Federal Liberal Party president Tony Abbott has emerged to back the disendorsement of Moira Deeming.

The Victorian Liberal Party made the decision on Friday, leaving a question mark over who will replace Deeming at the state election in November.

Abbott, who previously issued words of support for Deeming, said of the current situation:

‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I fully support Brian Loughnane and the Victorian Liberal Party’s disendorsement of Moira Deeming … when a serious accusation is not backed up by the available objective evidence, the accuser should apologise and withdraw. Moira’s refusal to do so was unbecoming of an MP. Under such circumstances, she couldn’t remain an endorsed Liberal candidate.’

His opinion may provide a small measure of unity for a party that has been in a state of self-inflicted disarray for years.

Victorian Liberal Leader Jess Wilson is short on time to set her party in order before facing off against Jacinta Allan.

It won’t be an easy task.

Earlier this month, the Labor Prime Minister co-hosted India’s Prime Minister in a Melbourne stadium full of Indian-heritage potential voters. It is assumed Labor will have the advantage in migrant-heavy areas of Victoria. A small contingent from the Liberals attended the event, but it’s unlikely they will gain much election traction given they were observers, not the hosts.

Victoria has experienced a rapid state of population growth, exceeding the 7 million mark in 2025, with the bulk of this coming from non-European migration.

Despite the obvious advantage this should afford the Labor government, they are struggling in the polls.

Recent predictions suggest Labor could be cut down to 25 seats … a wipeout. The same poll flagged the Coalition holding 28 seats and One Nation, which is yet to announce star candidates, upsetting the two-party system with 19 seats. As for the Greens, some polling suggests they could lose all their seats.

This is what the Australian Financial Review has called a worst-case scenario based on the Redbridge polling.

One Nation’s influence, in today’s atmosphere, is largely untested. It is difficult to know how seriously to take these numbers.

Generally speaking, Labor is on the nose with Victorians who are dissatisfied with high taxes, falling standards, wasteful building projects, sharp rises in crime, and a general feeling that the character of their once beloved Melbourne has changed.

The Liberals have a reputation for total chaos, self-harm, and seat-warming but they might be the only hope the state has. For the past week, Jess Wilson has been heavily promoting candidates and the idea of a fresh start.

And as for One Nation, the damage we can expect at the next round of polls thanks to a week-long hit job from the media will probably wear off by November. The press ran too early, imagining they could permanently remove One Nation from the field. Instead, it was more of a dent that can be buffed out with a few good memes.

Of course, it is still perfectly possible that city-based Victorians will stick with their abusive captors and re-elect Labor for an historic fourth term. There is an enormous public service and union footprint that remains favourable to the oversized state and relies on maintaining a system that blew its budget years ago. As long as they remain employed, they might not care about their privately-employed neighbours being taxed into poverty.

The regions are more predictable.

There is a fair bit of fury over the atrocious treatment of land rights surrounding the renewable energy rollout. The Coalition is coming in hot on this one, resurrecting a 2011 potential renewable energy buffer zone to keep projects 2km away from residential dwellings. A move, Labor moans, will lock renewables out of large parts of the regional landscape.

The amount of left-wing outrage on this means the policy is almost certainly worth pursuing.

Polling reflects this, with regional areas giving the Coalition a solid lead over Labor, with the climate-crazy Greens a distant fourth.

The regions are not particularly excited by either leader. Instead, they seem motivated by the immediate threat to their peaceful, beautiful landscape and the desire to protect it from the industrialisation of solar, wind, batteries, and ugly transmission lines that spoil pristine skylines.

In these regional areas, the biggest threat to the Coalition is One Nation. They have much sharper anti-Net Zero policies and are not afraid to offer full protection to farmers. It is also expected that they will take a stronger approach to crime and violence.

That said, the Liberals are aggressively marketing tax cuts, wagering that people are poor enough now to dismiss any scare campaigns from Labor about cuts to services.

What are we left with?

A lot of unknowns. A lot of frustrated voters. A lot of broken businesses. A lot of angry farmers. A lot of people too frightened to walk the streets. A lot of people who feel like strangers in their own city.

As for the parties, we have an aging Labor government dragged down by the collective weight of its legacy of failure. A Liberal Party trying to emerge from factional turmoil that isn’t quite sure what sort of conservative it is. And an enthusiastic, yet inexperienced One Nation with a desire for change, desperately trying to construct campaign infrastructure to support this ambition.

What do the voters want?

That is for our Victorian readers to weigh in on.

We asked our Facebook followers what they thought would happen following the disendorsement of Moira Deeming.

Many expressed hope that the party could move forward and focus on Labor.

Some worried it could tarnish their traditional conservative credentials and leave the vote splitting away to One Nation.

Others thought it had no impact on the general direction of the election.

Nearly everyone wants a future government that takes the cost-of-living crisis seriously.

Are you Victorian? Which party do you believe will win in November?

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