On Thursday, the Victorian government announced it was “Keeping Puppy Protection Laws Up To Date”.

Free puppies might be the only policy that would improve just released dire polling for the premier, Jacinta Allan, 21 weeks out from the state election on the last Saturday of November.

The RedBridge poll shows that the only area where the embattled Victorian premier scores impressively is in the unpopularity stakes.

Her opponent for premier into 2027 and beyond, the freshly minted Liberal leader Jess Wilson, has a different problem. She was unknown by nearly 20% of the 5,000 people in the pollsters’ sample.

Allan cannot front a press conference without being grilled about her puzzling lack of curiosity about credible accounts of serious corruption allegedly siphoning billions from government infrastructure projects. An opinion piece in the Age on Thursday offered an opportunity to change strategy, but she just said she was sorry about the waste and wanted to ensure it did not keep happening.

While there may be some truth in the premier’s cavil that barristers’ children’s orthodontists would be the principal beneficiaries if she calls a royal commission, the collateral just might be that bikies, thugs and standover merchants will need to look elsewhere to fund their bottomless appetite for ostentatious........

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