Secret Deeming recording shows Victorian Liberals were completely paralysed by Daniel Andrews
The secret recording aired as part of the defamation brawl between Moira Deeming and John Pesutto makes one thing painfully clear — the opposition was completely paralysed by Daniel Andrews.
Opinion
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The Liberal Party’s ongoing defamation brawl has made one thing abundantly clear: the opposition was completely and unapologetically paralysed by Daniel Andrews.
Dan would be sitting at home laughing his head off at confirmation that he was indeed living rent free inside the heads of those he dubbed the irrelevants. He believed it, too.
Whether it was Michael O’Brien, Matthew Guy or John Pesutto leading the opposition he faced, Dan took the firm view that giving them oxygen only took away from his government getting on with doing what mattered.
Contrast that, then, to the sheer fear that appears to have underpinned John Pesutto’s decision that there was no longer a place for Moira Deeming in his party room.
We now know, thanks to a week of evidence in the Federal Court, that even before he hauled Deeming into a Sunday crisis meeting the day after she attended a Let Women Speak rally, he had made his mind up she had to go.
A statement had already been drafted announcing Deeming’s resignation.
A recording of that meeting is explicit in detailing the Andrews paranoia that motivated the Deeming action.
“I think Andrews in his tweets today is signalling that this is what their week is going to be about,” Pesutto is heard telling Deeming.
“This comes also off the back of at least two weeks of intense work that we have been doing to line up the cross bench on Redlich.”
Pesutto and his team had been working to get anti-corruption commissioner Robert Redlich called before parliament to lift the lid on his concerns of corruption inside the government.
“My worry is that now gets overwhelmed by what I think is going to be a crescendo on this which will be fuelled by Andrews and everybody else opposed to us, to see what I’m going to do about it and what we as a party are going to do about it,” Pesutto tells Deeming.
Later on he says again: “I’m very concerned about where Andrews is going to take it this week. They have been itching for something to clobber me with and this is it, it’s coming.”
And later still he says the “government’s now got the wind in it sails”.
“You see Andrews came out strong today on that tweet, right, which was signalling what’s to come — they’re out, they’re off the ropes again, we’ve got them on the ropes, they’re off the ropes again,” he says.
There’s talk, too, about Andrews snubbing Pesutto the night before the meeting in a move that left the leadership team deeply distressed.
It appears an almost blinding obsession.
Pesutto’s claim that the government was on the ropes is a curious one.
A quick look at polling from that time shows that in the first six months of last year the government’s primary vote didn’t drop below 41 per cent.
At the same time, the opposition went from 30 per cent to 26 per cent.
Tough to strike a knock out blow from there.
Deputy leader David Southwick also shines light on the Andrews paranoia, warning Deeming “we were all going to be caught on the back foot because that’s what Andrews does, that’s how he rolls.”
Andrews, Andrews, Andrews.
One wonders if it speaks more to Dan’s power, or Pesutto’s lack of political acumen.
Either way, not only does it seem the Opposition have been too often too focused on themselves, they were so fearful of Andrews that it rendered them also unable to formulate and prosecute their own vision for Victoria.
In the last 12 months policy hasn’t exactly been the strong point.
Factional heavyweights fear mediocrity has now become hereditary for the former jewel of the Liberal Party crown.
Pesutto will on Tuesday take the stand in the long running legal drama, amid accusations he “double crossed” colleagues over his handling of the Deeming matter.
It will be a historic appearance for a political leader, dragged to court and forced to go head to head with members of his own shadow cabinet.
The party has become completely engrossed by the trial, their interest unified in a way unfamiliar with the warring factions of the Victorian Liberal Party.
There is a growing view that the sight of a parliamentary leader sitting alongside a former colleague, and having his barrister interrogate a member of his shadow cabinet, will ultimately kill Pesutto’s leadership.
How very emblematic of the disunity and lack of discipline that voters have come to expect from the party.
“JP’s focus should be on holding a tired government to account, instead he’s focused on having a judge prove he has slightly more credibility than an ousted independent,” a Liberal factional source said.
With the Opposition in turmoil, Labor has launched a deliberate strategy to redefine Jacinta Allan, while the Premier gets three weeks without scrutiny.
And Dan, presumably, reaches for another box of popcorn.
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