Who Actually Chose Your Premier?
How Victoria’s 50th Premier was Built (Part II)
15mins | Premiered Sep 06, 2026
One day Jacinta Allan is Victoria's Premier. Behind closed doors, people inside the Labor Party count numbers, negotiate positions, and decide whether she survives. The next day, Ben Carroll announces he is prepared to challenge, Allan steps aside, the party rearranges itself, and Victoria has a new Premier.
No statewide election. No ballot paper with Ben Carroll's name asking Victorians whether they wanted him. Perfectly legal. Perfectly constitutional. Completely normal in our system.
Which raises the actual questions: if we don't directly choose the Premier, who does, and who influences the people who do?
This is Part 2 of How To Build A Premier. In Part 1, Emeka showed you the runway. This episode goes inside the factory: the factions, the unions, the alliances, the 2020 branch stacking scandal and the federal takeover, the ABC's reporting on how ministerial positions get carved up by factional proportional representation, the 2023 succession Carroll didn't win but somehow walked out of stronger, and the political irony of the Big Build royal commission. This is where the same man who publicly defended the $100 billion Big Build as Transport Minister is now, as Premier, calling a royal commission into the sector.
To be clear on two things Emeka is very careful about: Ben Carroll was NOT accused of being part of the branch stacking scandal, and there is no evidence he knew about the alleged misconduct in the construction sector while he was Transport Minister. Neither claim is being made in this episode. What is being shown is the shape of the machine around him, and how a person moves through it.
In Part 3, we test whether he's actually a new direction. Looknig at decisions, people, policies, and where the money flows. Not simply his speech.
