Ben Carroll was sworn in as Victoria’s 50th premier after taking leadership of the Victorian Labor Party following Jacinta Allan’s resignation. His elevation on July 28, 2026, placed a new leader at the head of the state government about four months before the November election.
Carroll, 51, had served as deputy premier under Allan since 2023 and held the education portfolio. His route to the premiership spans legal training, political advisory work and more than a decade in the Victorian parliament, where he has represented Niddrie since 2012.
Raised in Airport West in north-western Melbourne, Carroll has linked his background to the family home and electrical business established by his parents. In his inaugural parliamentary speech, he said the business name, G B K Electrics, represented Greg, Ben and Kay. He also described working for eight years at Kmart in Airport West while completing college and university studies.
Carroll studied law at La Trobe University and joined the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association while working in retail. He later became a political adviser under Labor premier Steve Bracks and also worked for federal politicians Bill Shorten and Stephen Conroy. Former premier John Brumby was among the senior Labor figures who praised his former staff member, according to ABC News Australia.
From Niddrie to the state’s top office
Carroll secured Labor preselection for the 2012 Niddrie by-election, defeating Jaclyn Symes, who later became treasurer. The by-election followed Rob Hulls’s resignation. After Labor returned to government in 2014, Carroll went on to hold more than a dozen portfolios, Monash University politics professor Zareh Ghazarian told the ABC.
His position within Labor’s leadership developed during the transition that followed Daniel Andrews’s resignation in September 2023. Ghazarian said Carroll sought the premiership despite Andrews’s support for Allan and ultimately obtained the deputy leadership, establishing himself as a likely successor.
Carroll’s time as education minister included significant difficulties. The ABC identified the inadvertent release of year 12 examination results and two statewide strikes by teachers and education staff during an unresolved pay dispute. As premier, he also inherited the broader challenge of leading a government that had been in power for 12 years into another election.
Carroll had already signaled the themes he considered central to that contest. In early June, he said Labor needed to act as an “insurgent” despite its long tenure and concentrate on community safety, economic growth and presenting Victoria as open for business. Ghazarian said law and order would be the leading issue confronting the new Labor leader before polling day.
Author and speechwriter Joel Deane assessed Carroll as a pragmatic progressive whose consultative style was more closely associated with the Bracks-Brumby period than a straightforward continuation of the Andrews-Allan approach. That interpretation remains an expert assessment rather than a declared program from the incoming premier.
Victoria has little precedent for changing premiers in an election year. The ABC noted Lindsay Thompson’s accession in 1981; he served 307 days before losing the 1982 election to John Cain. Carroll therefore entered office with both immediate governing responsibilities and a compressed period in which to define his leadership before voters returned to the polls.
