But there are still doubts over whether Victorians can trust the Liberals \u2013 after years of infighting \u2013 to fix the myriad issues facing the state, including crime, a lacklustre economy and net debt hurtling towards $200bn by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n
The timing is significant. Less than 24 hours earlier, Wilson and the Liberal Party\u2019s state executive unanimously voted to revoke the preselection of Moira Deeming<\/a>, drawing a line under a bitter feud that has dogged the party for years. Liberals hope the decision finally allows Wilson to prosecute a simple message: after more than a decade in opposition, the party is united and ready to govern.<\/p>\n \u201cI know this is something you have to ask, and your colleagues in the media are focused on,\u201d she tells The Australian over a coffee on a parkside bench, opposite Gisborne\u2019s main street.<\/p>\n \u201cBut as I get around Victoria and I spend time on the ground talking to Victorians, they\u2019re not interested in this. They\u2019re interested in how I\u2019m going to fix the roads, how I\u2019m going to reduce crime, how I\u2019m going to lower their costs, how I\u2019m going to \u00addeliver a government that actually works for Victorians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to have unity, I know that \u2026 that\u2019s why this matter has been resolved. It demonstrates that we are singularly focused on how we get rid of a bad Labor government for Victorians.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson is not just running to be premier, telling The Australian that she would appoint herself treasurer if elected. Turning around the state\u2019s debt trajectory would be the key challenge of her premiership, which she has cautioned will not happen overnight and take more than one term. <\/p>\n She would be the first Australian state leader to serve as both premier and treasurer since Mark McGowan in Western Australia during the pandemic, and the first Victorian premier to do it since Steve Bracks briefly served as treasurer after he was elected in 1999.<\/p>\n \u201cI am the shadow treasurer so, should we be successful, I\u2019ll be the treasurer, and I\u2019ve committed to delivering the first budget,\u201d she says. \u201cThat will allow us to understand the true state of the books here in Victoria, which I suspect are much worse than what was printed on budget day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018People are angry\u2019<\/p>\n Wilson has been on her Fresh Start tour \u2013 an ambitious five-week campaign taking her through all 88 Victorian electorates before November\u2019s state election \u2013 and The Australian has joined her for a day on the trail.<\/p>\n The seat of Macedon, held by Labor on a 9.5 per cent margin, taking in Gisborne, is the 66th stop. On this day, Wilson is announcing former Macedon Ranges mayor Kate Kendall as Liberal candidate.<\/p>\n By day\u2019s end, she will also visit Melton and Mill Park \u2013 two more Labor seats that, on paper, should be difficult to prise away but where senior Liberals believe dissatisfaction with the Allan government is running deep.<\/p>\n To win government outright in November, Wilson must achieve a net gain of 16 seats \u2013 a formidable task that depends on breaking into the Labor heartland while defending Coalition seats against a surging One Nation.<\/p>\n If the Liberals do win in what is frequently branded Australia\u2019s most progressive state, Wilson may very well have saved the Liberal Party at a moment in which it is in an existential crisis nationally.<\/p>\n Wilson makes no attempt to disguise the electoral significance of places like Macedon. \u201cWe\u2019re \u00adabsolutely playing in these seats,\u201d she says. \u201cWe know there is \u00adincredible opportunity because these communities feel they\u2019ve been taken for granted by Labor. They feel forgotten. They feel \u00adneglected.\u201d<\/p>\n She acknowledges that One Nation has made her path to victory harder, but sees it as her job to channel voter frustration. \u201cWe have a really fragmented political environment at the moment,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople are really angry at the government, they\u2019re really angry at the Premier. That sense of frustration is spilling over, and we\u2019re the only people on the ground offering a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Street walks and selfies<\/p>\n Wilson\u2019s first interaction with a voter proves typical of the rest of the day. Wherever she goes, punters stop to chat, raise concerns about crime or the cost of living, and ask for a selfie.<\/p>\n In politics, a single day spent watching a candidate connect with voters, and witnessing the public\u2019s reaction, often reveals more than any poll. Ahead of the election, recent polling shows primary percentage support for the \u00adCoalition, Labor and One Nation all stalled in the 20s, but the contrast on the trail couldn\u2019t be starker. <\/p>\n Given the level of anger at her in the community, Labor can\u2019t place its premier, Allan, in crowds, leaving her interactions limited to highly controlled environments where just about everyone she meets is vetted. Wilson, on the other hand, is throwing herself into unvetted street walks.<\/p>\n How that contrast plays out in November \u2013 the colour and movement of Wilson mingling with voters versus a shielded premier \u2013 may become a defining image of the campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI know it\u2019s a cliche, but politics is about people at the end of the day,\u201d Wilson says. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I hear from Victorians is that they think this state is broken. <\/p>\n \u201cThey know Victoria is crippled with debt, but they also know we can fix it and want someone prepared to make those disciplined decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n The party animal<\/p>\n As the Deeming saga shows, Wilson\u2019s leadership hasn\u2019t been without controversy, but the first-term MP has shown herself able to manage these internal challenges in a way that no previous leader has \u2013 whether that be in installing Brian Loughnane as party president<\/a> or in disendorsing Deeming<\/a>.<\/p>\n That may be because she is well and truly a creature of the party: her father, Ron Wilson, was also a state MP, while she is a former president of the Victorian Young Liberals who joined the party at 19 in 2009. She and her inner circle \u2013 which includes chief of staff Byron Hodkinson, deputy chief of staff Lydia Paterson and her husband, federal frontbencher Senator James Paterson \u2013 forged their political alliances 15 to 20 years ago while battling through university politics. <\/p>\n While some view her as a moderate, those close to her say she is more in the mould of an old-school Victorian \u201cdry\u201d like Peter Costello, which is why she has been able to bridge the factional divides within the party that have long plagued the state division.