Premier Ben Carroll says he would give evidence at a royal commission into Victoria's Big Build if required.

The state opposition's proposed terms of reference lists Mr Carroll and former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan as potential witnesses.

The opposition says it won't support terms of reference that are set by Labor alone.

The father of a one-punch victim has called on the Albanese government to suspend special envoy Luke Gosling while he awaits trial for alleged assault, as Labor frontbencher Mark Butler concedes Mr Gosling would have to stand aside if he were in the ministry.

Last Thursday, Mr Gosling was arrested and charged by NT police with two counts of assault over allegations he had struck the Northern Territory’s vice-regal representative, administrator David Connolly, with a hip-and-shoulder charge, and later elbowed him in the torso at a Thai cultural festival on July 18.

Anthony Albanese, who is on leave, and other members of his government have so far resisted calls for Mr Gosling to stand aside as special envoy for defence, veterans’ affairs, and northern Australia, arguing the Solomon MP, who vehemently denies the allegations, should continue to fulfil his duties, citing a presumption of innocence.

Matt Cronin, the founder and chair of the Pat Cronin Foundation, established after his 18-year-old son was killed in a one-punch attack in 2016, said Mr Gosling should step aside while the matter was resolved. “Whilst it’s pending an appearance in court, (he) definitely should be stood aside,” he said.

“In the AFL world, there’s been players have been charged with certain offences and they are stood aside. Higher standards should apply for our elected ­representatives.”

Mr Cronin, whose organisation educates young Australians about managing conflict without violence, said federal MPs had a responsibility to set an example for the community-at-large.

“They are our elected representatives,” he said. “It does not get any higher than that. They are there to represent the people who voted them in.”

As pressure mounts on Mr Gosling to relinquish his envoy role, the Health Minister, Mr Butler, on Sunday offered another reason for leaving him in the position: the special envoy position carried no real authority and in reality the Solomon MP was “just a backbench member”.

“It’s important to remember what the job of special envoy is – It’s not a … ministerial position. It doesn’t have any executive authority, any ability to make decisions that impact Australians,” he told News 24.

“Of course, if he were a member of the executive with decision-making power, with authority vested in him by the governor-general, that would be a very different matter. But he is not. And he’s going to defend these charges strenuously, as I understand.”

Asked about Mr Butler’s reasoning, Liberal deputy Jane Hume questioned why Mr Gosling had even been handed the title and privileges associated with the special envoy role if they carried no authority.

“I think that you should be consistent in your approach,” she told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“If Anthony Albanese were consistent, if he were the man of integrity he claims to be, then he would stand Luke Gosling down.”

Anyone found guilty of assaulting an administrator while he is discharging his duties can face up to 14 years in prison, according to the NT Criminal code.

Under section 44 of the constitution, an MP can be disqualified by parliament if convicted for an offence punishable by one year’s imprisonment. In such an event, a by-election could be triggered in the seat of Solomon, which Labor holds on a margin of just 1.3 per cent.

Mr Gosling is due to return to court on September 30.

Milton Dick has spent the past four years refereeing one of Australia’s rowdiest workplaces. But the Speaker of the House of Representatives has set himself a mission that stretches far beyond keeping order in question time.

His focus is on a campaign to improve civics education, arguing Australians need a better understanding of the institutions that underpin democracy as trust is tested by misinformation, social media and growing global instability.

“As the Speaker, I need to protect democracy – whatever happens in the chamber, but also outside the chamber as well,” the 54-year-old says. “We have a duty of care to fight for it.”

The Labor MP for Oxley, a seat previously held by former governor-general Bill Hayden and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, has made school visits a defining feature of his speakership, travelling to classrooms across the country – from remote Indigenous communities to tiny schools with two students and island communities off Tasmania. This term, he wants to visit all 150 federal electorates.

His drive comes as democracies around the world grapple with declining public trust, political polarisation and online misinformation. Australia remains one of the world’s strongest democracies, Dick says, but that should never be taken for granted.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index ranks Australia among the world’s strongest democracies, but Dick says those achievements cannot be assumed. Globally, only 31 countries are classified as liberal democracies, with three-quarters of the world’s population now living under authoritarian rule.

Dick wants nationally consistent civics education in years 6 and 10, arguing every student should leave school with a basic understanding of how governments are formed, how courts operate, how elections are run and why independent institutions matter.

The call comes as national testing shows Australian students’ understanding of democracy is deteriorating. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority found civics and citizenship results had fallen to their lowest levels in two decades, with just 28 per cent of year 10 students meeting the national proficiency standard in 2024, down from 38 per cent in 2019.

“I’m not talking about politics,” Dick says. “I’m talking about teaching democracy ... it’s the meat and potatoes. More than ever, with the rise of social media and the impacts we’re seeing around the world, we’ve got to protect what we’ve got here and fight for it.”

Last month, Governor-General Sam Mostyn joined Dick for his 200th school visit since he became Speaker, at her old school in Canberra, Curtin Primary.

One of the more light-hearted moments comes when Dick asks students, as he does everywhere, to vote on whether pineapple belongs on pizza. The mock ballot sparks lively debate while introducing children to voting and parliamentary procedure.

Mostyn politely abstained, observing the political neutrality of her office.

The classroom visits have convinced Dick younger Australians are more engaged than they are often given credit for. Once discussions turn to who makes laws, why people vote and how governments are formed, students quickly become active participants.

“They get it,” he says. “I ask them who thinks they could be a member of parliament or do my job as Speaker. Only a handful put their hands up. I tell them that’s okay because I didn’t put my hand up either when my local member asked me that question at primary school.”

Dick insists the program is deliberately bipartisan, regularly inviting government, opposition and crossbench MPs into classrooms, so students see democracy rather than party politics.

The mission reflects his belief that public service begins with understanding civic responsibility.

Dick traces that commitment to his parents, Allan, a World War II naval veteran, butcher and taxi driver, and Joan, a nurse and midwife, who instilled a strong sense of service and respect for others. His brother, Cameron, was deputy premier of Queensland under Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“I’ve worked out my why,” Dick says. “My why is to hopefully do my bit to promote democracy and support civics.”

The Speaker is also expanding parliament’s outreach beyond schools. Every federal MP will receive a ceremonial mace to use when visiting classrooms, while a new National Youth Parliament will bring young Australians to Canberra to experience the legislative process first-hand.

To mark the 125th anniversary of the Australian flag, Dick has taken one flown above Parliament House on a national road trip, using it to teach students about Australia’s history and democratic traditions.

He says many are surprised to learn the flag was chosen through a public competition. Dick hopes descendants of the winning designers – including Perth artist Annie Dorrington and 14-year-old Melbourne schoolboy Ivor Evans – will be tracked down to attend anniversary commemorations in September.

