Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is facing a potential leadership challenge from inside her own party in as little as two weeks, 7News reported on 6 June 2026, with Labor Party insiders telling the network the Premier is "hopeless and inept".

The 7News report, fronted by Melbourne political reporter Christie May, cited new polling showing Allan is now the most unpopular premier in Australia, with a net approval rating of minus 40. The same polling has Labor potentially losing up to 30 seats at the 28 November state election.

7News reported the party's chances were "made even more uncertain by the surging popularity of One Nation" in Victoria, and that One Nation founder Senator Pauline Hanson would be in Melbourne next week for a ''SOLD OUT'' society fundraiser hosted by the granddaughter of a former Liberal prime minister. The network reported voters were "fed up with government spends, corruption and soaring crime rates".

Allan has been door knocking her own electorate of Bendigo East in recent weeks, a sign Labor's internal numbers may have her own seat in play. No replacement candidate has yet emerged publicly.

A spill before polling day is not as simple as a phone call. Under ALP rules brought in after the Rudd Gillard Rudd cycle, a contested leadership ballot must split the vote 50/50 between the Parliamentary Caucus and the rank and file party membership. A statewide postal vote of party members takes between four and eight weeks to complete. That window now overlaps the entire state election campaign.

The polling is brutal across every measure

The 7News numbers add to a string of historically poor results for the Premier and her government over the past six months.

  • A Roy Morgan SMS poll conducted from 13 to 16 February 2026 had One Nation on 26.5% primary vote in Victoria, ahead of Labor on 25.5% and the Liberal National Coalition on 21.5%
  • 51% of Victorian electors considered Liberal leader Jess Wilson the better premier compared to 42.5% for Allan
  • Over two thirds of Victorian electors disapproved of Allan's performance
  • A Freshwater Strategy poll for the Herald Sun in February gave Allan a net approval rating of minus 33
  • By 59 to 25, respondents told Freshwater the government was doing a bad job running Victoria
  • By 74 to 7, respondents supported a royal commission into alleged corruption within the CFMEU
  • A Roy Morgan SMS poll conducted in April 2026 in Eastern Victoria region had One Nation on 36% primary vote, ahead of the Coalition on 28% and Labor on 19.5%

But replacing the Premier changes nothing on the record

This is a government that has held office continuously since November 2014. Allan inherited the role from Daniel Andrews in September 2023 without a state election. She has never led Victorian Labor to a poll. The list of failures she would hand to a successor is not short.

How Jacinta Allan got to the top

Allan was first elected to the seat of Bendigo East in 1999 at age 25, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to the Victorian Parliament. She came in on the Steve Bracks wave that ended seven years of Coalition government under Jeff Kennett. She held junior ministerial roles under Bracks and Brumby, returned to the front bench in 2014 under Andrews as Minister for Public Transport and later Transport and Infrastructure, took on the Suburban Rail Loop portfolio in 2020, then the Commonwealth Games Delivery portfolio in late 2022.

She became Deputy Premier in June 2022. When Andrews resigned in September 2023, she was elected unopposed as Labor leader after a brief challenge by Ben Carroll was withdrawn. She was sworn in as the 49th Premier of Victoria on 27 September 2023, the second woman to hold the role after Joan Kirner.

Labor has run Victoria for 25 of the last 27 years

The pattern matters because spill talk treats this as an Allan problem. It is not.

  • Bracks 1999 to 2007
  • Brumby 2007 to 2010
  • Coalition under Baillieu and Napthine 2010 to 2014
  • Andrews 2014 to 2023
  • Allan 2023 to present

Outside the single four year Coalition term, Labor has held Spring Street for 23 of the last 27 years. The current unbroken Labor stretch is 12 years and counting. Tipping a leader does not reset that.

The Commonwealth Games disaster: $589 million for an event that never happened

The Victorian Auditor-General reported in March 2024 that the decision to bid for, plan and then withdraw from the 2026 Commonwealth Games had cost the state more than $589 million "with no discernible benefit". Where the money went, per the auditor:

  • $380 million paid to the Commonwealth Games Federation, Commonwealth Games Australia and Commonwealth Games Federation Partnerships to settle the broken host contract
  • $112 million on Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions employee and operating costs
  • $42 million paid to Development Victoria for venue and athletes' village design work, site investigations and early planning that was never built
  • $38 million in employee and operating costs for the Victoria 2026 Organising Committee that was set up and then dissolved

The Auditor-General found the original $2.6 billion business case was "unrealistically low" and that the $6.9 billion exit figure used by Andrews to justify cancellation was "overstated and not transparent". The reason is the part most people missed at the time. The original budget already included a $1 billion contingency for "industrial action and cost escalation". Andrews then double counted that contingency to inflate the exit figure.

