The best thing Allan has going for her is the ineptitude of her challengers

March 26, 2026 — 5:00am

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There are days when Jacinta Allan must wonder whether she was born under a bad sign.

If you are in politics long enough, you will live to see difficult times. In Allan’s quarter of a century as a Labor MP and minister, we’ve had 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID pandemic, five years with Donald Trump in the White House and two Collingwood premierships.

Yet, even by these tumultuous standards, 2026 is shaping as the kind of election year when an incumbent premier could be forgiven for wishing they’d never got out of bed.

Already laden with the weight of Labor’s 11 years in office and a record debt inherited from a former premier and treasurer who shovelled billions of borrowed dollars into an electoral furnace, Allan is now saddled with, in no particular order:

A rising cash rate which in the space of two months has boosted by $2400 the annual repayments of the average mortgage holder, with the RBA signalling more pain is probably on the way.

A higher-than-expected inflation rise which, according to UBS economist George Tharenou, will send the CPI through the 5 per cent barrier in this financial quarter, a level not seen since Daniel Andrews’ last days as premier.

The Iran war and resultant global fuel shock which International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol has........

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