Jacinta Allan has announced she will not contest the November state election and will leave politics after stepping down as Victorian premier just over two weeks ago. The member for Bendigo East called a press conference in her central Victorian seat on Friday morning to say she would not be returning to parliament. Another Labor figure is out. The machine keeps moving.
Allan has been in politics for 27 years. She first entered parliament in 1999, on the day before her 26th birthday, making her the youngest Victorian woman elected into parliament and Victoria's youngest-ever woman MP. She became a minister when she was 29 and later became premier in September 2023, when her predecessor Daniel Andrews quit politics. On July 27, she stood down as Labor leader after losing the confidence of the majority of her party amid plummeting popularity poll results, discontent in the rural community over the fire services levy, and the alleged criminal infiltration of government construction sites. Her deputy, Ben Carroll, became premier.
Who Holds the Levers
Allan's departure lands after a stretch of internal party discipline, falling polls, and scandal around government construction sites. That is the real story here: not a graceful handover, but a ruling party trying to steady itself while confidence drains away. The public gets the bill for decisions made above their heads, while the party sorts out its own survival.
Allan said she had not wasted a day in public life. "I am proud to say I didn't waste a day," she said. "With each day, I lived the values outlined in my first speech to parliament — quality investments in public health and education, a strong union movement, respect for other people and the role of the community in decision-making. Fighting for decent jobs with decent wages is what must sit at the centre of what Labor governments deliver." She said she had reflected on the current state of democracy as a former premier of Victoria and the state's longest-serving female minister in any Australian government.
"I do not remember a time when our foundations have felt so unsteady," she said. "Social cohesion is under pressure, social debate is deteriorating. The line between truth and lie is becoming increasingly blurred, and it's not just about politics, it's about how we live together, how we disagree, how we listen, how we turn pride in this country without turning that pride against each other."
Who Pays at the Bottom
Allan said First Nations people were being denigrated and migrants were facing demands to fit in while women were held to standards that were not being applied equally. She urged the community not to reward fear and division, fall for fake AI imagery, and not to let the erosion of trust weaken democracy. Those are the people who get squeezed first when public life turns brittle: the ones already told to prove they belong.
Sources close to Allan said she would now be taking a "well-deserved family holiday" and would not be returning to parliament. Allan had raised $200,000 for her local campaign, which she has donated to the ALP. The money moved upward. The campaign ends. The party keeps the cash.
She thanked several community groups for their efforts and support, including Eaglehawk Community House, which provides meals and support to vulnerable members of the Bendigo community, and the CFA firefighters and volunteers, who she said risked their lives to protect others and property. "The kindness of strangers who stopped and thanked me for being their MP and encouraged me to keep going despite the hate," she said with her voice breaking.
Allan spoke about being approached by a Bendigo high school student not long after she was first elected, who asked for her business card. "[She] looked at it, looked at me and declared, 'Well, if you can do it, so can I,'" Allan said. "I've shown young boys and girls that you can live in Bendigo and run the state; that their premier is a person just like them or their mum, and that being a member of parliament or premier is not out of reach because you don't live in Melbourne or you don't go to a particular school."
What the Party Calls Progress
Allan thanked her family, saying there were not enough words to express how much she loved them. She said she looked forward to taking everything she had learnt and loved from politics into her next chapter. Allan did not take questions after her announcement. No questions. No answers. Just the ritual exit.
Ben Carroll paid tribute to Allan on ABC regional radio, saying she had served the Bendigo and Victorian community for 27 years. "She's transformed Bendigo for the better … I wish her every success in the future," he said. In a statement, he thanked her for her decades of service and leadership. "Jacinta's service has always been grounded in a simple belief: that people in regional Victoria deserve the same opportunities as those in our biggest cities," he wrote. "That no matter your postcode, you should have access to great healthcare, a great education and a fair chance at a good life."
Local federal Labor MP Lisa Chesters described Allan as "an incredible friend and fantastic mentor". "She is a great person with a warmth and intellect that puts whoever she engages with at ease," she said. Chesters said very few women have had the opportunity to lead Labor at a state or federal level, and noted the challenges that being Victoria's second female premier carried. "The misogyny and vitriol that Jacinta has had to face in recent times should not happen and needs to stop."
Victorian Nationals leader Danny O'Brien acknowledged Allan's significant tenure. "But frankly, it hasn't been a good experience at the end of the day, from her time as a minister or as premier," he said. "She's leaving the state in a worse position; we've got corruption endemic in the state, we've got our roads falling apart, we've got our health system under strain, crime is out of control."
Former Labor strategist Kos Samaras, now a pollster at Redbridge, said Allan had turned Bendigo East safe for Labor over 27 years of representation. "I'll say Jacinta's legacy is one of turning a historically marginal area for Labor into a fairly stable one," he said. But he said the seat, as well as the neighbouring Bendigo West, could fall to One Nation if not the Nationals at the coming election. Samaras said the leadership change meant voters were taking another look at Labor, but that it was too early to tell if it would be enough for Carroll to hold government. He said it was clear that women in politics had to work twice as hard, citing examples like former federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley.
Allan also announced her retirement from politics on social media. "I was young. I was nervous. But I knew exactly why I was there," she wrote about winning her first election. Among the achievements she listed from her three decades as Bendigo's representative were the redevelopment of the Bendigo Hospital, upgrades to state schools in the district, new local train stations and the establishment of a government services hub in the regional city. "There are no words big enough to describe what this community means to me," she wrote. "It's where I learnt who I was fighting for."
She said that politics had not only changed since she was elected, but she had as well. "I became a wife. A mum. A minister. A deputy premier. And premier of the greatest state in the country." She described her husband and two children as her greatest supporters and her greatest joy. "There were extraordinary days. There were bloody hard ones too," she said. "But through all of it, I never forgot who sent me there — or why. And when I leave parliament, I'll leave the same way I arrived. A daughter of Bendigo. A daughter of workers. A proud Labor woman."