By Paul Austin
Jacinta Allan and her Bendigo-based electorate are reaping the dividends as Brumby moves to protect his government.
JOHN Brumby calls his government's blueprint for regional and rural Victoria ''Ready for Tomorrow''. He's proud of it. Some state Labor MPs call it the ''Save Jacinta Project''. They're jealous of it. Jacinta Allan, Brumby's Regional and Rural Development Minister, is the sort of precocious, enthusiastic, youthful, high-achieving politician who arouses in colleagues and opponents a mixture of admiration, irritation and envy.
Illustration: Matt Davidson
She's certainly a rising star of Victorian Labor. In 2002, at age 29 and after just one term in Parliament, she became the youngest cabinet minister in Victoria's history. Today, her career is still headed north. Few Labor people will be surprised if in future she becomes deputy leader. Some even think she's premier material.
But to achieve her destiny she has to retain her seat, and that's where Brumby's $631 million regional blueprint comes in.
Allan is a Bendigo girl (her first job was as a Coles checkout chick; she graduated with honours from La Trobe University, Bendigo). She holds the seat of Bendigo East by a margin of 5.4 per cent. It's volatile territory - Allan suffered a swing against her of 7.6 per cent at the 2006 election - and Labor is deeply worried that it could lose her at the November 2010 election.
It's no coincidence that enormous amounts of the Premier's time and the Treasurer's money are being invested in regional Victoria, and in particular in Bendigo.
Some of those jealous caucus colleagues - also fearing for their seats as the electoral tide starts to go out on Labor - note the strong personal links Brumby has with Bendigo and its local member.
Brumby began his long career in public life as the member for the federal seat of Bendigo, in 1983 at the start of the Hawke government. He's now the member for the state seat of Broadmeadows, but his favourite retreat from the public spotlight is his farm at Harcourt, just south of Bendigo. When Brumby became Premier in 2007, he bequeathed his beloved regional and rural development portfolio to Allan. One of Brumby's sisters-in-law, Susan McKenzie, works for Allan in her electorate office. And Allan's partner, Yorick Piper, works for Brumby as one of the Premier's senior political advisers.
The Save Jacinta Project began in earnest six weeks ago, on state budget day. That's always one of the busiest days in the Premier's calendar - caucus meeting in the morning, parliamentary question time in the afternoon, live crosses to the TV news bulletins in the evening. Nonetheless, Brumby chose to start his budget day of 2010 at dawn in Bendigo, where he stole some of Treasurer John Lenders's thunder by announcing a new $473 million Bendigo hospital, ''the biggest investment by any government towards a regional hospital in Victoria's history''.
Since then, it has been a Bendigo blitz.
Last Friday, for instance, the entire ministry went to Bendigo for a ''community cabinet'' meeting. The government issued 20 media releases that day relating to Bendigo - on a new Men's Shed, Sunday bus services, vintage trams, the Kangaroo Flat library, the Spring Gully tennis pavilion, safety for pedestrians and cyclists, and a government grant to help with the restoration of St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, to identify just some of them.
Twenty announcements in one day! Much more of this and the Bendigo Advertiser will have to publish a special supplement on what this government is doing for its readers.
On Tuesday came the regional blueprint, with Bendigo getting at least its fair share of the Premier's pre-election largesse. And yesterday Brumby was at it again, accompanying Allan on an inspection of student accommodation plans at her alma mater, La Trobe University's Bendigo campus.
That Labor is so worried about Allan's seat betrays the government's vulnerability. Six of the 20 members of cabinet are fighting for their political lives and, of those, Allan, with a margin of 5.4 per cent, is the ''safest''. If the swing reaches as far as her, the government could fall.
Women's Affairs Minister Maxine Morand holds Labor's most marginal seat, Mount Waverley. She'd be gone with a swing of just 0.32 per cent. Gaming Minister Tony Robinson's margin down the road in Mitcham is just 2 per cent. A swing of similar scale to the Greens in the seat of Melbourne would be the end of Education Minister Bronwyn Pike. Victorian Electoral Commission figures show Housing Minister Richard Wynne would lose to the Greens if they gained a swing of 3.65 per cent in his neighbouring seat of Richmond. And Allan's near neighbour, Agriculture Minister and member for Ripon Joe Helper, has a margin of 4.36 per cent.
Some Labor insiders are quietly contemplating the fact that, as it happens, the cabinet ministers under threat are a neat mix: two are in the inner city, two in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and two in the ''bush''. They are eager for the Premier to lift his eyes beyond his beloved Bendigo and ensure the government gives sufficient pre-election attention to other electorally sensitive parts of the state.
They underestimate Brumby. He, too, is in the fight of his political life. He's as keen as any of his colleagues to make sure no opportunity to spruik Labor's wares is lost in the five months between now and election day.
And anyway, Brumby rejects the suggestion his regional offensive is all about politics. He prides himself on the way provincial Victoria has in the main thrived under Labor, after the cuts and closures of the Kennett era. He sees this week's regional blueprint as good policy, building on those achievements.
But good policy can also be good politics. After all, if John manages to save Jacinta, he'll almost certainly have saved his government. She's that important.
Paul Austin is state political editor.