Just when followers of the melodrama that is the Victoria Liberal Party feared the State’s alternative government might have succeeded in becoming inoffensively boring, the organisation returned to what it does best: internal warfare.
On Tuesday morning party leader Jess Wilson told the only member of her parliamentary team with a national profile — anti-transgender-movement advocate Moira Deeming — not to give up on the Liberals. Fans encouraged her to defect to One Nation.
Ms Deeming had lost the party’s support for her Upper House seat to a candidate from the Indian community whose reputation was shattered within 12 hours.
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She is now being encouraged by her leader and others to stand in a replacement ballot by the same members who rejected her the first time.
“If Moira wants to proceed … I would welcome her putting her hand up,” Ms Wilson said today.
In private, the Liberal leader is pushing party officials to protect Ms Deeming, according to a Liberal source. The former school teacher is a hero of political conservatives, including former prime minister Tony Abbott and Sky host Peta Credlin.
She has many enemies too, for successfully suing a previous party leader for defamation after he tried to expel her from the party for organising a women’s rights rally gate-crashed by neo-Nazis.
Liberal MP Moira Deeming was rejected by party members on Sunday, meaning she is likely to lose her upper house seat unless the decision is reversed. Credit: AAP
Federal takeover
The stakes are high for Ms Deeming, the Liberal Party and Victoria. Unless the party quickly resolves her fate, it risks being seen by voters as too divided to be trusted with power at the November election. That could trigger a takeover of the state Liberal Party by its national parent.
“Victorians deserve that women and girls — and indeed all Victorians — have strong, principled representatives in public life,” Northern Territory senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price posted on social media. “Back her in now.”
If Ms Deeming isn’t guaranteed a seat, she could join One Nation and become a symbol for conservatives of what some see as Liberal Party compromises to defeat the Labor Party, which has dominated Victorian politics for almost 20 years.
Asked if One Nation would like to sign up Ms Deeming, MP Barnaby Joyce said that decision would be made by founder and senator Pauline Hanson. He mocked the Liberal Party’s infighting and said voters would switch to his new party.
“People are flummoxed, then disheartened, then they just don’t care, then they change to One Nation,” he said.
Even by the standards of Victoria’s shady political culture, the circumstances of the latest bust-up are extreme. The Liberal’s left faction secured restauranteur Dinesh Gourisetty to the top slot on the party’s ticket for Melbourne’s western suburbs, almost guaranteeing he would be elected.
The next day compromising information emerged that forced Mr Gourisetty to withdraw in disgrace: he vouched for the integrity in a court case of a political ally who then pleaded guilty to grooming a 15-year-old girl for sex. Mr Gourisetty also operated an Indian restaurant fined over a filthy kitchen littered with rat faeces in 2019.
Some Liberals believe the character reference — a public document stored in a court file for the past two years — was circulating among Mr Gourisetty’s internal opponents several weeks before Sunday’s vote. If true, that would mean it was deliberately withheld until he won to maximise the damaging publicity.
Dinesh Gourisetty defeated Ms Deeming, then withdrew his candidacy on Monday after compromising information became public. Credit: Supplied
Momentum building
The purpose, according to a party source, was to prompt the federal executive under president John Olsen to take control of the Victorian Liberal Party and fire the administrative committee responsible for running the party on a weekly basis.
A source with direct knowledge of the national executive’s deliberations said “some momentum” was building for a federal takeover after the weekend vote but would likely require the agreement of senior party figures in Victoria, possibly including Ms Wilson, the new opposition leader.
Adding to the argument for Federal intervention, which could prevent party members choosing candidates, is a bitter split on the administrative committee, which is controlled by the left faction by about ten votes to eight.
On Tuesday, members of the committee introduced a motion seeking the resignation of state president Philip Davis over the failure to properly screen Mr Gourisetty’s background, The Australian reported.
“Phil Davis, as party president and a leading member of the candidate review process, bears responsibility for this failure,” the motion says, according to the paper.
“Leadership requires accountability. When a process fails to this extent, those responsible cannot proceed as though nothing has occurred.”
Fixing problems
A day earlier a letter was circulating among party officials demanding not only the resignation of Mr Davis, but four vice-presidents. The letter’s existence was revealed by Ms Credlin on her Sky News show.
“Just who did his vetting and did anyone know about this character reference and turn a blind eye?” she said on air. “Because if they did — and there are serious allegations put to me that they did know about this character reference — then that official or officials must resign.”
Mr Davis is unlikely to resign because most administrative committee members support him.
Ms Deeming, who has recently been absent from Parliament, did not respond to a request for comment. On Sunday she reposted a journalist’s social media post critical of Liberal activist who celebrated Ms Deeming’s defeat. “The bitch lost!” activist Heath Wilson wrote, next to a hand-clapping emoji.
A Federal intervention would be politically difficult over the objections of Ms Wilson, the State leader, because it could look like Ms Wilson is not trusted by her federal colleagues, including leader Angus Taylor, to fix the problems.
Asked on Tuesday if the most recent scandal was “orchestrated”, Ms Wilson said: “I have no reason to believe that would be the case.”
“This needs to be fixed,” she said. “I know it will be fixed. It will not distract me.”
