Allan steps aside as premier of Victoria

Jacinta Allan has stepped aside as premier of Victoria, saying it was “the right thing for the Labor Party and the people of Victoria”.

Allan was to face a vote on her leadership at a caucus meeting on Tuesday but called a snap press conference at 9.30am to announce she would not contest the ballot.

She said she was prepared to put her leadership to a vote and believed she would have won but it was not the right call with four months until the state election.

“Doing so close to an election takes up valuable resources; most of all time,” she said.

“It also puts Victorians in a state of uncertainty.

“At the end of the day, I have always been a team player.”

She will now chair the caucus meeting that will decide the new leader of the Victorian Labor Party and premier, with deputy premier Ben Carroll seen as the most likely successor.

“Should Ben Carroll emerge as our next Labor leader and Labor premier, he will have my congratulations and unqualified support,” she said.

Allan served 1,036 days as premier. “Not one of them wasted and not one of them easy”, she said.

She said she was “immensely proud” of her government’s achievements over the past three years, especially in Victoria’s regional cities.

“I am so proud to call one of them home,” she said.

“Labor governments have built up the regions. And today, it means that my kids have the opportunity in their community that I didn’t have when I grew up in Bendigo. That’s what I’m proud of.”

The Victorian election will take place on 28 November.

More to come.