Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has defended her decision to call a no confidence motion in the Allan government, declaring that Victorians \u201cdeserve a fresh start\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Wilson introduced the no confidence motion in parliament on Thursday, which could see Victorians head to an early election.<\/p>\n
The motion is now set to be debated on July 28 – the first sitting day after the winter break.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the Victorian Liberal leader said she had moved the motion because the government \u201cdoes not deserve to continue\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hear from Victorians every day is they have had enough of this tired, of this corrupt, of this chaotic and desperate government,\u201d Ms Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder Premier Jacinta Allan, we have seen crime at record highs, we have seen debt at record highs, and we have seen $15 billion of corruption go from government work sites into the pockets of criminals under her watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cJacinta Allan has been the architect of the very system that has seen corruption run rife in Victoria, and she is failing to take responsibility for any of the challenges facing the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The move has been derided as a \u201cstunt\u201d and a \u201cwaste of time\u201d by Labor MPs, but Ms Wilson defended the move, declaring that it was her responsibility to represent the views of the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s my responsibility as the alternative premier, as the leader of the opposition, to hold this government to account and to put forth this motion in parliament,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe represent Victorians. We are elected by Victorians to represent them here in the parliament, and this is a legitimate and important process that the parliament allows to demonstrate that there is no confidence in this premier and its government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear from Victorians every day about how angry and frustrated they are with this chaotic, this desperate, this corrupt government, and this is a mechanism that does allow them to have a say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Victorian Constitution permits the Opposition to move one unsuccessful no confidence motion each term, with a minimum three days’ notice required before it can be voted on.<\/p>\n
However when pressed by journalists, the Opposition Leader acknowledged that Labor was likely to use its numbers in the lower house to defeat the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect they’ll use their numbers to block this,\u201d she said, before laying down a challenge to Labor MPs.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it’s up to the Labor MPs whether they’re going to demonstrate confidence in the premier,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know they speak to many (in the media) about the fact they don’t have confidence in this premier, and so it’ll be up to them to decide how they’re going to vote on this motion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The no confidence motion comes just days after internal Labor moves to dump Ms Allan as premier fell apart.<\/p>\n
MPs within Labor had been privately pushing for a change of leader ahead of November\u2019s state election, with reports from as recently as Friday indicating senior figures believed momentum was on their side.<\/p>\n
But the plotting came to naught on Tuesday after Deputy Premier Ben Carroll emphatically ruled out running.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve got a young daughter at home, and I couldn’t be more proud to make sure she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allan to be a world-class Premier and get re-elected in her own right,\u201d he said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Mr Carroll had been viewed as the most likely contender to replace Ms Allan, despite being a member of the party\u2019s right faction \u2013 which is outnumbered by the Socialist Left in the Labor caucus.<\/p>\n
Support for Labor has collapsed since the resignation of Daniel Andrews in September 2023, with Ms Allan\u2019s net approval rating of -37 per cent making her Australia\u2019s least popular premier.<\/p>\n
Multiple polls published this month also show Labor has fallen to third place behind the Coalition and One Nation.<\/p>\n
In a DemosAU\/PremierNational poll published on Friday, just 21 per cent of voters said they planned to support Labor in November.<\/p>\n
One Nation\u2019s support climbed to 23 per cent and the Coalition was well ahead on 30 per cent.<\/p>\n
The poll, conducted from 7 to 11 June, showed the Liberals and Nationals had a 55 to 45 two-party-preferred lead over Labor.<\/p>\n
This followed a Freshwater Strategy poll conducted just days earlier, which had Labor\u2019s support at 23 per cent, One Nation at 25, and the Coalition at 27 per cent.<\/p>\n
However Labor MPs wanting to remove Ms Allan will have to contend with changes to party rules brought about in the years following the bitter leadership battle that tore Labor apart during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government.<\/p>\n
Party rules still allow MPs to remove Ms Allan and declare the position vacant through a simple majority vote of caucus.<\/p>\n
But if more than one candidate is nominated, a weeks-long election process will be triggered in which both Labor MPs and party members are given a vote.<\/p>\n
During this time, the party appoints an interim leader who is prohibited from standing in the party vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has defended her decision to call a no confidence motion in the Allan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2311,22,21,4919,156,2309,260,2553,25518,3218,68],"class_list":["post-33887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-allan","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-coalition","tag-labor","tag-liberal","tag-melbourne","tag-national","tag-no-confidence","tag-parliament","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}