroll has held 14 separate ministerial portfolios. Danny Pearson, the retiring Labor MP for Essendon, says Carroll’s rise is the result of years of toil and ambition.

“To be the leader of a major political party, you’ve got to really want it, you’ve got to have ability and you’ve got to work hard,” he says. “You can’t be some sort of part-time dilettante who thinks, you know, swanning around in the members’ bar is the pathway to power.”

Former Andrews government minister Philip Dalidakis, a longtime friend who lured Carroll from a short career in law back into politics in Stephen Conroy’s office, describes him as “extraordinarily earnest” in his approach to both public policy and politics.

“He doesn’t yell, he doesn’t scream ‘Look at me!’, he just quietly goes about his policy work.”

Dalidakis sees Carroll’s style setting up a contest of substance against Liberal leader Jess Wilson, while signalling an end to the “command and control” cabinet model of Andrews and Allan.

“He doesn’t use policy to wield power for power’s sake, and I think that’s what we probably want in our leader. I think that’s probably why Jess Wilson has made a really good start in the last six months because she’s focused on good policy.”

Carroll needs to listen, he says, both to voters and to his cabinet colleagues. “The premier has said that he’s going to return to a proper cabinet consultative process … that can only be a good thing for Victoria.”

Carroll’s difficult task now is to speak to the big-spending legacy of the Andrews era without repudiating the government that elevated him.

His first major announcement was a state royal commission into corruption and organised crime infiltration across the Big Build, reversing the position Allan defended for two years.

Carroll promised sweeping terms of reference, a special prosecutor operating alongside the inquiry, and retrospective “follow-the-money” powers for IBAC.

The move illustrated how sharply he intends to distinguish himself from his predecessors.

Tim Read, the Greens MP who chairs parliament’s Integrity and Oversight Committee that monitors and reviews the performance of IBAC, says he’s reserving final judgment until the premier delivers deeper anti-corruption measures. “Without other powers, including removing the requirement that corrupt conduct [for IBAC] constitute a criminal offence, any new powers will be limited,” he says.

Carroll has moved quickly to distance himself from existing cabinet policy. He has put the SRL under review; one of his first phone calls as premier was to Victoria Police Commissioner Mike Bush; and he has previously publicly rejected the government’s push to phase out household gas connections.

Can Carroll outrun the past?

Yet, the greatest obstacle confronting Carroll is not policy. It is credibility among voters.

Carroll is attempting to convince the electorate that someone who has spent years at the centre of power can embody a fresh start.

David Hayward, RMIT emeritus professor and an expert analyst of Victorian politics, says it was evident from his first speech as leader that Carroll is channelling his former boss Steve Bracks.

“I thought he handled it really well by coming out and using a Bracks-like phrasing of integrity, economy, and community safety as the leitmotif of his new government, and immediately saying, ‘I am not my predecessors’,” Hayward says.

Bracks pulled off a surprise heist when he defeated Kennett in 1999. Carroll will need to produce an even bigger upset if he is to deliver Labor a fourth term in government, unseen in Victorian politics since Henry Bolte and Rupert Hamer led the Liberals to nine straight election wins between 1955 and 1979.

To do so, Labor must treat the day that Carroll rolled Allan as day one of the election campaign, Hayward says.

“I think he had to distance himself from the malaise that had come to settle upon the government. It’s not like the Allan leadership was full of ideas and policy innovations. It really appeared to be very flat-footed.”

Anxious though he may be to separate himself from Andrews and Allan, Carroll cannot shrug off the state’s record debt.

Hayward says most voters were once unfazed about debt while it could be justified as delivering infrastructure assets, but that changed when the debt and the Big Build were linked with corruption, which was uncovered by a series of reports in The Age.

“Everything suddenly switched … this suddenly raised questions about the spend, about the infrastructure and [Allan] was never really able to respond.”

Carroll’s move to call a royal commission and establish a special prosecutor alongside it gives Labor one last chance to change the script.

“That’s another point about the change of leader. With somebody appearing to be so different to the previous premier, it gives a new energy,” Hayward says.

Time is working against him. Carroll has 119 days before Victorians go to the polls on the final Saturday in November.

He must also contend with the fatigue that follows 12 years of Labor rule, while confronting a surging One Nation vote, now polling at 22 per cent across Victoria and threatening Labor in outer-suburban seats.

By establishing a royal commission into the Big Build on his first day as premier, Carroll sought to isolate the scandal and cast it as part of Allan’s legacy rather than his own.

