John Pesutto is a man so bereft of political nous that only the Liberal Party would be silly enough to elect him leader

That John Pesutto has held on for this long is a testament to the lack of talent and depth in the Victorian Liberal Party – and the bad news is his likely replacements aren’t much better.

The inept Andrews-Allan governments have plunged Victoria into crippling debt, inflicted six devastating, unnecessary lockdowns and repeatedly breached the most basic integrity standards from the systematic rorting of the Red Shirts saga to the politicisation of the justice system including the police force.

State Labor has managed to do all this while implementing a raft of far Left social and cultural reforms, including the most extreme radical gender theory that currently allows a male-bodied sexual predator who identifies as a woman to be jailed at Melbourne’s largest women’s prison.

Any competent opposition would be counting down the days to the next state election in late 2026, expecting a landslide victory, but not the thoroughly hopeless, ideologically barren clowns of the Victorian Liberal Party led by John Pesutto.

He is a man so bereft of political nous that only the Liberal Party would be silly enough to elect him leader.

If John Pesutto and the Liberal Party were competent they would be expecting a landslide victory. Picture: Ian Currie

As I wrote back in March 2023: “Pesutto is a dead man walking”.

That he has held on for this long is a testament to the lack of talent and depth in the Victorian Liberal Party.

Pesutto was done as soon as he launched his irrational, politically stupid and possibly defamatory attack against first-term MP Moira Deeming.

He now faces not one, not two, but three credible defamation suits thanks to the ham-fisted, amateur-hour antics of his office, including the 15-page dossier that was circulated to MPs and the media.

That Pesutto has held on for this long is a testament to the lack of talent and depth in the Victorian Liberal Party. Picture: Ian Currie

The political missteps of the Liberals under Pesutto are too numerous to list in this column, from policy blunders like backing a treaty – that support was only withdrawn recently, months after the majority of Victorians voted “no” in the Voice referendum – to personnel blunders like hiring as director of communications and strategy a man who had applied to work for Daniel Andrews, twice.

The bad news for the Liberals is that the likely replacements aren’t much better than Pesutto, with Sam Groth and Brad Battin the frontrunners.

The former interrupted his holiday to fly back from Fiji to vote against Deeming and the latter backs the Labor/Greens policy of increasing the age of criminal responsibility.

The other contender, Brad Rowswell, is possibly the only one capable of laying a glove

on Labor.