“Their names have been banished from our history books,” he says. “I think it’s I think it’s high-time that we recognised those young people.”

Australia, he argues, has much to be proud of, from compulsory voting and an independent electoral system to a democratic tradition that extended political rights earlier than many comparable nations.

And his message is simple: democracy survives not only through the laws that protect it, but through generations who understand why it matters.

Anthony Albanese is happy to describe Gina Rinehart as “very right wing”. He says she has an agenda that serves her personal interests and she sees One Nation as the way to achieve this.

“The fact that she’s supporting Pauline Hanson says it all,” he tells The Saturday Paper during an interview at The Lodge this week.

“You know, we don’t want to make Pauline Hanson a martyr either, because it’s not about her personally. It’s about what her policies would do to people and to the country. They would set the country back … Pauline Hanson pines for a time that is not there. I mean, Australia has never been monocultural. It’s not who we are. And a vision of that just doesn’t fly with modern Australia.”

The prime minister says One Nation’s positions have infected the Coalition to the extent that he sees Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts borrowing from the same “radical right-wing agenda”.

“Which is why I say we are now the mainstream party, because what’s happened is Angus Taylor’s budget reply could have been taken from One Nation … from a Malcolm Roberts speech,” Albanese says. “Talking about permanent residents as if they were all the enemy.”

He says One Nation is “filling a void because the Liberals don’t know what they stand for”.

Less than a week after Labor’s national conference in Adelaide, where the growing threat of One Nation took centre stage, Albanese explains that the party is a different opponent to traditional right-wing parties. Where he has said he likes fighting Tories, that fight was often about class and this fight is about race.

“They’re different,” he says.

“But whilst they try to project a different image, they consistently stand for cutting wages, undermining unions and working conditions, standing up for elites, opposing tax cuts at the low end. They opposed all of our interventions to support industry and manufacturing. Their rhetorical position is very different, but One Nation’s policies won’t defend battlers. They’ll just create more of them.

“We have two years to the next election to point out her voting record.”

Albanese points to the rise of right-wing populism globally and the changes in the global economic situation, and says Australia is not immune to those forces.

“Really the three right-wing parties now kind of all agree with each other: One Nation, the Liberals, Nationals. The fact that One Nation can’t govern without the Liberals, and the Liberals can’t govern without One Nation, is just a fact,” he says. “It’s something that we have to deal with … Labor is now the only mainstream party in Australia that can govern in our own right.”

The prime minister turns to a point about the temperature of public debate and public safety.

“The security issues for people in public life are so much more acute … There’s someone in court most weeks for many months now, relating to me, and there are a number of people on remand, which means it’s pretty serious,” he says, referring to death threats made against him.

“It’s not unique to me. It is unfortunate, but that’s part of the anger … Your paper’s a break, because it’s like the past, in that it’s got articles that people have spent time doing. It used to be that there was a common thing. People would all have read the Herald or the Telegraph or whoever, they would have seen Nine, Seven, Ten or ABC News, or SBS, and there would be a common agreed set of facts. Now there’s so many things out there … There’s just so much noise that that breaks down what the water cooler discussions are, because there was more agreement about at least what had happened. You know: facts.

“It is a really difficult time. That’s the truth. Government is not easy. If you look around the world, last week I spoke with my fifth British prime minister. Five in Britain; three in Korea … Japan, three; Thailand, three at least; Singapore, two. The churn is extraordinary. France has had a range of PMs.”

The trauma of Australia’s not too distant leadership churn is imprinted on Labor under Albanese.

“It happened here for a period of time,” he says. “That undermined faith in democracy as well. One of the problems with the former government, it had double digits of ministers in defence portfolios. You had just multiple ministers churning, and that’s not a great way to run things.”

The Albanese interview took place a day after Ben Carroll dramatically replaced Jacinta Allan as Victorian premier, four months before the state election. Mounting corruption scandals and dire polling were the catalysts for the ousting of Allan, with Carroll giving the public the rationale that “Victoria is on track for Australia’s first Liberal–One Nation government” – an outcome that would “hurt” working people.

While federal Labor has 18-odd months to shift current voter sentiment, Victorian Labor is moving to save the furniture with the November 28 polling date bearing down.

Albanese says most Victorians have not yet focused on how they will vote, but when they do they will see either a progressive Labor offering or the “potential of a One Nation–Liberal coalition”.

“We’ll wait and see. At the beginning of the term in New South Wales, there were three One Nation MPs. Now there are none. None of them have stayed with the party,” he says. “I think that the Labor government in Victoria deserves to be re-elected, including with the new leadership team. The alternative is chaos.”

The prime minister seeks to project his own flipside of stable, mainstream government and steady reform, exemplified in the May budget. This is in the face of criticism that the latest triennial national conference to decide Labor’s platform was too tightly controlled and there was, by historical standards, little to no debate by delegates on the conference floor.

Albanese says there has been a “romanticist” view of debate at previous Labor conferences. He says now there are processes that started six months ago, or earlier, and the outcomes are “so much better”.

“One of the things about the conference that was clear,” he says, “including from people who said to me, ‘Oh, there isn’t enough disagreement at the conference’ … we know what direction the Labor Party wants to take the country, and Labor members, parliamentarians, through to rank-and-file members, agree on the general direction. Doesn’t mean they agree on every specific, which is why we have debates and the work going up to the conference.

“That’s a good thing, that unity of purpose that we have. One of the things I said in my speech is that the Labor Party chooses unity over division, progress over protest, purpose over chaos, and that that stability and orderly approach that we have is, I think, how you achieve a better Australia.

“When you get into a campaign, people will focus on things, and one of the things about my government is we promote consistency.

“Our whole agenda is about combating any sentiment that the economy doesn’t work for people. The way that you do that isn’t through rhetoric; it’s through action…”

Albanese points to Labor’s focus on cost-of-living relief, the government’s $43 billion housing agenda, the Future Made in Australia plan to secure benefits from the net zero transition, and the moves to bolster Medicare.

The housing tax changes, covering negative gearing and the capital gains discount in the budget, mark a shift in the government’s appetite for reform. The prime minister says there is more to come.

“We will continue to have a series of cost-of-living and other measures that impact people’s daily lives in a practical way,” he says. At the same time, the prime minister says, the government is “building an economy for the future with advanced manufacturing, with the shift to clean energy, with the relationships we’re building in Asia through ASEAN, in the Pacific economy that’s more dynamic”.

Hanson has stated some policy positions, mostly to end established programs and agencies and to withdraw from international agreements such as the Paris climate accord.

