Anthony Galloway

Premier Jacinta Allan will follow Queensland in adopting “adult crime, adult time” laws, promising to force children as young as 14 into adult courts and expose them to longer jail time, including life sentences, under a sweeping overhaul of Victoria’s youth justice laws.

The Allan government will cut Victoria’s public service by more than 1000 positions and deliver over $4bn in savings, as part of a plan to get its bloated bureaucracy and soaring debt under control.

Welcome to The Australian’s live coverage of the fire threat in Victoria and across the country as a nation-wide heatwave fuels increasingly dangerous conditions.

The administrator of the scandal-plagued CFMEU has hired a political polling firm to help rebuild the union’s standing with members and the broader public, offering $90 payments to those who take part in the focus groups.

Premier Jacinta Allan’s office urgently sounded the alarm to social media giant Meta after her Instagram account was flooded with tens of thousands of new followers, with many appearing to originate from countries including Bangladesh and Nigeria, sparking concerns about a suspected bot attack.

Ben Carroll is on an ambitious mission to reshape how power is exercised in Victoria, as he seeks to dismantle the influence that the Daniel Andrews camp has wielded over the Labor Party, the government and parts of the business community for more than a ­decade.

The Carroll government is bracing for the release of a bombshell Daniel Andrews-era anti-corruption investigation into Labor’s dealings with the United Firefighters Union.