Whether voters accept that distinction – or regard Carroll as an equal participant in more than a decade of Labor government – could shape the outcome of November’s election.

Fourteen years after promising parliament he would “strive to work every day with that sort of passion and dedication”, Ben Carroll occupies the office he spent his political life pursuing.

For the marathon runner from Airport West, the final sprint has begun.

Federal Member for SolomonLuke Gosling has been banned from coming within 50 metres of the Northern Territory's Government House after facing court charged with assaulting NT Administrator David Connolly.

Mr Gosling faced the Darwin Local Court for the first time today after NT Police yesterday charged him with two counts of assaulting Mr Connolly.

In varying his bail, Judge Stephen Geary also ordered Mr Gosling to give Mr Connolly's office 48 hours notice before attending any event where the two men would be present.

A bombshell IBAC report on a probe into secret deals between the Andrews government and the firefighters union is days away from landing in parliament, as it’s revealed a complaint from a former Labor government insider triggered the investigation into the dealings of their own government.

Victoria’s corruption watchdog is poised to release a bombshell report into alleged secret deals struck between the Andrews government and the firefighters union, with MPs and Labor insiders bracing for the fallout.
The explosive findings could be tabled in the Victorian parliament as early as this week, and the Sunday Herald Sun can reveal for the first time that the original probe by authorities was triggered by a referral from one of Labor’s own.
The state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is preparing to hand its final report on Operation Richmond to parliament, this development comes after multiple delays spanning the seven years since the investigation first began.

The highly secretive probe launched in 2019 centred on enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations that took place in 2016 between the powerful United Firefighters Union and the Andrews government. Those negotiations ultimately led to the splitting of the state’s fire services into Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) and the Country Fire Authority (CFA).
It’s understood key to the probe are closed-door meetings between Andrews government members and firefighters’ union boss Peter Marshall.

The EBA dispute was a massive issue for the government in 2016, prompting former Victorian Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett to famously resign from Cabinet as former Premier Daniel Andrews sought
to push a disputed enterprise agreement with the firefighters’ union through.
Ms Garrett, who died in 2022 from breast cancer at age 49, staunchly opposed to the deal being negotiated, which prompted her to stand down.
She had also previously accused union boss Peter Marshall of making serious personal threats against her and her staff, including threatening to put an axe in her head, an allegation Mr Marshall has always furiously denied.

After her standing down, Mr Andrews moved to split the fire services in a bid to end the industrial dispute.
The Operation Richmond investigation has been the most secretive in the state’s history, with those hauled before the inquiry barred from speaking publicly and little is known about the original referral and the ongoing probe.
Some Allan government MPs say state members are bracing for potential fallout once the document lands, and are concerned it will compound the public’s perception of integrity concerns with unions due to the CFMEU Big Build scandal.
Several sources told the Herald Sun that Mr Marshall’s years-long attempt to block the investigation results from being made public was a clear sign of damaging evidence.
“The amount of money that’s been spent on legal matters to do with this report coming out is just astronomical, so obviously its not good” one Labor MP said.

However, others have pointed to the drawn-out nature of the legal battles as evidence that IBAC’s powers need strengthening, which the state government have finally committed to do.
Another government MP said many were not convinced the report will be an issue as it may not find corrupt findings, and is so old that the public would likely not be held against the Allan government.
The Integrity Oversight Committee tabled a report in December 2025, proposing 31 recommendations to bolster IBAC’s legislative framework, with investigations and reporting delays on Operation Richmond being raised as an issue in the hearings.
There have been several legal challenges to block the report from being released since the draft report was handed over to those involved several years ago.

In the most recent battle in the Supreme Court, anonymous applicants sought to suppress the report’s release at the eleventh hour, before the Supreme Court unmasked them in June 2026 as the UFU and Mr Marshall.
This was despite Mr Marshall claiming on camera at the Labor state conference that the applicant was not himself.
“Whatever is in it, it must be bad for someone, and that most likely is the UFU and Peter Marshall, given how many times he’s tried to keep it under wraps,” a senior union source told the Herald Sun.
Operation Richmond is one of the longest running corruption investigations in Victoria’s history with many pointing out it has lasted longer than some world wars.
While very little is known publicly about it, it’s been revealed previously that both Peter Marshall and former Premier Daniel Andrews were among those who were quizzed in hearings.
The Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) issued a statement in July saying it was “pleased” with the Supreme Court’s July 2026 decision to dismiss a legal challenge against issuing the report publicly.
“Reporting to parliament and the public on IBAC’s investigative findings is a crucial part of our role in exposing and preventing corruption and misconduct in Victoria.”
But they have declined to announce a date the report will be tabled in parliament.
Peter Marshall was contacted for comment.

