Backroom Baz: Liberal leader John Pesutto’s charm offensive pays off

Opposition Leader John Pesutto’s loyal lieutenants are backing the leader to the hilt as he dials up the charm in the wake of the Deeming expulsion.

John Pesutto has launched a full-blown charm offensive. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

His team might be claiming the expulsion of Deeming as a win, but even some of Opposition Leader John Pesutto’s closest friends and allies have been quietly questioning the direction of His Majesty’s Opposition.

Word must have reached the Pesutto bunker because a full-blown charm offensive has been launched with the leader and his team hitting the phones to consult on all matters recently.

The strategy has paid off with the loyal lieutenants falling into line and backing the leader to the hilt. A good lesson in politics, keep your friends close as your enemies start to circle.

Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan played a straight bat when asked about Ben Carroll. Picture: Josie Hayden

Curve ball blocked

Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan played a straight bat this week when a cheeky reporter asked her about a salacious story suggesting Ben Carroll was schmoozing MPs for a future leadership bid.

Caught briefly off guard, Allan quickly said she wasn’t going to comment on gossip and that her Cabinet colleagues were much too focused on delivering their election commitments.

The story, which focused on the likelihood of either Carroll or Allan seizing power when the Premier eventually departs, caused quite a stir and prompted allegations of hit jobs from all sides of the party. Some Labor sources also disputed a line suggesting the Left was united behind Allan as the next leader. However, in the current landscape it’s hard to imagine who else they would support.

Former religious-Right Liberal powerbroker David Lau has reappeared on Spring St.

David’s not lying Lau

As factional tensions surrounding renegade Liberal MP Moira Deeming’s expulsion reached boiling point this week, Baz was surprised to hear of the re-emergence of twice disgraced, and now seldom seen, former religious-Right Liberal powerbroker David Lau on Spring St.

Baz’s spies reported spotting Lau grabbing an Uber this week having just departed, it seems, a strategy meeting to save Deeming.

Lau, a former Liberal operative, resigned in the wake of a social media scandal that outraged some Liberals. He also created a false identity to nastily attack journalists while supporting the pre-selection of Renee Heath, his one-time partner.

Under threat of expulsion, Lau resigned. Seems though, he is back.

Labor’s national conference included a shout-out to Pope Francis. Picture: AFP

Young Libs are all at See

It looks like the Catholic ghosts of the Democratic Labor Party are alive and well in the ALP’s youth movement!

Baz had flashbacks to the Great Schism after noticing that one of the motions at Young Labor’s national conference included a shout out to Pope Francis. It notes that the Holy See has been a “bastion of progress” and calls on the AYL to write to Foreign Affairs Penny Wong and ask that she pass on their congratulations to the pontiff (right) himself.

In another contribution, Young Labor condemned “scab unions” and called for any ALP members supporting these organisations to resign their memberships with them immediately.

The groups they are referring to are of course the “Red Union” blockade, which are employee associations not registered in the same way as trade unions but have been looking to poach members with lower fees. In Queensland, the Labor government wrote new laws clamping down on these opponents of their affiliated allies and it likely won’t be long before we see a similar move in Victoria.

Simon Phemister.

Justin Hanney.

Life after government

Former senior bureaucrats Simon Phemister and Justin Hanney have found new roles after exiting senior government positions.

Baz hears Phemister, former secretary for the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions, has landed at PwC. His LinkedIn account boasts that he was founding principal of The Dux Projects, which appears to offer leadership training.

Meanwhile Hanney, once chief at the City of Melbourne, has taken up a senior partner role with Davidson. Although its probably a good gig, it is unlikely to pay as well as the CoM which offered a pay packet larger than the Premier’s.

Suited to his office

Fair’s fair, and Baz will always give credit where it’s due. After weeks of being highly critical of upper house president Shaun Leane’s relaxed approach to the parliamentary dress code (above), Baz was chuffed to see the big man suited and booted in his most recent official video.

Gone were the beach bum T-shirts, in was the suit and tie. Looking most parliamentary.