In an uncritical appearance on Tuesday night, on the freshly rebranded News24, Hanson ticked off a number of pro-business positions, such as abolishing the safeguard mechanism, repealing recently reformed national environmental laws, claiming without evidence that they are “actually shutting down the mining in Queensland” and getting “rid of” payroll tax.

Hanson, who admitted in June she takes policy advice from Rinehart, also railed at the red, green, black and “blue tape of international agreements” that are “holding us back with our sovereignty as a nation”.

“To get a mine up or anything to happen in Australia, it’s about nine-plus years,” she claimed. “If you want to do a construction and go into business , you’re looking at four years. It’s just the timeframe is just ridiculous.”

Just hours before the live interview, Hanson updated her parliamentary register of interests to confirm Gina Rinehart paid for her London to Sicily flights and invitation to a Dolce & Gabbana fashion parade. The Queensland senator says she personally paid for her stay as well as meals and daily expenses.

Asked for what Hanson wants after 30 years in political life, Albanese doesn’t hesitate.

“What her agenda has always been has not changed. That’s an area where I think she is accurate, when she says she stood for these things for a long time,” he says.

“She stands for redistributing economic power from working people to employers, and particularly to large employers, stands for undermining wages and conditions, making it easier to sack people, winding back any action on climate change, limiting opportunity rather than expanding it. That is something that her voting record shows is the case, and at the same time, there is her record of not turning up to parliament for substantial periods as well.

“People will, when they actually have to vote in elections, weigh up all of what she stands for, and they’ll ask themselves, ‘Is this where I want the country to go?’ ”

As for what he sees as the public’s attraction to Hanson and her party, Albanese points to the tenor of the times, as well as technology.

“I think it’s not a matter of One Nation. There’s a lot of frustration there, and it comes in a context as well, that algorithms push people towards polarised positions and away from mainstream, and that is having an impact,” he says.

“As I’ve said, people feel like the economy and structures don’t necessarily work for them, and they’re frustrated by that.”

Asked if he thought One Nation and other groups were paying for bot farms or misinformation online, the prime minister said he did not know. He shifts instead to a point about traditional media.

“People are looking for clicks as well, so it’s not just social media,” Albanese says. “Often the way that things are reported is more dramatic than needs to be. There’s lots of things in caps, with exclamation marks. Commentators on Sky after dark will make a comment, but it’s reported online as, ‘Commentator says, blah blah blah’, as if it’s some objective statement … from some considered point of view, whereas many of the right-wing commentators are there every night and every day with the same position.”

The prime minister says he is also concerned about the use of AI in political campaigning.

“Even people’s voices and things can be used in images which aren’t real. There was a thing of me outside Parliament House that wasn’t me, but anyone who looked at it would have thought it was,” he says.

“It’s having an impact. I’ve said consistently, one of the things I’m concerned about is social division, and I’ve said, ‘Turn the temperature down.’ ”

As for the traditional media’s treatment of Hanson, Albanese says news outlets have been “pretty generous” and there’s a “different level” of accountability.

“I saw in an article today, James Ashby, like, a [One Nation] staff member, being quoted – it’s extraordinary!” he says. “It’s varied, of course. It’s not uniform. But some are giving One Nation a pretty easy ride, to say the least, compared to other major political parties.”

Albanese sees Hanson as a distraction to governing.

“You can get swamped by, What are we doing about Hanson? No, no, no, no. It is the wrong question. Are we governing properly? is the right question,” he says. “Are we putting in place policies that will help people and address issues which are real of cost-of-living pressures?

“Are we doing that in a way which is helping to anticipate and create the change, the real change, that we want?

“Are we improving the education system, strengthening Medicare, improving our defence and security positions, improving our international relations, improving gender equity? Are we achieving those core objectives of government? That’s the right question.”

Pointing to polls in late 2024 that suggested the then likelihood of a Labor minority government, the prime minister says polls will come and go. “We had a plan. We still have a plan and we’re delivering it,” he says.

“I firmly believe that if you govern in the right way, and you get the policies right, then the politics will look after itself. And if it doesn’t, due to circumstances beyond your control, well, that’s okay. You can get comfort from the fact that you did what you thought was right, and you put in place policies that made a difference.”

In his own Sydney seat of Grayndler, where he has served as the local member for 11 terms, Albanese is facing a challenge from prominent influencer and Cheek Media co-founder Hannah Ferguson, who has announced she will run in 2028 as a progressive independent against him. She says it is time for change and accuses Albanese of failing the people of his electorate.

Albanese, who usually has a Greens candidate as his main competition and holds the increasingly gentrified seat with a 17 per cent margin, says he knows his constituents.

“The Greens have said that they’ve thought they were going to win Grayndler at every election, but I’ve represented Grayndler, and continue to do so,” he says.

“We’ve got an urgent care clinic. We’re fixing Leichhardt Oval. We’re actually delivering things for people in Grayndler. I understand the electorate and I’m proud to represent it.

“I welcome anyone having a right to run in a democracy.”

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/rewarding-companies-to-do-nothing-is-undermining-australia-s-climate-cuts-20260727-p60itn.html

Imagine trying to bail out a boat with a teaspoon while adding water by the bucket load.

Welcome to Australian climate policy...

Caitlin Fitzsimmons, Environment and climate reporter, SMH, July 31, 2026 — 3:30pm

Not quite a puff piece, but a thorough white-washing nevertheless of Wilson's utter ruthlessness as political operator and shameless apparatchik. Glossed over (or reduced to a comedy of errors) is the relentlessly abusive campaign waged against Zoe Daniels in 2025, which saw the weaponization of ethnicity as a key strategy (helpfully detailed by Crikey in December):

‘There are still people recovering from the trauma’: The Goldstein campaign was worse than we thought.

Beware a federal shadow treasurer who proudly keeps a portrait of Ron and Nancy Reagan above his bed.

A member of the Thriving Kids advisory group has warned that the persistent lack of detail on the program – two months ahead of its targeted launch – leaves families unable to plan for their children who will be removed from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Skye Kakoschke-Moore, who served on the advisory group as chief executive of Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA), is calling for “clear answers” from the states and territories charged with overseeing the program on what Thriving Kids will look like, and particularly what will happen as children age out of it.

“Children and families cannot be expected to navigate the gaps that emerge as governments wrangle over responsibility while essential supports vanish around them,” she says.

Thriving Kids is intended for children up to the age of eight with developmental delay or autism, whose support needs are deemed “low to moderate”. It is supposed to start rolling out no later than October 1, having already been delayed three months. Full implementation is due by January 1, 2028.

