James Campbell: Can Liberals finally capitalise as fortunes lift and support for Labor wanes?

The state’s finances are a basketcase and Labor is labouring under the leadership of an unelected premier, but it seems things are just as messy on the other side of politics.

The most perplexing mystery in Victorian politics at the moment is not how does the state get itself out of this mess – a problem for which there may be no solution – it is do the Liberals actually want to win?

Think about it: after a wretched decade which has seen three election defeats – two of them thrashings – at the hands of an all-powerful Labor leader in Daniel Andrews, the Liberals fortunes have finally lifted.

Not only are the state’s finances a basket case but Labor is labouring under the journeyman leadership of an unelected premier.

On Friday Victorians, who already pay the highest taxes in Australia, were told by the Treasurer Tim Pallas they will need to rise again to help plug his growing budget deficit.

And how did the Vic Libs mark this occasion?

Treasurer Tim Pallas announced his retirement this week. Picture: NewsWire

Leadership wannabe Sam Groth resigned from the shadow cabinet while upper house backbencher Bev McArthur called on her leader to quit.

Fast forward to Monday and Pallas announces he is quitting, triggering what should have been a week of media reflection on his disastrous performance.

So naturally five Liberal MPs including a member of John Pesutto’s frontbench decided to make it all about them by forcing a party room meeting on Friday to try to readmit Moira Deeming.

Do they have the numbers? Even some of her supporters say she does not.

They’re pressing ahead for a number of reasons.

For some this is just about Deeming and nothing to do with Pesutto’s leadership

For others it’s about being able to tell their overwhelmingly pro-Deeming branch members at least they tried for her.

Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto. Picture: David Crosling

Monday’s letter to Liberal Party members from its president Philip Davis which has been interpreted as a thinly veiled threat may have also influenced them.

In it Davis said while MPs are “solely responsible” for their conduct in Spring St “volunteers do however determine who will represent us as endorsed candidates”.

Then there are the wreckers for whom this is not really about Deeming at all – it’s about making sure Pesutto can’t get any momentum going.

Because if the polls stay the way they are and he does well in the Prahran – and now Werribee – by-elections they know he has a good chance to take the party to the election and a fair chance of becoming premier.

And that would be unbearable to them.

In my opinion the Deeming question will need to be revisited sooner or later.

But surely couldn’t it have waited until after Christmas?

James Campbell is a Herald Sun columnist