As Allan defends her legacy, the Nationals are preparing to snatch her seat

In the time-honoured all-or-nothing tradition of ousted premiers, Jacinta Allan has confirmed she is stepping away from politics altogether, and will not recontest her long-held seat of Bendigo East at November’s state election.

Speaking at Bendigo Hospital on Friday morning, Allan said the facility was a symbol of her journey, and the positive change she and successive Labor governments had achieved.

“I was born nearly 53 years ago in the Bendigo Base Hospital. It was a good country hospital but if you got sick, really sick, you had to go to Melbourne to get care and treatment,” she said.

“When I was elected in 1999, you could not receive radio therapy services here in Bendigo and there were only two dialysis machines. Thanks to Labor governments, Bendigo is now home to the world-class tertiary hospital we have here in our city.”

While she spent less than three years as Victoria’s premier – a role she relinquished last month – Allan has represented Bendigo East for nearly three decades, after wrestling it off the Liberal Party as a 25-year-old.

In her inaugural speech, Allan made a point of calling out the preceding government for its neglect of country Victoria.

“People in my electorate said to me time and again: ‘The Kennett government cares only about Melbourne. We are being forgotten and left behind’,” she told parliament.

Those same words were turned against her upon her demise. Among locals who spoke to The Age on the morning of her resignation as premier, one of the most common complaints levelled at Allan was her neglect of the regions.

Pam Caulfield said she regretted voting for Allan once, many years ago.

“I wish I hadn’t. She lied to me,” she said. “My family’s never voted for Labor, but when we moved up here I said, ‘Oh it’s different, you know, she’s regional’. But nah, regret every moment of it … Our regional [areas] get nothing.”

Denise McFarlane said she was unhappy with the emergency services levy introduced last year, and felt Allan had not done enough to address cost-of-living challenges.

“I had wished that she had come to the vote to actually get voted out,” she said. “I just feel it’s a bit of a cop-out … though I sort of feel that she’d checked out of here anyway.”

Bendigo East resident Cailah Brady told The Age her biggest disappointment came when Allan failed to meet with locals recently to discuss their concerns following a spate of criminal attacks, including a break-in where her neighbours were robbed at machete point.

“People are scared to sleep in their own homes they’ve worked hard for,” Brady said.

“We’ve never seen her … She was too worried about putting on a hard hat in Melbourne.”

Speaking on Friday, Allan said, perhaps pointedly, that some of the improvements she had overseen “may even be taken for granted”.

“So it should be,” she said. “The people of Bendigo deserve nothing less. But 27 years ago, these opportunities were anything but the status quo. We had to fight for them, and fight I did. Twenty-seven years ago, at the age of 25, as the newly elected member for Bendigo East, I wasn’t the status quo either.”

The electorate has changed in several ways since Allan first became the member for Bendigo East. Its population has grown by almost 48 per cent and is ageing, putting pressure on health services, roads and sports facilities, among other amenities and infrastructure.

Crime is now a major concern among residents, despite the overall crime rate across Greater Bendigo falling below the state’s average, and in some areas recording a substantial decline between 2017 – when complete criminal offence data began to be collected in Victoria – and 2026.

The biggest increases in recorded offence rates were observed in assault, family violence restraining order breaches and sexual offences – up 36 per cent, 61 per cent and 173 per cent respectively. However, total theft and burglary/break-and-enter offences went down by 15 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.

Whether Allan leaves the electorate in a better or worse condition than she found it is difficult to objectively quantify – and ultimately somewhat irrelevant – political analyst Zareh Ghazarian said, explaining that like sentiment around burglaries and theft, perception often trumped fact.

Though being a party leader historically garnered candidates more favour among constituents, Ghazarian said this had been shifting over time.

“On the one hand, they build a statewide profile. But at the same time, they may be seen to be not necessarily serving the local community as effectively as they could, and if there’s negativity more broadly associated with the government … that will then be reflected on the leaders themselves, as well as in their own electorates.”

Path cleared for Lethlean

Until Allan’s resignation as premier, pollsters had Bendigo East pinned as a seat to watch this November.