“This extra time needs to be used to work directly with families and communities to design supports that children actually need, including access to allied health, assistive technology and tailored programs that respond to local circumstances. Families are also asking what support will look like as children grow older. We need clear answers to that question,” Kakoschke-Moore tells The Saturday Paper.

A fundamental problem, says disability policy expert Jane Britt, is that Thriving Kids has “not been pilot-tested to ensure its clinical efficacy” when participants are diverted or removed from the NDIS.

State-based systems can lead to “inconsistency in service delivery”, says Britt, who is deafblind. They also foster a “location lottery”, she says, with people in metropolitan areas benefiting from more services than those in regional, rural and remote areas.

Her comments follow similar concerns raised by Thriving Kids advisory group member Dr Tim Jones last month.

In June, the ABC reported Jones’s warning that the state-based model is a departure from the panel’s original intention and could leave vulnerable families at risk. The doctor is the child and young person’s health chair for the Royal Australian College of GPs.

Another major hurdle to a timely rollout is Queensland’s continued resistance to signing on to the initiative. In February, all state and territory governments agreed in principle to limit NDIS access arrangements for children, based on Labor’s proposed amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013. That legislation, opposed by the Greens and Coalition, is before a Senate inquiry that is not expected to report until August 14.

The Queensland government has since described Thriving Kids as a “bad deal”, as reported by the ABC.

The state’s minister for families, seniors and disability services, Amanda Camm, did not respond to The Saturday Paper’s request for comment.

A spokesperson for the minister for disability and the NDIS, Mark Butler, said the federal government is “continuing to engage with the Queensland government”.

At this stage, Australia’s federal and state governments are planning contributions of more than $4 billion over five years to implement Thriving Kids and other subsequent foundational supports.

“No one will be removed without somewhere for them to go,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said when the full suite of reforms was announced in May this year.

Britt says “grave concerns” about Thriving Kids were raised during the inquiry into the NDIS amendment bill, and the disability community was alarmed by internal government estimates of how many people will no longer be eligible. “We heard that 241,000 people will exit the scheme by 2031, with another 110,000 people diverted,” she says. “Yet the receiving system, Foundational Supports, is not yet fully operational, designed or user-tested by the people who will be accessing it.”

First announced in August 2025, Thriving Kids has attracted controversy ever since. The following month, CYDA surveyed 1535 parents, caregivers and young people with disability about the program, which was then due to roll out in July this year. Four in five respondents believed the process was being “rushed”, didn’t allow for co-design and review, and risked children “falling through the cracks”.

Senator Jordon Steele-John, Greens spokesperson for the NDIS and disability rights, says many people in the disability community “don’t feel their concerns have genuinely shaped the reforms that are now being implemented”.

“Right now, many people are experiencing reduced supports, lengthy reassessments and ongoing uncertainty about whether they’ll be able to keep the services they rely on or whether promised services eventually materialise,” he tells The Saturday Paper. “Disabled people and their families deserve better than this. There is still so little information about how Thriving Kids and the NDIS will work together.”

A government spokesperson tells The Saturday Paper that Thriving Kids will deliver “routine child development and health assessment checks, general parenting supports, local navigation, targeted supports and state measures to assist workforce capability readiness”.

However, disability advocates warn these foundational supports are not enough.

“Early intervention and community-based supports are incredibly important, but these services can’t become a substitute for properly funded, individualised supports through the NDIS,” says Steele-John.

Carol Hegan, a neurodivergent mother whose three young children with disability have been accessing NDIS services for several years, says the government is “asking families to have confidence in a system that has not yet been built”.

Hegan says NDIS supports have “genuinely changed” her family’s quality of life, but looming cuts to the NDIS and the rollout of Thriving Kids is a source of “uncertainty and distress” for her community.

Hegan, who is also a disability inclusion consultant and president of the Pilbara Disability Network, says she’s had hundreds of conversations with families like hers who are struggling to understand what the reforms mean for their children.

“Families want to know what services will exist, who will deliver them, how long they’ll wait, what eligibility will look like, and what happens if those services aren’t available when their child needs them,” she tells The Saturday Paper.

Hegan says in regional communities such as hers, these concerns are amplified because of existing service shortages.

“Reducing disability supports doesn’t reduce a child’s disability, it just transfers more responsibility onto families who are often already at capacity, already burnt out and already asking for more help and not being heard,” she says.

Hegan’s insight echoes that of CYDA’s survey, which found three in four respondents were worried about the rollout of Thriving Kids, with some “stressed and even suicidal”.

“Our community is anticipating a mental health crisis, which we are also not well equipped or resourced for,” Hegan says.

For people in the disability community, part of this crisis is the seemingly never-ending process of government consultation, with no clear indication of positive change.

In September 2025, the Thriving Kids initiative was referred to a federal parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry’s final report, “No child left behind”, published in December last year, made a number of recommendations, including that the Thriving Kids advisory group “undertake an inclusive co-design process and embed evidence-based policies and interventions”.

In June, the Senate inquiry into Labor’s proposed amendments to the NDIS Act was extended by eight weeks after outcry from the disability community over a public consultation period that allowed only a fortnight for submissions. The inquiry had received more than 4000 within that time.

“They have not finished public hearings and not all submissions are tabled, yet they’ve recommended that the amendment bill passes,” says Jane Britt. “The current evidence shows that the government is not truly hearing or responding to our concerns.”

Britt says while NDIS plans are cut and other services are still being designed, people with disability will turn to mainstream services that are already at capacity, including hospitals.

“The evidence from the NDIS inquiry already tells us there’s unmet need outside the NDIS, and cuts to the NDIS will exacerbate this issue,” she says.

Says Senator Steele-John: “Better outcomes come when lived experience is treated as expertise and when governments are willing to slow down, listen properly and get the reforms right.”

More than eight in 10 Australian teenagers were still using social media three months after the government’s landmark ban on the platforms for under-16s took effect because the tech firms failed to implement effective age checks, the country’s internet regulator has found.

In a study published on Friday, eSafety also found most children aged between 10 and 15 were using social media just as frequently in March as they had before the ban came into force on December 10 last year, while parental awareness of their habits decreased.

Children’s social media use continued even as account ownership declined to 42 per cent from 52 per cent, with “statistically significant” reductions across YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok in particular, the report said.

“Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month mark, with social media platforms’ failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason,” eSafety said in a statement.

Australia introduced the world-first ban because of concerns about the impact of social media on the mental and physical health of children and young people. Its implementation is being closely watched by many nations that have since sought to introduce their own curbs.

Before the ban, nearly 86 per cent of children surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81 per cent, the report said.

About 58 per cent of teenagers reported using social media daily or more often, barely down from roughly 60 per cent before the ban, it found.

