Jacinta Allan resigns as Victorian premier, clearing the way for Ben Carroll

Jacinta Allan has resigned as Premier of Victoria, standing down on Tuesday morning rather than contest a spill she was expected to lose.

Her deputy Ben Carroll is set to replace her uncontested.

Allan announced the decision at Parliament House ahead of a caucus meeting she said she would chair herself to elect her successor.

“After speaking with my colleagues overnight, I have made the difficult decision to step aside as leader of the Victorian state parliamentary Labor Party, and as premier of Victoria,” she said.

A cross-factional delegation including six ministers had told her on Monday she no longer held majority support in the party room. She said then that she would fight.

What changed was the arithmetic of the calendar.

Under rules Labor rewrote after the Rudd-Gillard years, a contested leadership goes to a ballot of rank-and-file members as well as MPs — a process of at least 29 days, with a caretaker premier who is not a candidate running the state throughout.

The election is on 28 November. Labor has four months.

Allan named that as her reason for going.

“I was prepared to put my record and my plan to a ballot of members, as our rules allow. I believe I would have won but doing so this close to an election takes up valuable resources, including the most precious one: time.”

She left without taking questions, including on whether she will stay in parliament. She has held Bendigo East since 1999.

“Thank you and goodbye,” she said.

Carroll, from the party’s smaller right faction, was swarmed by reporters on his way into the caucus meeting and said only that he would have more to say later.

Allan is Victoria’s second female premier. She said she had seen off two Liberal leaders and expected her successor to see off a third.

Newspoll has Labor trailing the Coalition 52-48 after preferences, with more than 70 per cent of Victorians dissatisfied with Allan — the worst rating in the poll’s history.

Redbridge pollster Tony Barry, a former Liberal strategist, said a change of leader does not fix that on its own. He said Carroll would need a significant cabinet reshuffle and a policy overhaul, starting with the Suburban Rail Loop.

“Otherwise he’s going to be completely open to the attack of same horse, different jockey,” he said.

Allan had been under pressure for months over corruption on Big Build projects, refusing a royal commission after lawyer Geoffrey Watson estimated it had cost the state $15 billion.

She went quickly in the end, and for the one thing Labor cannot manufacture before November.