James Campbell: A vote for Brad a giant leap into the unknown

Brad Battin is far from the laziest member of the shadow cabinet, but there’s plenty of reasons why his colleagues are backing his leadership challenge.

For the next few weeks the Andrews Government will be without its most important asset: Premier Daniel Andrews.

When state parliament resumes on Tuesday it will give the Liberals the best chance to put Labor’s B-Team under pressure since they were walloped at the 2018 election.

So naturally of course they’ve decided instead to have a leadership ballot.

Nothing sums up better the dysfunctional state of the state parliamentary Liberal Party than this is the week they’ve chosen to try and get rid of Michael O’Brien.

That is if the vote ends up happening.

On Monday evening the spill was apparently on, but you can’t be sure what will happen when they walk in on Tuesday morning.

Attempted Liberal coups can melt-away faster than a Sunnyboy on February school playground asphalt when it’s clear the numbers just aren’t there.

In a head-to-head vote O’Brien would beat Brad Battin.

Michael O'Brien is facing a challenge from Brad Battin.

For although it has long been rumoured he sees himself as foreman material, it is fair to say not many other people have him penciled in as a potential Liberal leader.

The general view is Battin’s a nice guy and far from the laziest member of the shadow cabinet, but though he presents well-enough, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Electing him leader would be a giant leap into the unknown. If he wins and it later becomes clear he isn’t up to the job, the Liberals could face the horror-prospect of going to the next election with their third leader in less than two years.

O’Brien’s problem is the vote to spill the leadership is not a vote for Brad Battin as leader, it’s a referendum on how well he’s been doing his job.

The life of a state opposition leader facing a government with a massive majority is never a happy one.

Brad Battin’s challenge may backfire.

But the complaint even from people who wish him well is that O’Brien has made that position worse by failing to talk regularly with his MPs.

The big unknown unknown is how many of them want to send him a message they’re unhappy with his performance.

There is also the question of how many might vote to spill the leadership in the hope some other non-Brad Battin candidate puts their name forward for leader.

On Monday evening it looked as though O’Brien would avoid that humiliation, with MPs – even some of his most outspoken internal critics –circling the wagons around the leader.

If it were O’Brien’s predecessor Matthew Guy putting his hand up on Tuesday it would be a different story.

But not only is Guy telling everyone who will listen that he isn’t interested in the job, he’s making it clear he’s furious at this amateurish attempt to remove O’Brien.

The same is true for the young turk Tim Smith.

For the plotters it seems to be wrong time, wrong candidate.