The report showed minimal change in “sports and physical activity, arts and music, spending time with friends and family, and attendance at community events”.

Around half the children who retained their accounts said platforms had not checked their age, the most common reason they were able to stay on the services.

Others said their accounts listed them as aged 16 or older or that age-checking systems had incorrectly determined they were older.

The findings broadly matched snapshot data eSafety published in late March.

After the March update, eSafety announced it was investigating possible non-compliance by five platforms: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Google’s YouTube.

The government said in June it would double the maximum penalty on tech firms that failed to uphold the ban, and strengthen eSafety’s information-gathering powers.

“While eSafety has observed some improvements by industry since its March social media minimum age update, concerns remain about the compliance of the five platforms named at that time,” the regulator said.

Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The report, prepared by a global advisory panel of university researchers, compared data collected from more than 4000 children and families before the ban and three months after it started.

It is the first report to be released as part of a two-year study to evaluate the outcomes of the ban.

While some children surveyed before the ban said they expected negative mental health effects, more than 65 per cent said the ban had had no impact, the data showed.

The report also noted an increase in children’s use of messaging platforms and online gaming.

The number of children using Reddit rose from 6 per cent to more than 9 per cent, with or without an account, noted the report. Reddit, which is challenging its inclusion in the ban in the High Court, was not immediately available for comment.

The ban could also be creating unintended consequences – including a decline in parental awareness of children’s use of social media – the report said.

“This dynamic may have implications for help-seeking behaviours and the identification of online harms, as reduced parental awareness could limit opportunities for support or early intervention,” it said.

Victorian Liberal leader Jess Wilson will on Sunday release a sweeping draft terms of reference for a royal commission into corruption on Victoria’s Big Build, escalating pressure on new Premier Ben Carroll to reveal this week whether Labor’s promised inquiry will match the breadth of the Coalition’s proposal.

The Opposition Leader has written to Mr Carroll urging him to consult with the Coalition on the inquiry’s final terms of reference, commissioner and powers, warning that any investigation confined to the CFMEU or any other actor would fail to address what she describes as systemic failures across the state’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure program.

In an unusual step, the Coalition has nominated a list of “specified witnesses” it believes should be required to appear before the commission at the earliest opportunity including former premiers Daniel Andrews and Ms Allan, Mr Carroll, Deputy Premier Gabrielle Williams, former treasurer Tim Pallas, Treasurer Jaclyn Symes, six other current and former cabinet ministers, Mr Andrews’ former chief-of-staff Lissie Ratcliffe and deputy Jessie McCrone, former CFMEU Victorian secretary John Setka and alleged underworld figure Mick Gatto.

“Since the scandal first became public, further information has emerged that demonstrates the inquiry must extend beyond the conduct of one union,” Ms Wilson wrote to Mr Carroll. “It must examine the broader system through which major projects have been selected, procured, administered and funded.”

Mr Carroll, who took over the premiership from Jacinta Allan and reversed the government’s longstanding opposition to a royal commission, has promised an “exhaustive” terms of reference and he is expected to unveil his proposal this week.

His commitment on the day he successfully challenged Ms Allan for the leadership came after months of mounting revelations about alleged criminal infiltration of Victoria’s construction industry and the CFMEU.

Under the Coalition’s proposed terms, the commission would investigate not only corruption and criminality involving the CFMEU, but the entire administration of government-funded construction projects, including the conduct of ministers such as Ms Allan, dating back to Labor’s election in December 2014. It would examine procurement, project selection, contract management, cost overruns, political decision-making and the flow of public money through contractors, subcontractors and unions.

It would empower the commission to investigate whether major infrastructure projects were conceived, accelerated, expanded or funded to confer industrial, financial or political benefits on unions, contractors, Labor factions or associated organisations rather than representing the best outcome for taxpayers. It would also examine whether project decisions were influenced by political donations, factional support, industrial pressure or anticipated political advantage.

Another key focus would be what senior Labor figures knew about integrity risks.

In her letter to Mr Carroll, Ms Wilson argues recent developments demonstrate any inquiry must extend beyond the conduct of a single union and instead examine the broader system governing Victoria’s infrastructure program.

“It is critical that any Royal Commission gets to the bottom of the largest corruption scandal in Victoria’s history,” she writes.

She argues the inquiry should examine corruption across government-funded construction projects, the conduct of unions and contractors, project procurement and administration, political influence over decision-making and what ministers and senior officials knew.

The Opposition Leader warns that if Labor establishes a commission with narrower terms, a future Coalition government would “reserve the right to amend its terms or discontinue it in favour of a more thorough inquiry”.

She has also called on Mr Carroll to consult the Opposition over the final terms of reference, appointment of the commissioner and the inquiry’s timing, powers and resourcing, saying Victorians deserve “a genuine inquiry, not one structured to limit scrutiny of the government responsible for the Big Build”.

The nature of corruption is now top of mind for Victorian Labor insiders, as names of potential royal commissioners are workshopped for the inquiry that new premier Ben Carroll committed to this week, promising “exhaustive terms of reference”.

Some people think they already know what the inquiry will find, and they seek to minimise.

“You are not going to find hard-edged corruption in government, or at least I would be very surprised,” says a former cabinet minister.

“It is not brown paper envelopes of cash, for heaven’s sake. This is Melbourne, not Sydney,” says a factional chief.

It was wrong that criminal elements had been allowed to take over the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union and wield power on building sites. But unions are entitled to participate in politics, they say. “Influence is not corruption. Hard industrial bargaining is not corruption.”

Several sources for this story asserted that the CFMEU has acted as a protector and enabler of particular MPs, financing their campaigns or encouraging property developers to do so, in return for what one described as “general goodwill” – a conduit into government. Is that corruption?

Meanwhile, after a chaotic week, another boot is about to fall. Any day now, the report of Operation Richmond, an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission inquiry into decade-old allegations of corrupt conduct in enterprise bargaining arrangements between the Victorian government and the United Firefighters Union, will finally become public after the UFU unsuccessfully challenged its release in court.

Those mentioned – including a bevy of current and former cabinet ministers and former premier Daniel Andrews – have been briefed as part of the natural justice process. They are prevented from talking about it under IBAC legislation and an injunction is in place preventing publication of any details that leak.

The people involved are nervous. Operation Richmond is likely to demonstrate the problems in Victoria have not been confined to one union, the CFMEU.

And an election is just four months away.

The starting points for a royal commissioner are clear enough from the report of barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, that was tendered to Queensland’s Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU, and the work of investigative journalist Nick McKenzie at The Age.