<\/p>\n Conservative upper house leader Bev McArthur, integral in installing Wilson as leader last Nov\u00adember, says Wilson\u2019s confidence is contagious, and helps paper over any differences of views within the party.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a clear example that when a team believes in its leader and knows where it is going, minor differences and distractions fall away,\u201d the 76-year-old MP says. \u201cJess is also a Liberal through and through. As a lifetime party member, she understands our values, respects her colleagues and knows how the party works. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s mastered the policy detail and the\u00a0party detail, and she has \u00adthoroughly earned the respect of\u00a0colleagues by proving herself on\u00a0both. People know she is leading us for all the right reasons,\u201d McArthur says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is easy for us to sell Jess to Victorians because we are so thoroughly sold on her ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Colleagues have also privately remarked how Wilson has improved her public performances significantly since becoming \u00adleader. While she was accused by some of being stilted in her first few press conferences late last year, colleagues say she now \u00adexudes a sense of comfort and confidence.<\/p>\n \u201cNo doubt she brings formidable intelligence and sharp analysis, but what sets her apart is the judgment and personal connection to bring people with her \u2013 this statewide tour has really shown that,\u201d McArthur says. \u201cShe listens, she understands the argument, she makes decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson says the biggest lesson she has learnt as leader is that leadership requires making decisions quickly once the evidence has been weighed. \u201cI think sometimes leadership comes with decision paralysis, and that can really hurt leaders,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not like that. I\u2019ll weigh up different \u00adissues and I\u2019ll make a call that I think is in the best interests of Victoria and the Victorian people.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of these decisions, such as this month\u2019s announcement that she would scrap the international travel allowance, have angered some of her MPs. Others were \u00adinherently risky.<\/p>\n Following this year\u2019s state budget in May, Wilson outlined how she was going to slash $22bn from government spending over the next decade, promising to impose a hiring freeze on back-office \u00adbureaucrats.<\/p>\n Labor strategists were delighted, believing that she finally had given them meat on the bones for a scare campaign around cuts.<\/p>\n More than two months later, Labor\u2019s attacks haven\u2019t appeared to catch on within the community, despite Allan accusing Wilson of planning to cut frontline services at every turn.<\/p>\n While brandishing her ability to be decisive, Wilson also says she brings colleagues with her.<\/p>\n Drawing a distinction with the Andrews and Allan governments, which critics argue centralised power inside the premier\u2019s office, Wilson says she would restore a more traditional cabinet government. \u201cI value my team, and I think since coming to the leadership I\u2019ve demonstrated that I value the role of my shadow cabinet and my shadow ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n Desire to be premier<\/p>\n Wilson says the idea of entering state politics \u2013 and one day becoming premier \u2013 crystallised during the pandemic while she was a senior executive at the Business Council of Australia.<\/p>\n Watching the Andrews government refuse to engage with business, while then-NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian regularly consulted industry over lockdown rules, crystallised her thinking.<\/p>\n Wilson, who is raising her young son, Patrick, with husband Aaron, says she loves Victoria \u2013 but it\u2019s not the state she grew up in the 1990s.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this sense of pessimism and malaise over Victoria. We used to be the jewel in the crown of Australia,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n \u201cNow you go to other states and when you say you\u2019re from Victoria, they say \u2018It\u2019s not safe down there\u2019 or \u2018The roads are shocking down there\u2019. That\u2019s \u00adembarrassing, and it doesn\u2019t have to be like that.\u201d<\/p>\n First day in the job<\/p>\n Wilson says her first major decision in government would be to establish a royal commission into corruption and criminal infiltration of taxpayer-funded Big Build worksites.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Victorians give me the honour of electing me premier and electing a Liberal government in November, that will be absolutely critical within our first couple of days,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause $15bn of taxpayers\u2019 money has been rorted off Big Build sites into the pockets of criminals. It\u2019s still happening \u2026 and we see a government and a Premier turning a blind eye to it.\u201d<\/p>\n She also promises to immediately pause and review the Suburban Rail Loop, whose first stage is still officially costed at $34.5bn despite the estimate not being updated since 2020. While refusing to nominate a threshold for cancelling the project, Wilson leaves open the possibility of redirecting resources towards the long-\u00addelayed Melbourne Airport Rail.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no doubt Wilson has thought about what she wants to do the day after she becomes premier. And that, for now, the vibe on the ground is all positive.<\/p>\n But against the Labor machine and One Nation, the big question is whether she can get there.<\/p>\n Anthony Galloway is The Australian’s Victorian political editor, having reported on![\"Inside](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4a8cc9057a91032badd42174df24b04a.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785068001_175_0ef54ea0-5899-4f67-aa10-bf324cb282e2.png\")
<\/a>Anthony Galloway<\/a>Victorian political editor <\/p>\n
\nsome of the nation\u2019s biggest security and political stories over the past decade. He was previously foreign affairs and national security correspondent at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, chief political correspondent at Capital Brief and earlier a political reporter at the Herald Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a sunny winter Saturday morning in Gisborne, 50km northwest of Melbourne, and \u00adbefore Victorian Liberal 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