Backroom Baz: Liberal Party leaks following Moira Deeming suspension

While there was an eerie silence from the Liberal Party room as members decided Moira Deeming’s fate, what followed showed some hard lessons may still need to be learned.

The Libs decided against expelling Deeming from the party room. Picture: Luis Ascui

There was an eerie silence out of the Liberal Party’s party room when it met to expel Moira Deeming last Monday.

So uncharacteristically for the Libs there wasn’t a single leak out of the two-hour marathon meeting that ended in Deeming being suspended for nine months.

Maybe party president Greg Mirabella’s complaint that constant leaks were damaging the party, aired at a party AGM days earlier, were taken on board.

Given the taps were turned on immediately after the meeting, Baz reckons Mirabella’s pleas for silence fell on deaf ears.

Moria Deeming avoided being expelled from the Liberal Party room. Picture: Luis Ascui

Nats leadership lessons

Nats MPs got a lesson in the glory days of Parliament House last week during a get together with current and former MPs, among them former leaders Peter Ryan and Pat McNamara.

Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull, said it was a “great night”.

“Interesting to hear that not so long ago our MPs shared two telephone lines out of parliament and those lines cut off at 4.30 in the afternoon,” he said.

“After that, you had to get some coins for the phone box! No emails, computers, mobiles or social media – how things have changed.”

What doesn’t seem to change, at least not often, are National Party leaders. Since 1988 there’s been just three.

Coalition partners the Liberals can get through that many before breakfast – since 1988 they’ve had eight different leaders.

Fire boss quits

It's been a long time coming, but Ken Block has finally called time on his job as Fire Rescue Victoria supremo.

Baz flagged rumours that Block had bought a one-way ticket to his native Canada in this column last week.

But after so many false starts it wouldn’t have surprised if Block did indeed make his way back to Melbourne.

Almost every time he headed home for holidays since joining FRV in 2020, there were rumours he wouldn’t return. They stemmed largely from the fact that he made no secrets about how unhappy he was with the service, and the way it was running.

The question now is, who replaces him? Victoria has so often looked overseas to fill the spot but is it time for a local to step up?

One thing’s for certain, whoever it is will almost certainly need the tick of approval from union boss Peter Marshall who got a special shout out from Block in his farewell note to colleagues.

Fire Rescue Commissioner Ken Block. Picture: Supplied

MPs flock to Obama

It’s not every day a US President visits, so it was a political who’s who among the 10,000-strong crowd that turned out to listen to Barack Obama speak on Wednesday.

Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan, Treasurer Tim Pallas and Sports Minister Steve Dimopoulos all had a special shout out by host Julie Bishop ahead of proceedings.

But Baz spotted a slew of other MPs in the crowd too.

Member for Bentleigh Nick Staicos was among them, as was former minister Martin Pakula.

During his 70 minutes on stage, Mr Obama spoke of the rise of China, climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the world economy.

And he gave insights to his dealings with world leaders, too, all of which makes state politics seem a little dull.

Oh how Baz wishes he could have been a fly on the wall of the party that followed the passing of his Obamacare health laws, which he described as his presidential highlight.

“After we passed it, I invited the staff up to the residence, we looked out at Jefferson Monument to the Washington Monument and I said ‘this is why we do what we do’, you don’t get elected to hold office, you get elected to do this, to help people,” he said.

“And then we got drunk! Within limits. I mean, they were with the president, in his house, nobody was on the tables.”

Barack Obama leaves the Stokehouse, St Kilda, Melbourne. Picture: Tim Carrafa

MP’s power plane stunt

Usually when a Labor MP says they would jump out of a plane if the government required it, they are speaking figuratively. But Paul Edbrooke took the term ‘player’ to a whole new level when he literally jumped out of a plane in a stunt to spruik the government’s power saving bonus.

Labor MP Paul Edbrooke took the term team player to a whole new level. Picture: Supplied

Edbrooke, who no doubt hoped his jump would parachute him straight onto the front bench, encouraged people to sign up to the scheme by showing that it took less time to do that than skydive from 15,000ft. By his calculations the skydive took about eight minutes, or “easily enough times to complete two PSBs”

In the spirit of this blue sky thinking, Baz is considering a similar stunt with a bottle of Merlot, but doesn’t like his chance of filling out any forms afterwards.

Spring St wages in limbo

Not content with slamming the Andrews government over 5000 public servant job cuts that are on the cards, the CPSU have hit them where it hurts this week by holding a union meeting for ministerial staffers including those inside the Premier’s Private Office.

Their enterprise agreement is up for negotiation soon and, despite being a Labor government, the PPO does not appear to see eye-to-eye with the union on industrial matters.

As Baz has previously reported, staffing levels for the Spring St media are low as the office has struggled to fill a wave of vacancies that came after the state election.

It has also been noted by staffers, some of whom are former union organisers, that signing up to any new pay deals before the government puts out its wages policy would be foolish.

Baz is told the new wages policy has been settled, but is not yet public.

Is strike action on the cards? Will the Premier’s social media pages go quiet for the first time since 2014?

The last time this happened in 2019, a handful of loyal staffers threatened to quit the union but Baz suspects heavy workloads and surging inflation mean there’ll be some significant pressure on the government to come to the table.

Overheard

Nothing, from Premier Daniel Andrews this week as he frolicked around China.

Guess who

Beyond those persons disclosed, just who did Premier Daniel Andrews meet in China this week, and what did they discuss?

Originally published as Backroom Baz: Liberal Party leaks following Moira Deeming suspension