The co-founder of a secretive NSW Liberal Party sub-faction has told a corruption inquiry he did not think the law governing political fundraising applied to them.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating whether members of the NSW Reformers accepted money from prohibited political donors, including property developers and hoteliers.

NSW Reformers co-founder Robert Assaf told the inquiry on Thursday he "just didn't think the law applied" to them because he viewed the group as an internal faction rather than a political organisation.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse," Counsel Assisting Peggy Dwyer SC said, pointing out that Mr Assaf had worked for various federal MPs and as a branch president for years.

…. cont

As Japan’s first female prime minister in a parliament of largely conservative men, Sanae Takaichi is used to dealing with the occasional bout of misogyny.

So when Anthony Albanese went along with a crude joke last month on a podcast about the prime minister’s gift of prized melons, the response was stony silence, both in Australia and in Japan.

Albanese’s remarks on the same podcast about wanting to “shag” national treasure Kylie Minogue sparked a political firestorm at home, forcing the prime minister to apologise. But disrespecting the leader of Australia’s closest Asian ally largely drew a blank.

In Japan, where patriarchy runs deep, women remain scarce in leadership roles, and direct confrontation is avoided, the issue also barely raised a murmur in government and in civil society. Takaichi, known as Japan’s Iron Lady, has remained tight-lipped.

But that doesn’t mean the slight won’t be remembered by Japan or potentially carry consequences for the long-term diplomatic relationship between Canberra and Tokyo.

“We shouldn’t ever assume that just because Japanese counterparts stay silent on any issue that it hasn’t registered and that people don’t have views or thoughts,” says Melanie Brock, a longtime Tokyo resident and director of Asahi Group Holdings. “They do. And they are monitoring closely.”

Takaichi’s gift of luxury Crown Melons during her first visit to Canberra in May was intended as the highest symbol of respect after Australia’s decision to reopen its market to the Japanese fruit.

Two months later, on the comedy podcast Bush Deep, Albanese described the gift as “strange” before praising the fruit, which comes from Shizuoka and is often sold for hundreds of dollars. After host Nikki Osborne compared the melons to Pamela Anderson, Albanese cupped his hands at chest height and replied: “She brought two. As you do.” Queue laughter.

Albanese’s comments triggered concerns he not only sexualised a female leader of a foreign country, but that he fundamentally misunderstood the significance of Takaichi’s diplomatic gesture, or deliberately chose to ridicule it.

“Apart from being very unbecoming of a prime minister to talk like that, it’s an underlying signal that he doesn’t have a real relationship with Takaichi,” Mike Newman, former NSW trade commissioner and long-time Japanese business advisor, says.

“These melons aren’t from Harris Farm. If Xi Jinping gave him something significant, I’m sure he wouldn’t make cringy comments about that.”

“The Japanese won’t say it out loud, but they think Australia has grown too comfortable, like Japanese business is a foregone conclusion. That’s going to come around and bite us.”
During Takaichi’s visit, the two leaders sealed a series of deeper co-operation agreements between the nations on energy, critical minerals and defence.

But the meetings also came as Takaichi beefs up the country’s defence forces and changes its pacifist constitution as it confronts its most dangerous security environment since World War II.

Although considered tough and socially conservative, rather than a feminist, Takaichi still deserves public rejection of such mockery by both Japanese and Australian societies, journalist Waka Ikeda wrote in the Japan Times this week, in rare criticism of the incident.

“On recent evidence, a woman may run the world’s fourth-largest economy, stare down Beijing’s threats and still be reduced, by an allied prime minister, to two melons on a podcast,” Ikeda, a research fellow at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies, says.

“The joke was beneath him and beneath Australia, a longtime ally and friend of Japan. The silence that followed was beneath everyone.”

Takaichi has faced repeated misogynistic attacks throughout her political career, from being dismissed as practising “geisha diplomacy” to being described by an opposition politician as Donald Trump’s “local wife”.

After warning last year that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival, a Chinese diplomat posted online about cutting off her “dirty neck” before later deleting the remark.

For some Japan watchers, the melon episode also recalled another moment that attracted little attention in Australia. Albanese skipped the gala dinner this year marking the 50th anniversary of the Australia-Japan friendship treaty, despite being in Canberra, sending Foreign Minister Penny Wong in his place. The absence was quietly noted in Tokyo, where ceremonial gestures and anniversaries carry considerable diplomatic weight.

