The fact that Victoria has a new Premier four months out from a state election shows that Labor is terrified it will face annihilation at the election.
Polling done for Victorian Trades Hall shows that One Nation could win up to 34 seats.
Ben Carroll, deputy to former Premier Jacinta Allan, has taken the reins, showing the party’s preparedness to do the bidding of big business and hoping that’s enough to keep it in power after 12 years.
Sue Bolton, a veteran Socialist Alliance Merri-bek City Councillor and the party’s candidate for Broadmeadows, told Green Left that the switch of Labor premiers “won’t interrupt Allen’s pro-big business agenda”.
In his first media interview, Carroll distanced himself from Allan and former Premier Dan Andrews by announcing a royal commission into the construction industry.
He pledged to run a more pro-business government and take a “tougher stance” on crime — an extension of Allen’s rotten policies.
Labor is increasingly unpopular because, among other things, it has spectacularly failed to offer decent wages to teachers, doctors, allied health workers and council workers.
“These are outstanding issues since Andrews’ era. But under Allan’s watch, they have gotten worse. Labor has not only failed to meet its promises to govern for working families, it has helped One Nation look like a real alternative for workers — which it isn’t,” Bolton said.
According to Redbridge/Accent Research, reported by The Financial Review on July 15, One Nation’s statewide primary vote is 27%, followed by Labor and the Coalition, which are neck and neck on 26%, with the Greens are on 13%.
Bolton said One Nation’s resurgence is also being fuelled by the deepening housing crisis, something the Allan government appeared to ignore.
Data from late 2025 from the Council to Homeless Persons showed surging rents and a ballooning social housing wait list. It said thousands of people have been “forced into homelessness because of family violence and housing stress”. It also said then that 66,000 people were on the social housing wait list and that Victoria had the lowest proportion of social housing the country — just 3%.
Labor’s May budget did not provide long-term solutions for vital services, thereby affecting the most disadvantaged. Uniting’s CEO Carol Jeffs said Labor’s $860 million to build 7000 new social housing homes over the next decade “falls significantly short of the level required to meet demand”.
To make things even worse, the Labor government is continuing to charge ahead with with its 2023 Housing Plan to demolish all 44 high-rise public housing estates. This would be a death knell for public housing and a bonanza for developers.
Sarah Hathway, a former union organiser and the Socialist Alliance candidate for Lara, told GL that Labor’s change of guard shows it is prepared to let “the right-wing media dictate its policies”.
“While allegations against the Construction Forestry Mining Employees Union in Victoria remain unproven, including the alleged $15 billion in corruption payment, the dishonest media campaign convinced Carroll to make going after the CFMEU his signature policy,” Hathway said.
Carroll’s CFMEU royal commission announcement came even though he was Allan’s deputy from 2023. He is therefore implicated in the scandal surrounding the $109 billion Big Build project and the state’s indebtedness since COVID-19.
“Labor has done the bidding of big business in destroying the most militant and independent union. It has cut ‘red tape’, which means reducing council planning powers, and lowered taxes for the big end of town. Allan has no one to blame, but Carroll looks as if he will be worse,” Hathway said.
She said Labor is responsible for the under investment in education, health and the public sector, and it has been the main driver of the laws limiting protest rights.
Carroll, the former education minister, also oversaw teachers and education support workers’ wages going backwards. He was furious when the Australian Education Union voted to reject a substandard pay offer. The current pay and conditions dispute is unresolved and there is talk of further strike action.
Public servants and health workers have also taken industrial action to demand pay and conditions improvements. The Australian Medical Association has recently voted in favour of protected industrial action — the first time in two decades.
Bolton said the widespread anger at Labor is the result of it “putting the billionaires first” rather than working people “who put it into power to govern in their interests”.
“One Nation has no state policies — it is a ginger group for big business. If the polls hold up and people vote One Nation, we will see even more attacks on our rights and services, because it is the establishment’s ‘anti-establishment’ party. Socialist Alliance is standing in the Victorian elections to push pro-worker and socialist ideas forward.”