AARON PATRICK: Who is Ben Carroll, the Labor Party man who could be Victoria’s next premier?

Ben Carroll, who could become Victoria’s premier as early as Tuesday, oversees education in the State.

Which is why it was unfortunate that he used the word “historical” when he meant “historic” in a pinned Instagram post about the success of Victorian students last year in standardised English and maths tests.

But who cares about English when there is a State to take over?

The 51-year-old Labor Party stalwart is a very different politician to Premier Jacinta Allan, say Labor activists who know them both.

She has a stubborn streak combined with considerable personal toughness. He avoids conflict, rarely shows anger and believes in compromise, sources say.

She comes from the left faction, which supports big government and is sceptical of the US alliance and Israel. He is aligned with a branch of the right faction controlled by Defence Minister Richard Marles and grew up obsessed with American politics and has become sympathetic to the Jewish state, sources say.

On Monday, after being lobbied by ministers from both factions, Mr Carroll said he intended to stand against Ms Allan because the prospect of a Liberal-One Nation government “is simply too high a risk to ignore”.

Although it has been reported that Mr Carroll, who is also Deputy Premier, ruled out such a step, that is not entirely accurate. Asked recently if he intended to seek Ms Allan’s resignation, Mr Carroll said he wouldn’t. “I can look you in the eye and say that Premier,” he said at the prompting of a journalist.

The process for changing leaders isn’t straightforward. Candidates need 16 votes of Labor MPs to stand. The MPs then vote for a vote to chose the leader. MPs and regular party members get to vote in the election.

Ms Allan said on Monday morning she intends to stand. If both candidates can secure 16 votes, it could take weeks for the leader to be chosen. If only one candidate obtains the 16 votes, which includes their own, they will become leader and premier.

Decisions, decisions

The trigger for the contest is Ms Allan’s deep unpopularity four months before a scheduled State election. The latest opinion poll, conducted by Resolve Strategic, put Liberal leader Jess Wilson ahead of Ms Allan by 43 per cent to 24 per cent.

“Ben the is best person to lead the Government to the election,” a former Labor MP and associate of Mr Carroll’s, Cesar Melhem, told The Nightly. “He will make some hard decisions the current Government has not been able to do the last two years.”

If Mr Carroll wins — and Labor Party members, especially in Victoria, are often quite left wing — he will have to decide whether to initiate a royal commission into allegations of CFMEU-linked corruption in large infrastructure projects.

Ms Allan’s refusal to start an inquiry into the union has frustrated many Victorians aghast at fraud that anti-corruption lawyer Geoffrey Watson estimated has cost the State $15 billion. Ms Allan says a royal commission would slow down investigations underway by the police.

Another reason Ms Allan is unpopular is the state of the State’s economy. At $215 billion, Victoria has the largest debt of any State. Victorians are even poorer than Tasmanians.

To begin budget repair, a Carroll government could cancel the $35 billion Suburban Rail Loop. Although construction has begun, trains are not scheduled to start running until 2035. Some economists reckon the final cost could be as high as $100 billion.

“He’s a very conservative manager,” said a Labor figure who knows Mr Carroll well. “He is not spending for the sake of spending.”

Cleanskin

Although not particularly well known, Mr Carroll has deep government experience as a minister and parliamentary secretary for 11 years. During that time, he avoided any personal or political scandals, an achievement in the Andrews and Allan governments.

Whether Labor MPs believe he can win the election, which is scheduled for November 28, or hope that he will lose fewer seats than Ms Allan is unclear. “This is a save-the-furniture exercise,” one Labor activist said on Monday.

As far as family narratives go, Mr Carroll’s is a classic tale of working class success amid adversity.

One of Mr Carroll’s forefathers emigrated from Ireland to Melbourne in the 1840s. His father operated an electrical business in Western Melbourne until “the recession we had to have” under treasurer Paul Keating in the 1990s sent it broke.

“I learned a lot from Dad,” Mr Carroll said in a 2024 profile in The Age. “Despite losing his business in the Keating recession, he, to this day, says Paul Keating was our greatest prime minister.”

Mr Keating, of course, believed in deregulation, smaller government and free enterprise, which is pretty much the opposite of the last 11 years of Labor rule in Victoria.