Jacinta Allan’s abrupt resignation as premier on Tuesday appeared swift, but her political collapse took three years to build. Ultimately, a refusal to confront construction industry corruption stripped her government of oxygen.
Eventually, her colleagues decided she needed to go and her replacement, Ben Carroll, declared the establishment of a royal commission into construction would be his first act.
Below is a visual look back at the road to this point – the Building Bad series, the attempted policy pivots, the gathering political storm and, ultimately, 48 chaotic hours ending in a leadership change.
Allan was at a podium, facing a wall of cameras under harsh fluorescent lights, responding to The Age investigative reporter Nick McKenzie’s question about intimidation on Victoria’s Big Build with one of her own.
“So if I can ask, Nick,” a clearly worried Allan asked McKenzie when he referred to a written warning she was sent, choosing her words so carefully that she almost seemed to freeze. “What, what, what, what have you got that shows that they [allegations] were put to me in writing?”
It was a Monday in July, 2024 and The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and The Australian Financial Review had spent the weekend publishing its first Building Bad stories. Two hundred articles in the series later, Allan is gone and her response to the scandal is at the heart of her political demise.
For nine years as transport infrastructure minister and then-premier, Allan was the public face of Victoria’s $109 billion Big Build. On this afternoon two years ago, she was forced to answer for the alleged corruption that had festered inside it.
Allan is tough and used to staring down questions from reporters. But this press conference was the beginning of the end of her time leading Victorian Labor.
The Age’s joint investigation exposed how outlaw motorcycle gangs and organised crime infiltrated state-funded infrastructure sites. Systemic extortion, workplace intimidation, and kickbacks all operated across major government contracts. All on her watch.
CFMEU chief John Setka resigned on the eve of the series’ publication. Allan attempted to draw a line between her administration and union misconduct – suspending the construction division from the Victorian La
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