by PAUL COLLITS – VICTORIAN Labor’s polling is in the toilet. Its Uncle Festa Treasurer, Tim Pallas, has resigned, leaving the State $156b in the red with a tanking economy.
Premier Jacinta Allan is a dead girl walking. Or should be. And they have just opened a Moderna jab factory at Monash University. Plenty of ammunition, right there.
- Around half of Victorian Liberal MPs still wants John Pesutto as their leader.
- The Party he pretends to lead doesn’t deserve to be in government.
- Where on earth does the Victorian Liberals dig up its “leaders”?
Yet what is everyone south of the Murray River, and quite a few north of it, talking about?
The truly and endlessly woeful Victorian Liberal Party, of course.
Once described by the 1960s era political scientist Katharine West and others as “the jewel in the Liberal Party crown”. The home of Alfred Deakin, the first wet, as well.
CHOSE WAR
Much ink has already been spilt on the latest developments in the Moira Deeming affair. We have a Liberal Party leader in the totalitarian, bankrupt State of Victoria, who has chosen war on one of his own members in preference to war against the worst government in Australia’s history.
The obvious question? Why?
There are other questions. Mine to Moira Deeming would be – why on earth do you want to a member of this club?
I once asked the same question of the estimable John Roskam, former director of the Institute of Public Affairs, after his defeat – by a carefully positioned woman, of course – in a Liberal Party pre-selection.
He didn’t have a ready answer. I wonder what Moira’s answer would be.
Another question – where on earth does the Victorian Liberal Party dig up its “leaders”?
Well, John Pesutto is the son of Italian (Calabrian) migrants. He grew up in Traralgan in Gippsland. He is a lawyer, amazingly.
Also, astonishingly, he was a research fellow in government – yes, you read that right – at the University of Melbourne, aka the Parkville Asylum. Equally unbelievably, he used to provide corporate advice.
I wonder what he told clients about good management. He worked briefly for the IPA, and for various Liberal leaders.
In the recent court judgement over the Deeming defamation, the Judge all but accused Pesutto of perjury. Of, at best, gross obfuscation in the dock.
Yet around half of the Party, it seems, still wants him as their leader. He only holds his own seat by a margin of 1.7 per cent. So, he mightn’t even be around after the next election.
There are several possible explanations for Pesutto’s behaviour.
IDIOT
He is an idiot. He is vindictive. Once he started, he felt he couldn’t stop. This is the path dependency explanation.
It could be about factions and factional enemies. A member of the Victorian Liberal Party once told me they have at least seven factions.
Only seven? I hear you ask. Perhaps, like the neocons, the Liberal Party down south believes in forever wars. Maybe it keeps them all in their jobs. Or, Pesutto got very poor legal advice.
It is possible that he thought, or was advised, that he would win the defamation case. He was offered a settlement of $100,000. Now he may owe Deeming millions in legal fees, in addition to the $300,000 defamation payout.
It is also possible he is simply sexist. That is, on its face, unlikely, given how woke the Party is. We know that white, conservative women are generally excluded, though, from the companionable victim list.
Perhaps most or all of these explanations are true.
One very scary explanation of why the Libs are (for the moment) keeping Pesutto in place is because there is literally no one else.
Even though a well-trained drover’s dog could probably get them over the line at the next election. They could always go back to Matty Guy for a third go. That would be unwise.
After losing his (first) seat in 2018, a seat the Libs had held since 1955, Pesutto said: “You get a short time on the stage in politics.”
Not short enough, unfortunately.
Referring to his parents, he said: “They instilled in me the principles that guide me today.”
Are they amoral idiots, too? He also said that his background had provided him with the ability to relate to anybody.
EXCLUDE
Oops. Renee Heath, anyone? Actually, it was Guy who tried to get rid of Heath. The Party has form on excluding or trying to exclude people with conservative views. Remember Bernie Finn?
How did Pesutto keep himself busy and visible after he lost his seat?
During his recent time away from Spring Street, he wrote for The Age newspaper, appeared on a weekly spot on Virginia Trioli’s ABC Radio Melbourne program…
Not a Right-wing warrior, then.
When Pesutto became leader, he just scraped in. Sixteen of 33 Liberal members didn’t want him. That was then. I wonder what they think now.
He has got one thing right, though. He has said the Party needs to reform if it hoping to win in 2026. I just wonder what on earth he means by “reform”.
Perhaps the Libs think that Pesutto is the drover’s dog of Melbourne: “If we were still down in the polls, if we still had a primary vote in the 20s, I’d say we do it,” a conservative MP said.
“But to move against him now, with things going the way they are, it would be the biggest own goal. And we’re a Party that’s had enough of them to last a lifetime.”
It is, then, all about winning. And polls. Talk about reflexive, revealed cynicism and a tyranny of low expectations.
The Party – probably not due in any measure to anything Pesutto might have done – happens, right now, to be ahead in the polls. Which may or may not have any significance for November 2026.
But it is certainly novel for them to be ahead. Prior to October 2024, it hadn’t happened for seven years. But 51 to 49 per cent is hardly a ringing endorsement.
RESONATES
This has enabled Pesutto to say, without any particular basis for the claim, that he “resonates” with voters.
But, even if true, to say that you resonate with voters is one thing. To have basic human decency, moral compass, vision, intent, policy smarts and spine is entirely another.
