James Campbell: Jess Wilson is easily the best credentialed Liberal MP to have any chance of convincing Collins St that this crew are ready for Government

There was a standout winner in Brad Battin’s new shadow ministry while a highly-credentialed MP was overlooked for a key role.

The difficulty for anyone tasked with rating Brad Battin’s choices for his shadow ministry is that while it’s easy to come up with people he should have sacked it’s a much harder task to think of who deserved to be promoted in their place.

The biggest loser from the new Liberal leader’s reshuffle is clearly Brad Rowswell, who as Shadow Treasurer was the second most important member of John Pesutto’s shadow cabinet but will now have – checks-second-page-of-the-list – responsibility for “Digital Transformation and Public Service Innovation” as well as Environment.

The beneficiary of his demotion and today’s standout winner is James Newbury, an outcome which will have delighted his many fans in the National Party and is not unconnected to the Brighton MP’s sudden switch last week from fierce Pesutto defender to fierce Pesutto critic.

While Newbury like Rowswell doesn’t have a finance background he is political to his fingertips and should be able to prosecute a narrative against this government in a way his predecessor never could.

It was a hard task thinking who Brad Battin should have promoted in his reshuffle. Picture: David Crosling

Of course in a perfect world Battin would have preferred to replace Rowswell with Pesutto’s finance spokeswoman Jess Wilson.

Unfortunately for her, by the time she and her supporters abandoned their quixotic attempt to make her leader, the deal had been done to give Newbury Treasury.

Until today Wilson had both Finance and Education – a silly decision of Pesutto’s since without question they would be held by separate people if this were a real rather than a shadow government.

Battin’s decision to separate the jobs is therefore sensible.

Stripping Finance from Wilson however is just stupid.

Having worked in Josh Frydenberg’s office when he was Treasurer as well as at KPMG and the Business Council of Australia, she is easily the best credentialed Liberal MP to have any chance of convincing Collins St that this crew are ready for Government.

Stripping Finance from Jess Wilson however is just stupid. Picture: David Crosling

But if dumping Wilson from Finance is stupid, replacing her with Bridget Vallence – who also gets Trade and Investment and Manager of Opposition Business – can only be described as an act of self-harm.

In her six years in Parliament Vallence has at various times held the portfolios of Industry, Innovation, Tertiary Education, Manufacturing, Skills and Training, Employment and Industrial Relations, the Digital Economy and Medical Research, Equality, Environment and Climate Change and Youth Affairs.

And in not one of them has she ever done the Labor Party any harm.

Really, there can only be two explanations for her elevation.

Either Battin has spotted something the rest of us have been missing or Finance was the price Vallence extracted from him for her vote.

Other notable decisions include the arrival at last in the Shadow Ministry of Bev McArthur who as a backbencher has been a thorn in the side of every leader since she arrived in Parliament in 2018.

She gets Scrutiny of Government which may be a canny choice, given, as a Federal MP joked that under Pesutto “she did such a good job of Scrutiny of Opposition”.

The only other things to note – aside from Pesutto’s decision to go to the backbench – are firstly, that despite being deputy leader Sam Groth is still serving the same nothing burgers of Tourism, Sport and Events that he was serving under Pesutto, though he does pick up Hospitality and the title of Special Minister of State.

The other is that Battin has grasped that if the next Coalition Government is to avoid the mistakes of the previous one then the prep work has to start now, which is why Matthew Guy has been given Transition to Government.