For almost three decades under Allan, who won it by a convincing 10.8 per cent against Liberal candidate Darin Schade four years ago, the seat was considered safe Labor territory.

But Nationals candidate and well-known local publican Andrew Lethlean looked set to shake things up, throwing his hat in the ring after almost winning the overlapping federal seat of Bendigo from Labor at last year’s election. The swing of more than 10 per cent against incumbent Lisa Chesters – the largest against Labor nationally in 2025 – was acknowledged at the time as a warning shot to Allan, and the Victorian Labor Party more broadly.

Until very recently, Allan and Lethlean had been alone on the campaign trail, with the former making headlines for her surprise door-to-door visits, while the latter organised “listening posts” in different parts of the electorate and covered the city with corflutes carrying his face.

After Allan was replaced as premier by Ben Carroll, Lethlean told The Age that he hoped she would still run for the seat, as he believed healthy competition was a good thing.

But if souring perceptions of Allan had not already pushed voters into Lethlean’s waiting arms, her retirement from politics gives him a far smoother path to Spring St.

It is too late for a by-election, and Labor is yet to announce who it will put forward as Allan’s potential successor for the seat. Ghazarian said any replacement risked being viewed as a “parachuted candidate” dropped in at the last minute to simply fill a gap. He said any candidate would face an uphill battle to build a profile and strong local connections in a short space of time.

While several voters told The Age they would consider voting for a different Labor candidate, the sentiment among most is simple but shared: they are not just fed up with Allan, they are fed up with the government. They want change.

On Friday, Carroll praised Allan’s career, saying that “the best way we can honour that legacy is to continue that work”.

“Labor remains firmly focused on backing Bendigo and delivering for regional communities right across Victoria because we share Jacinta’s belief that everyone deserves the same opportunities in life,” the new premier said.

Bendigo residents said the local issues that would be front-of-mind come November included the deteriorating condition of regional roads, crime rates, underfunded emergency and health services, the cost of living, and a lack of investment in making the regional city vibrant and liveable, particularly for young people.

Broader missteps around construction corruption and state debt have also cut through in Bendigo. Money wasted on infrastructure projects built in Melbourne has struck a nerve with regional Victorians who feel it is symbolic of the state government’s disdain for them. The loss of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which Bendigo was originally slated to co-host, and the money wasted on cancelling was another oft-repeated sore point.

With the Liberals looking unlikely to field a candidate in Bendigo East after Jess Wilson’s endorsement of Lethlean, One Nation is expected to be the only other viable challenger. But, so far, the party has only announced its upper house candidates, and Warren Pickering as its leader.

“The big unknown is One Nation, and you’d think that Bendigo East and the seats outside of the metropolitan area are the ones [they] would probably think they’d be able to make the most impact on,” Ghazarian said.

“Their presence and what they do with their preferences may have a big impact on who eventually wins Bendigo East, but we still don’t know if there’s going to be a candidate, who the candidate will be, and I think that the party [is] shooting themselves in the foot by delaying making that decision.”

The Greens will also contest the seat, recently announcing Michael Tolhurst would run again. While the party has observed a slow but steady increase in first preference votes in the electorate since 2010, he falls far short of being a genuine contender, and has so far been all but absent from the spotlight, as evidenced by his difficulty calling his party’s policies to mind in conversation with The Age last month. Nonetheless, he maintained that the seat was still anyone’s game.

“No one’s a shoo-in,” he said. “There’s a lot of fatigue with [Lethlean’s] face plastered everywhere in town, so I wouldn’t say that he’s got mountains of support either.”

Allan was the first Labor member to hold the reinstated seat of Bendigo East, the first woman to represent Bendigo in any Australian parliament, and the youngest female MP in Victorian history. But after 27 years in the role, finishing with a stint as premier that was tainted from the get-go with controversy, some of her constituents now see her as just another cog in the Melbourne-centric political establishment.

The overwhelming demand for change looks set to secure a parliamentary debut for Lethlean. But if and when his tenure begins, the smooth ride ends. As the publican attempts to hold onto his new politician shine and regional credentials while unavoidably spending more time in the big smoke, Allan will be putting her feet up.

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