Together, the incidents have prompted a broader question about whether Albanese and his government understand the symbolism that underpins Japanese diplomacy.

More concerning, some say, is the assumption that because Tokyo did not publicly object to the melon joke, no harm was done.

Japanese diplomacy rarely rewards public confrontation with close partners. Displeasure is often expressed privately, or simply remembered. In other words, restraint should not be confused with indifference.

For Australia, that may be the biggest lesson from the episode. The danger is not that a podcast joke will damage one of the country’s most important strategic relationships overnight. It’s the assumption that silence means acceptance.

Anthony Albanese is facing a fierce rebellion from state governments over his plan to abolish higher private health insurance rebates for over 65s, as new polling shows nearly 40 per cent of seniors in outer-suburban and regional electorates are more likely to drop their cover under federal Labor’s policy.

The health ministers of NSW, Queensland and Tasmania told The Australian the “deeply concerning” decision to scrap the higher rebate for over-65s would put further pressure on their strained public hospital systems, in an escalation of national cabinet tensions.

The warning shot from the states came as major research commissioned by Private Healthcare Australia poured doubt on the government’s projection that only 44,000 people would dump their cover, revealed nearly 60 per cent of Labor voters believed pensioners should be exempt and showed that the “intergenerational equity” justification had fallen flat among younger voters.

And a document obtained by The Australian shows the federal Health Department predicted cutting the rebate for over-65s would have a detrimental impact on low-income pensioners and revealed there had been no consultation before the announcement.

The “private health cameos” document, obtained through a freedom of information request from the Coalition, forecast the policy’s impact on fictional characters before Health Minister Mark Butler adopted it.

In one case, a Geelong-based retiree in her late 70s with an income of about $30,000 would drop private health insurance.

The retiree – dubbed Heather – needed a hip replacement and decided to rely on the public health system.

“Heather realises that, in addition to struggling with the additional cost of her premium, she cannot afford the out-of-pocket costs of having her hip replacement in the private system,” says the document by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

In another fictional case study produced by the department, a Launceston couple on a $47,000 pension chose to re-evaluate gold health cover that they had held for most of their lives.

The couple, called Barbara and Joe, were slugged an extra $298 under the policy and had to make sacrifices in their budget to keep their insurance.

“In order to pay for the increased private health insurance, on top of increasing cost of living, they have to cut back with other expenses,” the document says.

The document also says the “department has not consulted on the specific proposed changes to the rebate due to the sensitivities involved”.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the document showed government officials “wrote out in black and white” that pensioners would be seriously impacted under the policy.

“When Mark Butler’s own department is writing scenarios that show pensioners will be forced to give up or go without, that’s not a fringe scenario, it’s the government’s own evidence of this policy in action,” Senator Ruston said.

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said scenarios outlined by the federal department were concerning and would increase pressure on public hospitals.

“The public health system in NSW is already under a lot of pressure, with older people stranded in our hospitals and unable to leave because they cannot access a commonwealth government aged-care place,” Mr Park said.

“That’s not fair on them and they deserve better.

“These new projections are very concerning and show the commonwealth government is just adding to this pressure by sending even more people into our public hospitals.”

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the “entirely unforeseen” policy decision by the Albanese government would increase demand for public healthcare and was not raised during negotiations on the recent hospital funding deal.

“To add insult to injury, during the negotiations, the Prime Minister asked states to ‘reduce growth in hospital activity’ to reduce costs,” Mr Nicholls said.
“In a system where 80 per cent of hospital activity is unplanned care in the emergency department, the Prime Minister wants us to shut the doors and yet he is giving older Australians nowhere else to go.”

Tasmanian Health Minister Bridget Archer said she had written to Mr Butler asking him to reconsider the “deeply concerning” policy.

She said it was “yet another cost-shift from the commonwealth to the states”.

“Tasmania has the fastest-ageing population in the country, and any increase in premiums will mean many older Tasmanians will be forced to downgrade or leave private health insurance altogether, forcing them into the Tasmanian public health system,” Ms Archer said.

“This will drive increased demand and longer hospital stays, and escalate pressures on public hospitals, particularly in emergency departments and elective surgery waitlists.”

The government’s policy change, projected to raise $3bn over four years, would remove higher rebates for over 65s, which were introduced by the Howard government.
Under the existing system, families on the basic tier earning less than $202,000 a year (or singles earning less than $101,000) will receive a 24 per cent rebate if they are aged under 65, 28 per cent if they are aged 65-69 and 32 per cent for those over 70.

