Liberal Party candidate exposes chaos behind campaign

A Victorian Liberal candidate has lifted the lid on the chaos behind the party’s election campaign and revealed how confident they were of a win.

A Liberal Party candidate has lifted the lid on a chaotic election campaign, accusing outgoing state director Sam McQuestin of doing more for Labor than his own party.

And the party had such high hopes of winning that arrangements were being made to transition to government on the day after the election.

In a withering attack, Angela Newhouse said she was denied any help to try and win the seat of Point Cook and was bullied and called “stupid” when she urged the party to run a positive campaign.

Despite Point Cook being a safe Labor seat Ms Newhouse recorded a 4.3 per cent swing toward the Liberal Party and said she believed it could have been won.

But she said messaging failed to capitalise on the $1bn in promises on offer for locals, or the expected creation of thousands of jobs within the electorate.

“My campaign was being run by people who had no understanding of Point Cook whatsoever,” she said.

“Party HQ showed no respect, treated a contrary view as treason, and ignored or refused every request from me for even the tiniest piece of support.

“To see a certain win being thrown away every day with each rejected request by a bunch of overinflated know-alls was incredibly stressful.

“I realised very early in the campaign, that the Premier’s greatest asset was Sam McQuestin’s Liberal Party HQ team.”

The party’s campaign team has come under fire over running an amateurish campaign that failed to make any significant gain on its disastrous 2018 election result.

At the core of the criticism was the party’s inability to seriously engage with multicultural communities, middle Australia and millennials.

Angela Newhouse says she was denied any help to try and win the seat of Point Cook.

Sam McQuestin has been accused of doing more for Labor than his own party. Picture: Richard Jupe

Failed candidates have been privately criticising the campaign strategy, after being told in the days before the election internal polling showed the party would win office.

So confident was the party of victory, urgent arrangements were being made to transition to government on Sunday morning.

Key MPs had been told the polls showed the Coalition would be in a position to form government, and staff went about setting the wheels in motion for their first day in office.

Planning was so advanced, some staff had been told precisely what roles they would be playing under Premier Guy.

It has since been claimed by some candidates that they were lied to about internal tracking data.

Liberal Party sources have this week sold the campaign as a great success, saying it saved the party from a Western Australian-style parliamentary wipe-out.

But Ms Newhouse rejected the claim, saying she was offered little support to try and win the seat.

She also claimed she was called “stupid, absurd and a saboteur” for suggesting the party run a positive campaign.

“It was systematic bullying, brainwashing and p---ing in the wind based on an all-singing, all-dancing focus group of who knows what,” she said.

“Their focus group was infallible, their campaign experience was unchallengeable and that meant a campaign of hell, not hope.”

“McQuestin’s team poured 100 per cent of the party’s money down the toilet, running anti-Dan adverts everywhere.

“This was an unlosable election for any opposition party on the planet, yet McQuestin’s Liberal Party HQ turned it into a trainwreck like 2018.”

Ms Newhouse said she was so angered by the campaign, she had decided to quit the party.

“The Premier’s lockdowns dragged many essential workers like me into the Liberal Party and into frontline politics. We won’t be back in 2026,” she said.

“We were hectored, bullied and lectured by a clueless Premier in 2020 and 2021, and now we were subjected to a different, but equally damaging, hectoring and bullying by McQuestin’s Liberal Party HQ team.

Planning was so advanced, some staff had been told precisely what roles they would be playing under ‘Premier Guy.’ Picture: Wayne Taylor

“Requesting anything from Sam McQuestin’s Liberal Party HQ was as traumatic for me as being in lockdown.

“McQuestin’s team were running a campaign that might have worked in 2021, but didn’t have a hope in hell this year.

“They were obsessed with the hell of 2020 and 2021, and didn’t publicise any hope for 2023 onwards, despite us offering so much.

“If everyone in Point Cook had known what was on offer from the Liberal Party, then the seat would have been won in a canter.

“But none of this was relevant to McQuestin and his apparatchiks; they knew best, and apparently the best was saying ‘I’m not Dan’. Nothing else mattered.

“’Stick to our plan, it’s working’ was rammed down our throats every morning in McQuestin’s campaign bulletins.”

A Liberal Party campaign spokesman rejected Ms Newhouse’s claims.

“Point Cook was not a target seat. It is not unusual for unsuccessful candidates to feel deflated and angry, nonetheless it should be noted that there was a 4.3 per cent swing towards the Liberal Party in Point Cook, which is a credit to Ms Newhouse,” he said.

In the wake of the election defeat Liberal Party leader Matthew Guy resigned from the top job sparking an internal fight for the role.

Mr McQuestin also announced he was standing down, saying he’d advised the party officials he would quit regardless of the election result in October.

Critics complained that both he and deputy Brad Stansfield had been spending too much time in Tasmania, and did not properly understand Victoria.

“On the 21st October this year, I advised the party’s remuneration committee (which includes the state president) that I would not be continuing on as state director, regardless of the election outcome,” Mr McQuestin said in a statement.

“While the election result was not what we wanted, it is a credit to the campaign team.

“Clearly, the Victorian Division of the Party is facing some significant challenges and I wish my successor, whoever they may be, all the very best.”

In an email to members state president Greg Mirabella said there was a need for fundamental reform of the state division.

“Our overall result is not what we wanted,” he said.

“Any loss is tough. This one is tougher because we were all imbued with a dedication to change the government of this state, and an expectation that we could make serious inroads.

“We achieved neither.”

Originally published as Liberal Party candidate exposes chaos behind campaign