James Campbell: MPs briefly pondered whether the scale of Pesutto’s thrashing amounted to curtains for his leadership

There’s one reason there won’t be a move on John Pesutto, despite a claim from one of his colleagues that “the majority of the party think he’s a f***wit”.

Things move quickly in the State Parliamentary Liberal Party of Victoria.

In the immediate aftermath of John Pesutto’s straight-sets defeat in the Federal Court, MPs briefly pondered whether the scale of his thrashing amounted to curtains for his leadership.

True, Justice David O’Callaghan hadn’t called the leader of the opposition a liar, but that was where the good news ended, with the judge finding he had defamed his colleague Moira Deeming by accusing her of things which were not only untrue but which he should have known were untrue.

But by lunchtime it was all, if not ancient history, then an event from which many of his colleagues had already moved on.

Opposition leader John Pesutto copped a straight-sets defeat in the Federal Court. Picture: Ian Currie

A veteran MP summed the mood up: “He has the numbers, so why go?”

Sure there was a lot of loose talk around but it wouldn’t amount to anything.

“People are just emotional and dumb. We will go to Christmas and by mid-Jan it’s all over.”

Make no mistake however, the reason there won’t be a move on Pesutto is not because there’s any great faith in his abilities.

Moira Deeming is all smiles as she leaves the Federal Court. Picture: Ian Currie

It’s because right now the three men vying to replace him – Brad Battin, James Newbury and Sam Groth – would all rather he stayed where he is, instead of them having to endure the agony of one of the other two getting his job.

And Pesutto knows it, which is why by the time 2.30pm arrived and it was time to front his press conference, he was clearly prepared to wear that morning’s Federal Court spanking as a badge of honour.

“Now more than ever when it is so clear on so many indicators that our state is headed in the wrong direction,” he explained, “we need leaders who have that fight in them – leaders who will stand up and be accountable and always put the interest of our state first.”

So that’s that then?

Well not quite.

Pesutto’s real problem is not the men and women who sit in his party room, it’s the Liberal Party members who sit behind them.

You can tell this from the fact that although Deeming has little or no chance of being readmitted to the parliamentary party, she remains a Liberal Party member.

This was always the folly at the heart of Pesutto’s move to get rid of her – there was zero chance of the party members voting to expel her.

That’s because, on the issue of women’s only spaces, especially changing rooms, the overwhelming majority agree with her.

That the unemployable mouth breathers who currently make up the numbers in Spring St have deluded themselves into believing this doesn’t matter – or as one of their smarter number put it yesterday “the party ain’t the parliamentary party” – shouldn’t surprise anyone.

But in reality it does matter: this isn’t like the Melbourne Club – where they elect their own members – it’s the wider party which chooses who gets to join them.

And right now, after three election defeats in a row – two of them thrashings – it’s fair to say the members don’t think much of either Pesutto or the rest of their state MPs for that matter.

In the brutal words of one MP: “The majority of the party think he’s a f***wit – two thirds of the members would have that view.”

If that wasn’t problem enough, there’s the fact that in positioning himself as a socially progressive Liberal keen to govern for all of Hawthorn, Pesutto is pursuing a strategy which is at odds with the War-On-Woke for which Peter Dutton is gearing up.

Pesutto has survived for now but he desperately needs to find a way to fix his relationship with the social conservatives who make up the vast majority of his party’s membership.