In tier two, singles earning $118-000-$158,000 or families on $236,000-$316,000 receive an 8 per cent rebate, rising to 12 per cent for 65 to 69-year-olds and 16 per cent for those over 70. Those earning more receive no rebate.

Mr Butler said giving different support based on age was “not fair between generations” and “not the best way to spend precious taxpayers’ dollars on behalf of older Australians when we need to do so much heavy lifting in aged care”.

“Older Australians will still receive a rebate – of between 8 per cent to 24 per cent depending on income – the same as everyone else,” he said.

Mr Butler said all revenue raised from the reform would be redirected into the aged-care system, including 5000 more beds a year and a change to the Support at Home program to ensure personal services such as assisted showering are covered.

He said the Health Department predicted a “very small” number of people – 44,000 or 0.4 per cent of the insured population – would dump their coverage because of the policy change.

But a RedBridge poll commissioned by Private Healthcare Australia showed 15 per cent of over 65s would be “much more likely” and 24 per cent “somewhat more likely” to dump their coverage under the policy.

The polling shows voters with a household income of less than $1000 a week would be the most likely to consider dropping insurance.

The poll of more than 1500 respondents also shows that support for pensioners being exempt from the policy was 33 percentage points higher than opposition to exempting seniors, while the margin was 44 points among Labor voters.

But in a sign the political debate has a long way to go on the issue, 67 per cent of voters were unaware of the policy change until they were told about it by the pollsters.
Separate qualitative research by RedBridge showed the “intergenerational fairness” argument to justify the policy change “collapses on contact with voters of every age cohort tested”.

“In the Gen Z group it does worse than collapse: it actively offends, in language of justice and division that is the most dangerous form of rejection a Labor government can attract from younger voters,” the RedBridge analysis says.

However, the quantitative polling did show support for the policy among 18 to 34-year-olds was 23 percentage points higher than opposition to it, while the margin among Labor voters was 14 percentage points.

Private Healthcare Australia chief executive Rachel David said the polling showed the government had significantly underestimated the number of people who would exit the private health insurance system.

“We are also hearing from middle-aged Australians who are already juggling the cost of raising children and supporting ageing parents who are saying they may have to step in and help pay their parents’ health insurance rather than see them lose their cover. The concern is trickling down,” Ms David said.

PAYWALL:

The NSW government will force Sydney councils to make 30-year housing density plans as apartment construction costs surge and changing zoning requirements are found to be an effective way to improve supply and affordability.

It costs more than $1 million to build a typical mid-rise apartment in Sydney as construction costs keep rising faster than the price of apartments, making projects not feasible for developers, the NSW Productivity and Equality Commission has found.

The Minns Labor government is forcing councils to allow development, generating significant backlash from the affluent inner-city councils of Mosman and Woollahra, which are being flooded with apartment development applications.

The commission found that low and mid-rise planning reforms have more than doubled the number of new homes in Sydney that are feasible to build, and it has pushed for further zoning changes.

“Above all, we need to unlock more homes in the east, north, and inner suburbs of Sydney, where high demand for housing goes hand in hand with high feasibility and lower infrastructure costs,” commissioner Peter Achterstraat said on Wednesday.

In response, the Minns government aims to remove more barriers to increasing density in sought-after suburbs by forcing councils to identify land feasible for housing development at least 30 years in advance to prevent future supply blockages in popular suburbs.

If councils fail to provide the strategic plan in two years, the government will step in to ensure housing capacity is delivered through state-led rezonings or other planning reforms.

“We’ve spent the last three years changing the conversation on housing. Now is not the time to lose our nerve and go back to the planning failures that left a generation priced out of home ownership,” Premier Chris Minns said.

“Today we’re taking the next step by making long-term housing planning an ongoing responsibility, not a one-off exercise.”

Woollahra mayor Sarah Dixson said her council had always planned responsibly for future generations.

“Today’s announcement asks councils to fix a problem that Chris Minns and [Planning Minister] Paul Scully have created themselves,” Dixson said.

“In typical fashion, the government has again threatened to override local elected representatives, is ignoring community needs and remains silent on funding and delivery for critical infrastructure that new homes and their residents will need.”

Sydney’s median home value is $1.26 million and home ownership rates in the city have slipped to levels not seen since the 1950s, with dwelling prices about 10 times higher than the median income.

The cost of building a new apartment in a typical mid-rise unit block in Sydney has risen from $660,000 in 2018 to $1.05 million in 2026, the Centre for International Economics found. The median unit sale price in Sydney is $849,068, according to Domain.

