Seven months out from Victoria’s November 2026 state election, the state’s ruling Labor government has been hit by a wave of high-profile departures, with three senior cabinet ministers handing in immediate resignations on Monday. The sudden exits come on the heels of former Government Services Minister Natalie Hutchins’ resignation from the frontbench in December, opening up four vacant cabinet positions that the Labor caucus will vote to fill during a scheduled meeting on Tuesday. Premier Jacinta Allan is expected to formalize a full cabinet reshuffle as soon as this week. The departing ministers are Finance Minister Danny Pearson, Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, and Skills and TAFE Minister Gayle Tierney. All three will complete their current parliamentary terms as backbenchers before the election goes to poll in November. The mass resignation echoes a similar shakeup ahead of the 2022 Victorian state election, when four senior ministers, including the deputy premier, stepped down from Daniel Andrews’ government just five months before voting day. Each departing minister offered personal reasons for their exit, while reflecting on decades of combined public service. Ms Thomas, a lower house Labor leader and close political ally of Premier Allan, who stepped into the health portfolio mid-way through the global COVID-19 pandemic, cited a desire to step back from seven-day workweeks to spend more time with family, including her 91-year-old mother, and attend St Kilda AFL matches. First elected to parliament alongside Mr Pearson in 2014, Ms Thomas said it had been the greatest honor of her life to serve in both the Andrews and Allan Labor governments. She highlighted landmark women’s health reforms as a signature achievement, noting that abortion rights would always remain protected under Labor governments, adding that “women’s rights are under attack from conservative political forces around the world.” Mr Pearson, who has represented the seat of Essendon since 2014 and entered cabinet in 2020, told reporters he entered parliament in 2014 knowing he would not spend his entire working life in politics, and said he had not yet settled on his next career move. An emotional Pearson teared up during Monday’s press conference, saying he was proud of his work delivering major WorkCover reforms, overhauling the state’s digital public services, and implementing Victoria’s groundbreaking ban on engineered stone, a policy expected to prevent hundreds of future cases of life-threatening silicosis. He lightened the mood with characteristic wit, joking that he and Ms Thomas would occupy the “Nosebleed Section” of the backbench, in a nod to Australian hip-hop group Hilltop Hoods, and quipped “We might be volunteers. I can tell you now our families are conscripts.” Reflecting on his tenure, he added, “I feel an enormous sense of gratitude to have played a bar of music in the great Labor concerto of government.” For Ms Tierney, the departure marks the end of 36 years in elected public office, and nearly two decades in the Victorian state parliament. “For me it is simply time to pass the baton,” she said. Premier Allan paid tribute to the three departing ministers, emphasizing their lasting legacy for Victorian communities. “All three have worked tirelessly, and I thank them for the service. These are friends and colleagues who have served the parliament and the Victorian community for a period of time, and it is now their time to say farewell to their life of public service,” Allan told reporters on Monday. In an official statement, she expanded on her praise, noting each minister had left an indelible mark on the state. She highlighted that Pearson’s engineered stone ban would save lives, that Thomas had steered the public health system through the most challenging public health crisis in a century while always supporting frontline health workers, and that Tierney had spent her decades in office fighting for working-class Victorians. Allan struck an optimistic tone about the upcoming reshuffle, expressing confidence that the vacant posts would be filled by new candidates with fresh ideas. She touted the Labor Party’s internal unity, contrasting it with what she framed as an extreme, divided opposition focused only on austerity cuts. “My Labor team has a unity of purpose that is guided by our values. We can renew and refresh because of this. Unlike our opponents who are extreme, divided and have one solution – to cut,” Allan said. The announcement also included word that Steve McGhie will step down from his role as cabinet secretary, a position he has held since 2022, and Allan thanked him for his service. The opposition has seized on the mass resignations to attack the Allan government, with Opposition Leader Jess Wilson dismissing the upcoming reshuffle as nothing more than rearranging deckchairs on a sinking ship. “What we see in terms of the Premier’s reshuffle in the coming days doesn’t change the fact this is a tired government,” Wilson said. “To shuffle the deckchairs is going to do nothing to actually change the direction of this state. These are the same people who have sat around the cabinet table, who have been part of the Labor Party for a decade. They have overseen the decline of Victoria. The only way to get a fresh start here in Victoria is to change the government this year.” According to preliminary reports from the *Herald Sun*, four sitting Labor MPs have been identified as top candidates for promotion to the vacant frontbench posts. Former Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Luba Grigorovitch, a member of the party’s Right faction, is widely expected to claim one spot. Three remaining spots reserved for members of Labor’s Left faction will be contested by MPs Paul Edbrooke, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, and Paul Hamer.