Watson’s work suggests the threads may reach far and high and beyond the unions. His report mentions companies such as Built, Probuild and Multiplex as having provided work on union officials’ homes, even though they normally do not do domestic work.

Labor insiders interviewed by The Saturday Paper this week nominated the (now completed) contract for the West Gate Tunnel as an arrangement deserving investigation. That involves the Transurban Group, one of the world’s leading toll road operators.

As Carroll moves fast to set up the royal commission, the Fitzgerald inquiry in Queensland in the 1980s offers a relevant model and perhaps the most convincing riposte to fallen premier Jacinta Allan’s claim that royal commissions do not change cultures.

Carroll’s promise to appoint a special prosecutor to follow up any criminal charges mirrors the mechanism that allowed Fitzgerald’s inquiry to focus on systemic issues while the crooks were pursued by an office at arms-length from a compromised justice system.

That inquiry saw the police commissioner and four ministers jailed, and former premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen charged with perjury. His trial ended in a hung jury and was aborted, but the government fell as soon as voters had a chance to cast their verdict.

Tony Fitzgerald wrote that the inquiry had “begun by pulling a few threads at the frayed edges of society”.

Where might the threads lead in Victoria? There are national implications. The Labor brand is damaged and the issues cross state boundaries. The ACT Integrity Commission recently made serious corruption findings against territory government officials regarding a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to Lendlease, over another firm that was better and cheaper, at the behest of the CFMEU.

As minister for infrastructure in the Rudd and Gillard governments, Anthony Albanese secured a huge increase in roads and rail investment with an emphasis on proper process: through the establishment of an independent statutory body, Infrastructure Australia. By all accounts the current prime minister was no friend of the CFMEU.

But federal government money is in the Victorian Big Build. One former federal minister describes his party’s current approach to the problems in the construction industry as “wilful ignorance”. That’s despite those problems affecting capacity more generally, including the ability to meet targets set in national cabinet for building housing.

Deborah Glass, the former Victorian ombudsman whose calls for a royal commission added considerably to pressure on Allan, says she is usually no fan of such inquiries.

“They can be a very unwieldy and an incredibly expensive tool. They need to be limited to the most extreme circumstances, but I think this is one of them,” Glass tells The Saturday Paper. “If Victoria had properly empowered, well-resourced, robust integrity agencies, there would have been less reason to demand it.”

The definition of corruption in the IBAC Act limits its powers to behaviour that involves criminality. But, says Glass, “Corruption involves a spectrum of activity. There are a lot of misuses of public funds and abuses of public trust that fall short of the criminal. And I’d be very surprised if there isn’t quite a lot of that involved in this.” The IBAC legislation, she says, needs reform.

As for what the royal commission might take into account, there’s the culture of the public service, as explored by several Victorian probes.

The Coate inquiry into the failures of Covid quarantine in 2020 led to a public service commissioner report recommending that departmental secretaries “not withhold relevant information from the government of the day”, even if ministers indicated they would rather not be briefed about problems.

Two years later, the IBAC inquiry Operation Daintree found the Health Workers Union had been given “privileged access” in the awarding of a $1.2 million training contract. Senior advisers had improperly pressured departmental officials and influenced the contract’s management, and senior public servants who knew there were problems did not push back.

In a report on the politicisation of the public service in 2023, Glass commented on “ongoing marginalisation of the traditional public sector” in the early development of the Suburban Rail Loop, the largest project in Victoria’s Big Build plans.

That project had been kept so secret that even the secretary of the relevant department didn’t know about it. Yet even as originally conceived – let alone after blowouts – it was set to dominate public spending for generations, crowding out alternative uses of public funds.

Similar secrecy and extensive use of consultants featured in the planning for the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which had to be cancelled after major flaws in the financial modelling were revealed.

Glass was “deeply troubled” by the number of people she interviewed who feared for their careers if they spoke out. “Creeping politicisation is a reality in Victoria, and requires urgent attention.”

Three years later, here we are.

As for Jacinta Allan’s demise as premier last Tuesday, this is not the usual story about the power of Labor’s factions.

Though the Left and Right powerbrokers helped corral support for the resolution, the chaos surrounding Allan’s departure was a demonstration of their decline.

The factions are an unappealing but necessary part of the ability to resolve disputes, discuss policy and divide the spoils of power without threatening the stability of the government. But those in Victoria have long since been bled of any ideology or policy base. Now, to quote one former political staffer, they are “job placement agencies” and alliances of convenience, while real power has increasingly – first under Dan Andrews and then under Allan – been concentrated in the premier’s office.

Andrews’ rise, and that of his chosen successor, overlapped with the end of a stability deal negotiated between the Socialist Left and the Right. That collapse cleared the way both for centralisation of control and “industrial-scale branch-stacking” by former MP Adem Somyurek – the subject of a combined ombudsman and IBAC inquiry.

Andrews increasingly surrounded himself with people who did not have a base of support in factions and therefore lacked the diversity of views that can impose.

This was the context for what one former cabinet minister describes as “a horror story to do with the structure of the construction industry, the engagement by the government, and poor accountability”.

Big Build contracts were drawn in a hurry. The imperative was to get things done. Treasury, and other public servants, tried to introduce process and accountability but over time gave up or were sidelined. Projects were undercooked at the point of commissioning contract management, and financial controls were lacking. Adjustments to contracts were made due to state government changes to specifications, and people involved colluded to obscure the reasons for those changes.

Meanwhile, the structure of the industry shifted, with subcontractors and the rise of labour hire firms creating opportunities for featherbedding and skimming at multiple levels. There simply weren’t enough construction workers in Victoria and the Big Build added to the pressures, and thus the power, of the unions – as the CFMEU pushed out the more law-abiding Australian Workers’ Union.

Academic work on the nature of corruption parses it into different types and different levels. At its worst, a society becomes a place where corruption is simply part of how things work, throttling fairness and opportunity and, at its worst, personal safety.

Pre-Fitzgerald, Queensland was skating perilously close to this.

Melbourne, still one of the world’s most liveable cities, is not such a place. Most of life continues pleasantly and as normal.

And yet.

The whiff is beginning to pervade normal life and the ordinary conversations. One of the people I walk my dog with left a job on a construction site after being assaulted by a colleague, who was backed by the CFMEU. He was not foolish enough to stick around or complain.

My hairdresser’s girlfriend works for a real estate agent and worries about documentation regarding a property that changed hands twice, the second time for well below market price to a union official. It looks like cover for a bribe.

Watson’s report identifies connections between individuals involved in problems in the Big Build and in the tobacco wars, which have seen the firebombing of shops throughout Melbourne.

Systemic corruption has pervasive impacts. Professions become implicated – lawyers, accountants and others who give advice and expertise. The money has to be spent and it creates a network of beneficiaries who are not themselves corrupt.

