TWO years into Jacinta Allan’s premiership, the honeymoon period isn’t just over, it’s a distant memory. What began as a carefully choreographed handover from Dan Andrews has unravelled into a premiership haunted by unfinished projects, budget blowouts, and waning public trust.
Ms Allan inherited the keys to Spring Street with the promise of “stability and continuity.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Victorians got — a continuation of spiralling debt, political arrogance, and infrastructure chaos. Her government has become a caretaker for Andrews’ legacy rather than a visionary administration in its own right.
Take the transport agenda. Ms Allan, once lauded as the “infrastructure queen,” now presides over a tangle of delayed rail projects and cost overruns that would make even the most seasoned project manager wince. The Suburban Rail Loop, her pet project, continues to swallow billions with no clear end in sight, while regional Victorians endure rail shutdowns and service cuts. For a Premier who built her career on transport, it’s a damning record.
Then there’s the debt. Victoria’s ballooning borrowings are on track to exceed $200 billion, with credit agencies flashing warning lights. Jacinta Allan has offered little beyond scripted reassurances, seemingly unwilling to break from Andrews’ spend-now, explain-later approach. The state’s finances are groaning under the weight of past political vanity projects.
On integrity, too, little has changed. The same culture of secrecy, heavy-handed spin, and combative media relations continues to define the government. Allan promised a “reset,” but the public has seen no meaningful shift. Scandals linger, accountability is scarce, and the Premier often looks more like a political survivor than a leader charting a new course.
And perhaps most tellingly, the electorate’s mood has shifted. Once unshakeably dominant, Labor now faces a restless public tired of excuses. Cost-of-living pressures, service shortfalls, and infrastructure fatigue are eroding trust.
Jacinta Allan may not have created this mess, but she owns it now. Two years in, her premiership is defined less by bold leadership than by the ghosts of her predecessor’s empire. If she can’t step out of Dan Andrews’ shadow soon, history may remember her not as Victoria’s first female Labor Premier in decades — but as the one who inherited a house of cards and failed to rebuild it.
But then that’s just my opinion.