Things that you need after you win the election. That Deeming was thrown (again) under the bus by her former colleagues, or at least by a majority of them, shows yet again that they have none of the above. As Tony Abbott said, it was shameful.
Now that is the real problem of the Victorian Liberal Party.
Their predicament is neatly summed by the (sadly) retiring Member for Hinkler, Keith Pitt: “In my view, political Parties without purpose soon disappear.”
The Victorian Liberal Party gives every impression of fitting Keith Pitt’s picture.
Indeed, it is exemplar of an institution without a purpose. Only such an institution could find room within its ranks for the likes of John Pesutto, a man without honour, without scruples and without a sense of justice.
He deserves never to be Premier of the once great State below the Murray, this ScoMo by the Yarra.
Nor does the Party he pretends to lead currently deserve to be in government.PC
Am I the only one who would love to see Peta Credlin enter Parliament and take over the leadership of the Vic Liberals?What a wonderful Premier she would be.
Chamberlain was a much better man than Pesutto could ever hope to be, but the same adage applies, which is ‘in the name of God, go’!
There must surely be one competent conservative in the Victorian liberal party somewhere who could step up, as Victorians are done with moderates and wokes, who are unelectable no matter how bad Labor is!
In sports, in marketing and life generally it’s important to turn your weaknesses into strengths.
The liberals slogan for the next election should be “divided we do nothing”. Tell the electorate that whilst they can achieve anything legislatively by doing nothing they can get out of the way and let the citizens drive the bus. That used to be a liberal philosophy until Turnbull era when spinelessness was confused with guile.
Sack Pesutto and put in anyone who is prepared to say that they will repeal Labor 5 stupidest policies and make Kel Glare head of IBAC. JOB DONE
Good article Paul
Yes Vic Labor is struggling with the Liberals rowing furiously towards them with life buoys and own goals. The Vic Premier is used to the canutian response. It’s not working. The Vic Opposition has continually revealed abject incompetence. It’s what we have come to expect from the Liberals infested by so called moderates. Noticeably Minns in NSW has stepped up in plain speak, from the NSW Right. Is there a lesson there for Speakman? The NSW Opposition is dumb struck by its factions. The so called conservatives are beyond useless despite the chest thumping and muttering. At a federal level the moderates gifted seats to teals in 2022. Even before that Warringah was lost. Did the penny drop? No, same old moderate finger wagging and labor-lite treachery. It has and continues to cost Liberal seats. We now face a federal election with 7/8 pre selections unfilled, so much for Federal intervention. Yet polls tell us the Coalition is right in the game, how much better its chances with a full ticket of candidates and state leadership, with firm Liberal spokesmen.
Yes, Pesutto is a socialist. Half the Liberal Party are socialists. Why? This is not an accident. This is deliberate.
Have you heard of Antonio Gramsci? “The long march through the institutions”? No? You are extraordinarily ignorant as this has been going on for a long time. The Liberal Party, and all the other major institutions, have been DELIBERATELY infiltrated for the past several decades.
Antonio Gramsci, the left’s patron saint, wrote a book in the 1930’s saying that in the modern world revolution was impossible. To achieve socialist domination the ONLY way was to infiltrate the institutions. Politics, law, the public service, media, the law, major firms etc. etc. The first recruits should lie low and not talk about their politics. But when they got promoted, they should only hire and promote socialists. Inside a generation that institution would be totally controlled by socialists.
It has worked fantastically!
So the Liberal Party in all the States and the Fed, are controlled by socialists. They have an iron grip on recruitment and promotion, and of course policy. They have an iron grip over all the party.
Is there a cure, since complaining does not work? Yes, it was discovered by accident in the early 1950’s. Make a list of the name of all these far left infiltrators, and publish it. Maximum publicity. There will be a scream and cry in the media. They will threaten legal action. But if the anti-socialists stand up to them, the experience is that like the rats they are, they will all scuttle for their holes.
Half Tim?, generous assessment. Dutton is in this fight despite the 5th Columnists. Anything short of a Reps majority is a fail for the Coalition. A claw back in the Senate is also very important.
I like this comment. It gives a solution to how to defeat the socialists infiltrating the Liberal Party. Make a list of them for the public to read. Don’t know who would do it though, but there is probably some party or organisation that could do it.
Well said Paul. This latest Presuto atrocity beggars belief. The same goes for the fact that he still has supporters in the party. Both the NSW and Vic libs are a train wreck for any conservative. The ongoing Photios sabotage of the party is just evil and sad. These woke morons are so misguided it hurts. If you put a dozen genious’s in a room and told them to come up with a plan to destroy our country, they could not do a better job than Labor, the Greens, Teals, Vic libs and NSW libs are doing. Dutton is our only faint hope of the restoration of common sense with some kahunas. Presuto is the epitomy of what makes a lousy leader…he is a self absorbed study in hubris without a spine….he is the opposite of a conviction politician….a very dangerous mix
Too moderate heavy. won’t go anywhere until they get back to a true Conservative Party
The IPA’s affiliation to the Liberal Party goes back to its beginnings in the 1940s. But it seems not to recognise that the Libs are barely indistinguishable from Labor in the 2020s.
These days the Libertarians would seem more aligned to the IPA’s ideals. (Disclosure: I am a member of both the Libertarians and the IPA.)
Get your point Greg but we must go for the immediate best option
I strongly support the IPA too, outstanding advocacy.
But where do we draw the line, Max? Most of Albo’s worst policies were passed down from Scott Morrison.