By Renju Jose and Alasdair Pal
SYDNEY, July 28 (Reuters) - The premier of Australia’s Victoria state resigned on Tuesday, making way for a new leader for her centre-left Labor Party ahead of a November election that is being widely watched as a test of the right-wing One Nation party’s popularity.
Premier Jacinta Allan has led Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state and home to Melbourne, since 2023, but has seen her approval ratings steadily decline amid a weak economy and as voters tire of Labor which has been in power for 12 years.
Most polls conducted before her resignation predicted the centre-right Liberal Party would take power in November, though some show the party may be reliant on One Nation to form government.
“That remains the biggest risk at this election: a One Nation-Liberal coalition government,” Allan told a news conference.
State lawmakers in the party are expected to elect a new leader as early as this week.
Founded in 1997, One Nation was long seen as fringe but Hanson’s hard line on immigration has drawn more support and some polls have shown her personal popularity exceeds that of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
An Australian court on Monday rejected an appeal from Hanson to overturn a ruling that she racially discriminated against a Muslim senator by telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
Allan said she had been prepared to fight a possible leadership challenge from within the party, but did not want to destabilise Labor months before the election.
“I believe I would have won, but doing so this close to an election takes up valuable resources, including the most precious one: time,” she said.
(Reporting by Renju Jose and Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