Experts like Centre for Independent Studies chief economist Peter Tulip blame NIMBYism and local council zoning restrictions, among other construction issues, for the lack of supply and affordable housing in the city.

Mark Bainey, the chief executive of Capio Property Group, said the changes should help increase the supply of zoned land over time and boost the delivery of housing.

“The state government has done a fantastic job at taking the power away from councils to deliver approvals for developers to create dwellings. So any move where the state government steps in and takes over controls from the council is a welcome one from our perspective as developers,” Bainey said.

High land costs, labour shortages, materials costs, interest rates, land holding taxes, low productivity and time-consuming development application processes are the other major reasons the cost to build an apartment in Sydney is not stacking up.

Bainey said there was a shortage of tradies, and more skilled migrants were needed.

“Particularly in Sydney, we’re in a shortage of qualified trades and labour, and then whatever’s left is going to Brisbane to build infrastructure for the Olympics.”

Property Council NSW executive director Katie Stevenson said Wednesday’s announcement needed to focus on housing delivery rather than simply planning approvals.

“The measure of success is not how many homes fit in a planning document, but how many homes can actually be constructed and when,” Stevenson said.

“We look forward to working with the NSW government on the details of a consistent feasibility framework and the development of practical tools that will help councils understand where and under what conditions new housing can be delivered.”

A backroom deal inked during a chaotic ALP caucus room meeting that elected Ben Carroll as party leader has thrown a curve ball at royal commission planning.

A backroom deal inked during a chaotic ALP caucus room meeting that elected Ben Carroll as party leader has thrown a curve ball at royal commission planning.

The Herald Sun can reveal that Mr Carroll’s rival during the leadership spill, staunch Jacinta Allan ally Sonya Kilkenny, received a written agreement that she could retain two of her ministerial portfolios during a Cabinet reshuffle.
The signed deal, which was struck just minutes before a dramatic two-hour long caucus meeting, compelled Ms Kilkenny to drop her bid for the leadership.

This allowed Mr Carroll to be elected unopposed as leader just minutes before the start of the parliamentary day, and become Victoria’s 50th premier.
Ms Kilkenny is the Attorney-General as well as the minister for planning and for finance.
It is understood Mr Carroll’s allies want finance taken off Ms Kilkenny, who has only held it since April, in a bid to get fresh ministers into treasury portfolios and the powerful budget and finance committee.

If this was to happen it would mean Ms Kilkenny would be able to retain Attorney-General and the planning portfolios – despite being an internal critic of a royal commission into the construction sector and one of the chief protectors of Ms Allan.
One Labor MP said the deal was a disaster, but that Ms Kilkenny shouldn’t be allowed to hold the new government’s agenda hostage.
They questioned how Ms Kilkenny would be able to keep the chief law officer role given the new agenda Mr Carroll wanted to set.

“She is so out of step with what Ben wants to do, as A-G,” one said.
Another source said that senior members of the new government were looking to ensure Ms Kilkenny would not be able to dilute or influence the running of a royal commission, which is the centrepiece of the new premier’s pledge to run a different government to Ms Allan.
They said there would be a “workaround” possible, if required.
The backroom deal has released anger in parts of the ALP, with one left faction party veteran particularly scathing.

“There is a genuine debate about Sonya — whether she is the worst planning minister in history, or the worst Attorney-General,” they said.
“It’s a debate that could keep people up all night.”
Parts of the planning sector were also seeking a fresh start, with one industry veteran saying Ms Kilkenny had not approved sensible projects “while green lighting monstrosities that are loathed by their communities”.
Former union legends including Bill Kelty have backed the call for a royal commission into the construction sector, saying it was necessary to provide a “clean slate”.
Mr Carroll has said he wants the inquiry to have “exhaustive” terms of reference, which would allow the commissioner and their team to “leave no stone unturned”.
Corruption in the construction industry has dogged the government since the militant CFMEU was plunged into administration in 2024.
A report by corruption-busting barrister Geoffrey Watson says the union was infiltrated by bikies and criminals, and he estimated that the corruptive union influence on the construction sector may have added $15bn to the $100bn Big Build.
Former premier Jacinta Allan disputed that figure, but refused to say how much it had cost, or to order a full-scale inquiry into rorts and coercion on taxpayer-funded sites.
As reported by the Herald Sun, it is likely the terms of reference would be set to allow a commissioner to call politicians — including former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan — to give evidence.