With a forceful declaration, Ben Carroll brought the Allan government’s agenda to a skidding halt.
“Let me make one thing very clear: I am not Daniel Andrews, I am not Jacinta Allan,” the new Victorian premier said.
This was a clear distinction offered up by the new premier in his maiden speech to journalists and the public. It was deliberate.
With this statement he’s given himself less than four months to convince Victorians that their lives and the state will be different under his leadership.
It’s a big ask.
Allan’s critics often complained she had failed to differentiate herself from Andrews’s dominant reign.
Already, Carroll has put integrity front and centre of his new regime, committing to a royal commission into the construction sector and a special prosecutor to probe corruption.
This is designed to cauterise the allegations of criminality on government building sites that dogged Allan and ultimately triggered the first knifing of a Victorian Labor premier this century.
While he was all smiles after he won the ballot, Carroll needs to show Victorians he is serious about poor behaviour.
Ben Carroll was smiling as he left the chaotic meeting where he was eventually elected as leader. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
Allan’s refusal to act has meant some voters now believe the government has something to hide.
It may mean difficult hearings for Labor supporters with the record of Jacinta Allan and her predecessors potentially coming under the microscope.
But this is all part of Carroll’s message.
“It is clear that Victorians want change,” he said.
“That change starts today.”
Labor desperate for clear air
Carroll is also pledging to be more pro-business and tougher on crime.
It sounds a bit like a Coalition pitch, but one he’ll try to steer to middle and working class Victorians: the communities that polls show have deserted Labor.
It’s also a pitch to return Labor to the type of centrist, Labor right faction-leaning government championed by past premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby from 1999–2010.
Carroll, like Bracks, is from Labor’s right faction, while Allan and Andrews were from the left.
Bracks says Carroll’s immediate commitments on integrity will give him “clear air” to promote his own agenda.
“Essentially he’s really saying, ‘I am my own man, judge me on what I will do,'” Bracks told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.
“He didn’t say he’s not Steve Bracks,” he quipped.
The other spectre that looms is the $34.5 billion Suburban Rail Loop — Allan’s signature project.
Will Carroll pause the project that is eating up billions of dollars? At his first press conference he said he had no announcements to make.
That’s not a no.
Ben Carroll appears at his first press conference as Victorian premier, alongside Gabrielle Williams, who will serve as his deputy. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
Carroll is biting off a lot in just four months. And there’s only three more sitting weeks before Victorians head to the polls in November.
But Labor is desperate. That’s why they’ve acted.
To use Carroll’s own words: “Circumstances have changed.”
Carroll’s ScoMo moment
Ben Carroll will also have to convince Victorians he can be trusted.
There’s a transactional cost of a coup, especially when he famously looked his former boss in the eye at a June press conference and said he supported her because he wanted his daughter to be proud he backed her.
It was his ScoMo moment.
Scott Morrison famously hugged then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, saying he was “ambitious” for his leader before replacing him a few days later.
He went on to win the 2019 election.
Carroll will also have to rebuild trust with a caucus who have been battered and bruised by their first hostile leadership takeover since 1999.
Jacinta Allan walks into Labor caucus meeting flanked by her loyal minister Sonya Kilkenny, who went on to make a chaotic, failed bid for leadership. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
As Victorians waited to hear the outcome of the Labor leadership ballot, those of us waiting outside could actually hear the yelling from inside the caucus room.
I’ve stood outside that party room many times before and I’ve never heard yelling like that.
The messages coming out from MPs were this room is a mess. This is chaos. This is diabolical.
From here, Labor and Carroll have just four months to keep it together.
Ben Carroll pictured after he was unanimously elected as state Labor leader following the resignation of premier Jacinta Allan. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
This isn’t necessarily about winning the election.
It’s about stopping the bleeding and ensuring the party doesn’t get decimated on election day. It’s a possibility many feared.
Allan’s appalling personal approval ratings were a drag on the vote, and it meant voters weren’t even willing to consider Labor.
Carroll is trying to change that by at least being part of the conversation.
The public has shown at the last two elections that it’s sceptical on the Liberal Party’s credentials to govern.
This change may let Labor re-enter the discussion, especially with One Nation’s resurgence.
One Nation’s influence complicates the electoral calculus, with Labor figures believing the Coalition will not be able to win a majority but will instead have to rely on One Nation.
So if Labor can save some of the furniture and be a strong opposition it could find itself back in power in four years.
Ben Carroll is setting himself up to do much more. The clock is ticking.