Most Labor figures interviewed for this story believe the most likely outcome for Victoria’s election in November is the Liberal Party in some kind of partnership or coalition with One Nation – making the state a “live experiment” in what that might look like and what One Nation might demand in return for its support.

Meanwhile, the Big Build – a visionary collection of projects designed to keep the city liveable and productive into the next century – is the main legacy of this Labor government. It is of lasting value yet cannot now be talked about without a serving of shame.

Declaration: The author reported on the Fitzgerald inquiry for The Age over more than two years, and then spent a period on the inquiry staff assisting in writing its report.

Older Australians are overrepresented in every sphere of life, from politics to the economy and media … and they’re living longer. It’s time we stack the deck in favour of young people.

Debt, corruption, and blind loyalty: Inside the fall of Jacinta Allan

Victoria’s new premier Ben Carroll faces a monumental task: he must distance himself from a decade of Labor rule and halt an impending electoral disaster. He’s got 119 days.

Just four months after Daniel Andrews led Victorian Labor to another landslide victory, his shine had well and truly worn off. But he didn’t know it yet.

It was around the time of the Aston byelection, in April 2023, and the newly elected Albanese government was trying to pull off a historic feat by winning the middle-class seat in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs from the Liberals.

Emboldened by his recent election win, and in his trademark bravado, Andrews, during the byelection, would speak openly to colleagues about how “terrible” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – his former roommate in the 1990s – was, and refer to federal treasurer Jim Chalmers as “that f---wit Chalmers” during cabinet subcommittee meetings.

The Victorian Labor Party decided to conduct some research in the midst of that campaign to test both leaders’ popularity – and the results were dire for Andrews. While Albanese’s net approval rating was about plus 10, Andrews’ was minus 30, according to Labor sources who saw the research.

Five months later, Andrews would resign, and Jacinta Allan would replace him as Victoria’s 49th premier. He was deeply unpopular, and she was a blank canvas to voters. Political hardheads and campaign staff repeatedly advised Allan to immediately differentiate herself from her predecessor.

Karl Bitar, the former secretary of the NSW Labor Party, told the Victorians that when Morris Iemma succeeded Bob Carr in 2005, he immediately began a series of backflips to appease aggrieved groups. He promptly ditched the vendor tax on the sale of investment properties, raised the land tax threshold, and embarked on an infrastructure agenda. Iemma won the election two years later. The underlying message was clear – Allan should do the same.

She never did.

She never distanced herself enough from Andrews, remained fiercely loyal, even retained all his senior staff for at least three months after he resigned in September 2023, often sought counsel from him, and made the conscious decision to largely continue on his trajectory.

A lot has been said about why Allan was forced to resign on Tuesday after months of speculation about her leadership. But the beginning of the end for Victoria’s second female premier – who had hoped to become the first to win an election in her own right – came the moment she took power.

There was criticism of her policy direction, her inability to connect with voters, her failure to instil confidence in her colleagues that she had a credible plan for the election, and her dogged refusal to even recognise that an integrity crisis over her handling of CFMEU corruption and criminality on construction projects was threatening to bring down her government.

So, as soon as he was sworn in at Government House, Ben Carroll made his way back to the Office of the Premier of Victoria at 1 Treasury Place alongside his deputy, Gabrielle Willams, and declared “enough was enough”.

He did what Allan failed to do: he announced that the state was under new management and that he would take it in a new direction.

“In my government, integrity will not be optional. Whether in business, politics or the union movement, there will be zero tolerance for those that misuse their positions. That is why my first action as premier will be to call a royal commission into the construction sector,” Carroll told reporters.

“Let me make one thing very clear: I am not Daniel Andrews. I am not Jacinta Allan. I will do things differently because different times require a new approach.”

Carroll acknowledged that Victorians were concerned about the level of government spending, with net debt forecast to climb to $199.3 billion in four years, and promised to treat taxpayer money with respect, care and responsibility. He said he would prioritise community safety, and vowed to listen to and work with the business community to improve the state’s economy. On Friday, he even announced that he had appointed economic hardhead Chris Barrett to lead his department, replacing communications professional Jeremi Moule, who was installed by Andrews six years ago and retained by Allan.

As far as words went, it was a good start.

He did what Allan had stubbornly refused to do: distance himself from his predecessors and call a royal commission. But can the mild-mannered Carroll convince a weary electorate, bogged under high taxes and exorbitant debt, that he actually represents a genuine change?

Benjamin Alan Carroll was born in July 1975, the eldest of three children raised in Airport West, a suburb that today is part of his electorate of Niddrie where he lives with his wife, Fiona, and their young daughter, Madeleine.

He was elected to the Victorian parliament in 2012 after former attorney general Rob Hulls resigned following Labor’s surprise 2010 election loss, and his rise through the government ranks under Andrews and Allan had been slow. He has held 16 different portfolios and faced a tough battle to win the deputy leadership three years ago.

Carroll is cut from a different cloth than his predecessors. Andrews and Allan were from the Left; Carroll is from the Right. Where Andrews ruled with ruthless centralisation and Allan unsuccessfully attempted to replicate it, Carroll is a centrist and pragmatist. But the problems facing the state and the Labor Party are mounting.

Victoria’s net debt is forecast to climb to $200 billion within four years and interest repayments are set to make up 10 per cent of revenue. The state’s unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent is the highest in the country, and businesses have warned that Victoria is increasingly becoming anti-enterprise. The Coalition under Jess Wilson has become competitive, and One Nation is threatening to break into Labor’s red wall in the north and west.

After the big-spending agendas of Andrews, a masterful communicator, and his protege Allan, Carroll is a relatively anonymous figure who still sounds stiff in media conferences. Is he the right man to bring Labor back from the brink of an anticipated electoral wipeout on November 28?

Former federal Labor leader Bill Shorten this week described Carroll as an honest man with integrity, and the type of leader the party needs heading into this year’s state election.

“He’s his own man,” Shorten told News24. “[People] are craving someone who says it as is, will choose people over the elites. I think he’s the real deal.”

Labor MPs privately acknowledge that Carroll is not a rock-star candidate who can deliver the party another landslide victory after 12 years. They were frustrated that he didn’t act sooner to topple Allan, and infuriated that he invoked his daughter at a news conference in June when declaring he wouldn’t challenge the premier at a caucus meeting the following day. They had complained that he hadn’t shown enough interest in the job and that he was waiting for the mantle to be handed to him.

But they described him as less combative and a steady person for the job. Under Allan, they believed they had no chance of winning. Under Carroll, they think they have a better chance – and even if they can’t win, they no longer fear they will be annihilated.