Allan was Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery when the cancellation was decided. She told a parliamentary committee three times on 13 June 2023 that she was "confident" the Games would proceed. Andrews engaged lawyers to cancel the next day.

For comparison, Glasgow stepped in to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games for a projected budget of around £150 million, roughly $290 million Australian, with no cost to taxpayers. The Commonwealth Games Federation is putting in £100 million and the rest comes from ticket sales, broadcasting and sponsorship. Commonwealth Games Australia contributed £2.3 million to help finalise the Glasgow deal. Victoria paid $589 million to not host the Games. Glasgow is hosting them for half that, with no public money.

The CFMEU $15 billion finding hanging over the Big Build

A 136 page report by Geoffrey Watson SC, prepared for the federal administrator overseeing the CFMEU, estimated the union had cost Victorian taxpayers around $15 billion across the state's $100 billion Big Build infrastructure program. Watson concluded much of that money "poured directly into the hands of criminals and organised crime gangs". The report also alleges:

  • Bikie gangs used Big Build sites as drug distribution hubs
  • Women from strip clubs were hired as high paid "cleaners" who performed for workers
  • Cost overruns on Big Build projects ran at between 10% and 30% because of union action
  • The Andrews and Allan governments knew about CFMEU corruption from 2010 onwards but did not act, fearing industrial disruption that could halt the program
  • Officials monitored the blowouts internally but "did nothing", intimidated by the union's power

Watson told The Conversation in February that if Victorian CFMEU corruption was scored against other states on a scale of zero to 10, "New South Wales is about a two or a three, Queensland's about a five, and Victoria's about 1,000". His estimate was independently corroborated by Fair Work Commission manager Murray Furlong, who said it aligned with Victorian officials' internal reports of cost spikes up to 30%.

Allan was Minister for Transport and Infrastructure from 2014 to 2023. The Allan government has rejected calls for a royal commission and disputed the $15 billion figure.

56 active fraud and corruption allegations on Big Build projects

The Age has reported that 56 active fraud and corruption allegations are currently linked to Big Build projects receiving federal funding, and that 11 major Victorian projects are facing corruption claims. The Victorian Nationals have publicly accused Labor of blocking the release of key CFMEU documents that would inform any inquiry.

The federal administrator overseeing the CFMEU has confirmed referrals to Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and Fair Work Australia. The administrator has emphasised that the allegations remain untested in court.

Victoria's state debt is now described as "not sustainable"

The May 2026 Victorian state budget projected the state's net debt trajectory:

  • Net debt currently around $165 billion
  • Forecast to reach $199.3 billion by 2030
  • Annual interest repayments forecast to rise to $11.8 billion, more than $32 million a day
  • Cash deficit of $7.7 billion in 2026 to 2027, rising to $8.1 billion by 2029 to 2030

The November 2024 Victorian Auditor-General's annual report on state finances described the trajectory as "not sustainable", projecting debt would pass $228 billion by 2028. The report found Victoria's general government sector recorded an operating loss of $4.2 billion in the 2023 to 2024 financial year, bringing accumulated losses over five years to $48 billion.

Crime: a record year with no end in sight

The Victorian Crime Statistics Agency reported the highest year on record:

  • 483,583 recorded criminal incidents in 2025, an 18.3% jump on the previous year
  • The largest rise in theft of any state in Australia, with Victorian theft up 29% in 2024 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics
  • Motor vehicle theft up 47% in Melbourne, 56% in Hume
  • 161% increase in edged weapon assaults at shopping centres since 2014
  • Youth offences up 33% since 2015
  • More than 24,000 offences committed by children aged 10 to 17 in 2024
  • 70% of carjackings are committed by offenders under the age of 25

Melbourne is now Australia's car theft capital

Victoria recorded more than 12,500 motor vehicle theft insurance claims in the past year, totalling $243 million, more than every other Australian state combined according to the Insurance Council of Australia. Victorian claims rose 25% over the year. Every other state recorded a fall over the same period, including Queensland down 12%, South Australia down 14% and Western Australia down 15%.

