No bigger play behind Groth’s massive serve

In the hours before Sam Groth called John Pesutto to say he was no longer willing to serve as a shadow minister under his leadership, he was at the pub having a few beers.

He hadn’t been madly hitting the phones to party room colleagues. He hadn’t been doing numbers in preparation for a leadership spill.

Victorian Liberal MP Sam Groth.Credit: Eddie Jim

He hadn’t been put up to it by another of Pesutto’s detractors. He didn’t know whether any other Liberal MPs would follow his lead.

It was a unilateral decision, taken on principle, to resign to the backbench without a clear sense of what will happen next.

In a sense, Groth approached the biggest decision of his short political career in the same way he played tennis: a massive serve and then, come what may.

But with that one massive serve – a four-paragraph statement saying he could not “in good conscience” sit on Pesutto’s frontbench – he put the Liberal leadership squarely in play.

Groth has made no secret of his ambition to lead the party he joined two years ago, shortly before he was pre-selected as a celebrity candidate for the seat of Nepean, one of only two the Liberals won back from Labor amid the wreckage of their 2022 election defeat.

The only other Liberal to add a seat to the party’s column on election night was Pesutto.

But there is no sign that Groth or anyone else is preparing an imminent challenge.

Where a serious challenger would spend their day talking and meeting with colleagues to seek their support, Groth was at his family home at Rye, manning the barbecue and hosting friends for pre-Christmas drinks on Saturday.

For all the sizzle about a leadership spill, every party hardhead within the Liberal Party knows that any attempt now would come up a sausage short.

Meanwhile, the man who came within a solitary vote of beating Pesutto in a party room ballot two years ago, Brad Battin, publicly hosed down the prospect of a spill in coming days.

“I don’t say it necessarily means there is going to be a challenge in the near future, but it does mean we have to have a discussion within the party,” he told Sky News’ Steve Price.

In the same interview, he also said he had no prior inkling of Groth’s plans. This is consistent with what other MPs close to Groth have told this masthead.

“He is a great guy,” Battin said. “He has come into parliament full of passion, he is committed. He knows that he one day has a future in this party, and I know his decision was based on his beliefs and his values.

“That’s a decision he has made by himself.”

For all the sizzle about a leadership spill, every party hardhead within the Liberal Party knows that any attempt now would come up a sausage short.

Groth is not a member of the conservative grouping within the Liberal party room that Battin nominally leads. Nor is he acting with the support of moderate MPs who share his dismay about the outcome of ousted MP Moira Deeming’s successful defamation claim against Pesutto.

Pesutto was ordered on Thursday to pay $300,000 in damages and savaged over his time in the witness box in a 250-page judgment that found he injured Deeming’s reputation by repeatedly and falsely implying that she knowingly associates with neo-Nazis.

One long-serving MP, who requested anonymity to discuss internal party matters, expressed their exasperation that, at a time when the polls suggest the Liberal Party is a genuine chance of forming Victoria’s next government, one of its least experienced members has found a new way to blow the joint up.

“The bloke joined the Liberal Party five minutes before he sought preselection,” they said. “If his talent was as big as his serve he would be great, but it is not.

“This is really a moment of truth for the Liberal Party. Are we serious about winning the next election or do we want to stuff around?”

Another Liberal MP said Groth had most likely destroyed whatever future leadership prospects he had. “I don’t think the party room will ever now turn to him,” they said.

There are Liberal MPs who have spent the best part of 20 years in parliament and only four in government. This is a soul-destroying way to spend what should be the most productive years of your working life.

Even if they aren’t strong backers of Pesutto, they understand how difficult it is to beat Labor in Victoria. Right now, they can’t see a would-be leader who gives them a better chance than Pesutto. As one put it: “If not JP, who else?”

The next significant development in this saga could well play out in the Federal Court, rather than the party room, when the parties to the Deeming v Pesutto defamation case return to argue about costs.

Under Federal Court rules, Pesutto has 21 days from the date of last Thursday’s judgment to pay the $300,000 damages order made against him. That sum accrues at the rate of 3 per cent interest, which means Pesutto’s debt will be about $315,000 when it is due. It is a tidy sum for someone on a parliamentary salary.

Then there is the matter of costs. There is no dispute between the parties that on February 8 this year, Deeming’s lawyers put a compromise offer to Pesutto to drop the case if he agreed to pay $99,000 in damages and her legal costs and concede judgment against him.

At the time, Deeming’s costs were modest. They are now estimated to have reached somewhere between $2 million and $3 million.

In standard litigation, the loser of a case expects to pay about 70 per cent of the winner’s costs. Because Pesutto refused what Deeming’s lawyers will argue was a reasonable settlement offer before this case had chewed serious court time, he may be hit with a costs order for more than 90 per cent of Deeming’s legal bills.

This is serious money. If Deeming’s lawyers doubt Pesutto’s capacity to pay – notwithstanding the financial support he has been promised by a trio of former Liberal premiers in Jeff Kennett, Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine – they may seek a costs order against his donors.

This in turn would force Pesutto to reveal whether any secret, deep-pocketed funders stumped up for his ill-judged legal stoush.

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