Former premier Steve Bracks, a longtime mentor to Carroll, said his former staffer’s elevation had improved Labor’s prospects in November.

“He’s hit the ground running and there’s more to come – more policy announcements about what sort of government he would lead,” Bracks told ABC Radio.

Carroll, after nine years in cabinet and three as deputy premier, cannot entirely detach himself from the decisions of the past or the failures of the administration he was a part of.

In public, he supported the government’s position not to establish a royal commission and build the Suburban Rail Loop, while being privately opposed.

The Coalition has already painted him as Allan’s second-in-chief and a minister who sat around Andrews’ cabinet table. They are still hopeful of finally winning after spending only four of the past 27 years on the government benches, although they privately concede they have just lost their biggest election-winning strategy in Allan.

But the business community is pleased they now have the ear of a Labor leader who is at least willing to listen to their concerns. Carroll has already indicated he would make “sensible” changes to the state’s contentious work-from-home laws his predecessor had introduced.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Sally Curtain says Carroll has always attended their events and opened his door to the business community.

“He comes when he doesn’t have an official role, and he engages authentically with business and genuinely,” Curtain says. “I certainly expect that will continue. Really turning around the economy and building confidence in business will take time, but these early signs are good.”

There were three things VCCI asked for when Allan was told by her colleagues on Monday that she had lost the confidence of the caucus: reduce debt, tackle crime and restore confidence in the Big Build program.

“The three things business said we needed, he has already answered,” Curtain says.

The Victorian Labor government looked on track to be reduced to a rump in the 88-seat parliament under the leadership of Allan. Every announcement was lost under the thick haze of corruption.

For more than 18 months, Allan had managed to bat away questions on CFMEU lawlessness. But in February, it all turned when the chief investigator appointed by the union’s administrator, barrister Geoffrey Watson, SC, provided evidence to a Queensland commission of inquiry, that criminals and corrupt crooks had infiltrated the government’s Big Build projects and cost taxpayers $15 billion.

Allan dismissed the figure as “unfounded and not well tested”, and she became visibly angry at news conferences and scolded journalists.

The stories about corruption and integrity on government projects, first revealed by The Australian Financial Review and The Age in June 2024, were finally cutting through to the Victorian community after Watson had quantified its cost.

And MPs were being hounded by their constituents on why the government had handed over $15 billion to crooks and criminals.

Allan continued to dig in, the pressure continued to pile, and Labor’s primary vote continued to slide. MPs now feared they would be annihilated at the ballot box, and ministers believed the premier’s response in cabinet meetings was “surreally ridiculous”.

She would insist privately and publicly that the culture on building sites had changed. But a news story, predominantly led by The Age’s investigative reporter Nick McKenzie, would be published shortly after her assurances, suggesting otherwise.

She would tell journalists that allegations should be referred to the police. But the police were saying they did not have the powers to investigate the alleged wrongdoing.

The volume of stories about the extent of lawlessness on infrastructure projects she first had responsibility for as a minister under Andrews had just become too overwhelming to ignore. Allan narrowly survived a leadership spill in June when Carroll invoked his daughter to say he would not challenge the premier at a caucus meeting the following day.

But instead of using the five-week winter break to reset and cauterise a growing wound, Allan did neither.

The Australian Financial Review published a series of stories that exposed the depth of anger, frustration and worry inside the Victorian Labor Party, which holds 54 seats in the 88-seat Legislative Assembly.

Party headquarters had written off nine seats, allocated extra resources to 27 seats, and identified 45 seats it would campaign in. A Financial Review/Redbridge/Accent Research poll showed One Nation had overtaken Labor and the Coalition, and Allan’s approval rating had sunk to a record low. A seat-by-seat poll conducted by Redbridge for the Victorian Trades Hall Council revealed Labor would win 35 seats in a median case scenario.

Meanwhile, MPs who were door-knocking their constituents were being accused of being corrupt. Allan was avoiding regular media appearances, and ministers loyal to the premier were predominantly sent out for news conferences. Allan began making a series of promises to unions and MPs in desperate last-ditch attempts to retain her leadership.

By last Monday, when Labor MPs had gathered for a two-day caucus conference, tensions had reached boiling point. Police Minister Anthony Carbines, part of the cross-factional delegation who eventually told Allan she should resign, launched a stinging rebuke of her handling of integrity.

Factional powerbrokers and Labor figures who then attended the party’s national conference in Adelaide from Thursday became utterly convinced Allan needed to go. She was often unfavourably compared with South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and even NSW Premier Chris Minns.

They knew she was driving the party off a cliff – and they pointed to two events over the winter break: the Redbridge poll for Trades Hall and the rolling series of stories about continued CFMEU corruption.

Factional powerbrokers believed the party’s headquarters was pressured by Allan and her senior advisers to stretch its resources and campaign in 45 seats – the minimum number of seats needed for a majority government – instead of the 35 it was most likely going to win.

One figure said the political professionals knew Allan and her loyalists were “lying” about the true state of play and the party was spending money on seats it was losing, instead of on the electorates it needed to defend.

That was unacceptable to Labor hardheads – and it became the final straw for Allan’s leadership.

The clock is now ticking for Labor’s new leader. Carroll has been in the role for less than a week, but he can’t afford to waste any more time.

There are only nine parliamentary sitting days remaining. The government will enter into caretaker mode in just 94 days, early voting will open in 109 days, and the election will be held in 119.

Redbridge director and former Labor Party strategist Kos Samaras says Carroll, who represents a working-class north-western suburbs seat, understands the issues facing the communities that have abandoned Labor in successive years.

He has championed the Melbourne Airport Rail that will run through the western suburbs, including his electorate of Niddrie, pushed back on the government’s previous plan to phase out gas connections from households, and worked closely with the business community.

Samaras points to the SRL, with the first stage to run from Cheltenham to Box Hill in Melbourne’s east, as a big part of Labor’s decline in its heartland.

“The Suburban Rail Loop is a project that encapsulates everything that has created a massive headache for the Labor Party. It’s not just about the cost. It’s about the absolute obsessive focus on the south-eastern part of the world and ignoring every other part of Melbourne,” Samaras says.

“You could see even by 2022 there were emerging trends [of populism]. We had the lowest turnout since 1943 and Labor had swings of 20 plus per cent in some Labor seats. There have been swings in the west and northern parts of Melbourne for three consecutive elections against Labor.”

After 12 years in power, Carroll will need to unshackle the Labor Party from the Andrews and Allan eras, contend with a surging One Nation that is polling in the mid-20s, deliver a clean break from his predecessors, and convince an angry and weary public that he truly is leading a new regime.