The machete ban is failing

Allan introduced an interim machete sales ban in May 2025 after a brawl at Northland Shopping Centre. A permanent possession ban took effect on 1 September 2025. The Allan government spent $13 million on amnesty collection bins. Since the ban took effect:

  • More than 40 public knife attacks have been recorded
  • Four people have died from knife attacks since the ban came into force
  • On 27 May 2026, the anniversary of the ban, a teenager was stabbed in a brawl at Highpoint Shopping Centre, Maribyrnong
  • A week earlier, a 17 year old was arrested at Highpoint allegedly brandishing a machete and linked to four ram raids and arson attacks

The transgender prisoner scandal

A February 2026 Herald Sun investigation revealed that transgender prisoner Clinton Rintoull, jailed in 2009 for the murder of 19 year old Sudanese refugee Liep Gony, sexually assaulted a female inmate at Tarrangower female prison in 2022. The Allan government agreed to a secret payout to the female victim. The amount has not been disclosed.

The government has refused to guarantee biological men will not continue to be housed in female prisons. Allan held a regional press conference in Bendigo but did not invite metropolitan media. The Corrections Minister was sent to field questions in Allan's place. Liberal MP Moira Deeming, who has long campaigned against the housing of biological males in women's prisons, said: "Today my fears were proven sound, and the minister's insults aged poorly indeed."

The IBAC report sitting under a Supreme Court injunction

A report by Victoria's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission into the former Andrews government's negotiations with the United Firefighters Union is the subject of a Supreme Court injunction. IBAC Commissioner Victoria Elliott has publicly called for legislative change to give IBAC stronger powers. Allan has publicly said she wants the report released. She has not legislated to override the injunction or to grant IBAC the powers it has formally requested, despite Labor holding a parliamentary majority.

The COVID class action Victorian taxpayers just paid out

In March 2026, the Victorian government agreed to settle a major class action brought by approximately 1,000 Victorian businesses over the botched hotel quarantine program that triggered Melbourne's second wave in 2020. The settlement was for around $50 million, subject to court approval. Allan and Andrews would have been compelled to give evidence had the case continued.

Melbourne endured 262 days of cumulative lockdown, the longest in the world. The hotel quarantine inquiry never resolved who authorised the use of private security guards instead of ADF personnel.

The four ministers who refused to front Parliament

The Legislative Council Select Committee on the 2026 Commonwealth Games Bid tabled its final report in April 2025 after an 18 month inquiry. The committee made 62 findings and six recommendations. Recommendation 6 specifically called for compulsory public hearings with four ministers:

  • Former Premier Daniel Andrews
  • Premier Jacinta Allan
  • Former Treasurer Tim Pallas
  • Former Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events Martin Pakula

None of the four appeared before the inquiry. Finding 62 stated that "at almost every point, the Victorian Government has not fully" cooperated. Finding 61 noted that Pakula's willingness to give evidence to a Queensland parliamentary inquiry on a separate matter proved he could have appeared before the Victorian committee.

Andrews resigned from Parliament in September 2023. Pakula did not contest the 2022 state election. Pallas resigned as Treasurer on 19 December 2024 and left Parliament in January 2025. Of the four ministers the Victorian Parliament's own inquiry says should answer questions in public, only Allan remains in office and is asking voters for another term.

The record stays whoever is sitting in the Premier's office

A leadership spill does not change the Auditor-General's findings on the Commonwealth Games. It does not change Watson's report on the CFMEU. It does not change the debt trajectory, the crime statistics, the federal funds running through 56 active Big Build corruption allegations, the prison policy, the IBAC report under injunction, the COVID class action that the state just paid out, or the four named ministers who walked away from a parliamentary inquiry.

It does not change a Labor government that has been in office for 12 unbroken years and 23 of the last 27.

This article is the first in a One News Australia series examining the record of the Allan government before the 28 November Victorian state election. Subsequent pieces will go deeper on the Commonwealth Games waste, the CFMEU Big Build corruption findings, the state debt trajectory, the youth crime crisis, the transgender prisoner scandal, the COVID class action and the GST distribution arrangements that have every Australian taxpayer subsidising Victoria's deficit.

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