Shannon Deery: Libs’ ‘new dawn’ short-lived, even by party standards

It took less than a week for the Liberal Party to get back to business as usual after its promised new dawn. It’s already returned to dysfunctional disunity.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - NewsWire Photos - AUGUST 30, 2023: Opposition Leader John Pesutto during Question time in Victorian Parliament Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

If you’ve been waiting to see evidence of the Victorian Liberal Party’s new dawn, sorry, you’ve already missed it.

Even by Liberal Party standards the sun set on any notion of the promised renewal in record fashion.

It took less than a week for the party to get back to business as usual, that is to say, dysfunctional disunity.

Here’s how.

Saturday: Liberal leaders proclaim a new dawn for the party after Nicole Werner wins the Warrandyte by-election, retaining the seat the party had held since 1988. The claim immediately split the party. There were those that got behind the hysteria, even if they thought the hype was a bit much, and those that immediately mocked the claim of a new start. Within an hour, some Liberals were already warning the new dawn would last, at best, three days.

Sunday: Shadow corrections minister Brad Battin holds a press conference over the infamous decade-old car crash involving Daniel Andrews and his wife. Battin has referred the crash to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, but his appearance at the press conference leaves the leader’s office annoyed. Not in any small part because the conference, that includes purpose-built origami-style car models, sucks the oxygen from the party’s Warrandyte victory lap.

Nicole Werner with Liberal Party leader John Pesutto. Picture: David Crosling

Monday: Multiple MPs, including members of the leadership team, publicly lambaste Battin over the press conference. Instead of dealing with the matter privately, they revert to the well worn track of airing the party’s dirty laundry in public. Already by this point, the idea of a new dawn is being publicly mocked by MPs and senior Liberal figures.

Tuesday: There is talk of an emergency parliamentary party room meeting by MPs who want to block the party’s leadership group from demanding they be indemnified from multiple defamation lawsuits arising out of the Moira Deeming affair. One key Liberal source said MPs wanted to express “outrage at the idea of millions of dollars worth of campaign funds that the Liberal Party doesn’t have spare … to indemnify these four leaders.” They said the party’s membership would be “furious” to see funds used in such a way.

Wednesday: A special lunchtime meeting of MPs is called to discuss a range of internal party matters. The meeting, which Opposition Leader John Pesutto said he welcomed, is later called off and moved to Friday, before being moved to Thursday evening.

Thursday: Deputy leader of the opposition in the Upper House, Matt Bach, announces he is quitting politics. It is the worst kept secret on Spring St, but confirmation of his pending exit rocks the party given he was as recently as December seriously considering a serious run for leader. Eight months on and you’d be safe in thinking, despite his protests to the contrary, that Bach can’t see a path to victory at the 2026 election, which means yet another term in the political wilderness. When talent like Bach is walking out the door, you know there’s a problem.

Friday: Civil war erupts inside the party following the expulsion of leading conservative powerbroker Ivan Stratov. Dr Stratov was formally removed from the party during a meeting at a meeting of the administrative committee on Thursday night. The move sparked a factional war that is expected to run through both state and federal levels of the party. Dr Stratov, a Mormon, has been a key recruiter of religious conservatives since crossing to the Liberal Party from Family First.

A week is a long time in politics. Picture: David Geraghty

A week really is a long time in politics – and these are just the shenanigans we know about.

It’s any wonder Nationals MP Darren Chester famously dubbed the Victorian Liberals an “election losing machine”.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Mr Pesutto will on Tuesday sit down for the first round of formal mediation talks with exiled MP Moira Deeming.

Given the starting position of both parties, it is hard to see a settlement on the horizon.

But clearing the Deeming affair from the party’s books would go a long way to allowing it to move forward.

As it stands there is too much pent-up anger about Pesutto’s handling of the situation from some quarters of his partyroom to foster a sense of unity.

And without that, there can be no focus toward forming government.

If the party wants to talk about fresh beginnings, it must focus on the next general election.

Win that, and maybe then it will be time to start talking about new dawns.

Originally published as Shannon Deery: Libs’ ‘new dawn’ short-lived, even by party standards