Indian diaspora disappointment as Liberals back old guard in Werribee

Influential members of Melbourne’s Indian diaspora were behind a failed push to install self-made businessman Rajan Chopra as the Liberal Party’s candidate for next Saturday’s Werribee byelection, which is shaping up as a historic challenge to Labor’s stranglehold on the western suburbs.

The spurned candidacy, which was rejected by the party’s administrative committee in favour of Steve Murphy, a local real estate agent and long-term party volunteer whose wife previously stood as a Liberal candidate in four state and federal elections, has caused consternation within an aspirational migrant community whose votes could determine Saturday’s outcome.

Liberal Party candidate for Werribee Steve Murphy has served as his wife’s campaign manager in four previous elections.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Raj Chopra, a 46-year-old, first-generation immigrant who amassed a personal fortune through investments in private education and residential and commercial real estate, was backed by well-known community figure and party supporter Dinesh Gourisetty, land developer and former councillor Intaj Khan and accountant Manpreet Singh.

The three endorsements – one each from India’s Hindu, Islamic and Sikh traditions – would have helped Chopra’s candidacy bridge sectarian divisions within the Indian diaspora. Two Liberal Party members, speaking confidentially to discuss internal party matters, said Chopra would have also brought a sizeable war chest to the Werribee campaign.

“It is a missed opportunity,” a senior Liberal said.

Chopra and his backers declined to discuss his nomination or the preselection process when contacted by this masthead.

Businessman Rajan Chopra was backed-in by influential members of the Indian diaspora to stand for the Liberal Party in Werribee.

In the year Tim Pallas, the former treasurer whose retirement from politics forced a byelection in Werribee, was elected, the suburb at the heart of the electorate had just 379 residents born in India. That was 2006.

At the time of the last census in 2021, there were 3699. In the broader electorate of Werribee, which takes in fast-growing Indian communities in Manor Lakes and other surrounding suburbs, there were more than 11,000 first-generation Indian immigrants.

In shorthand reference to the area’s rapidly changing demographics, locals talk about old Werribee and new Werribee.

The administrative committee decision to preselect Murphy, a 63-year-old, staunchly Catholic, white candidate with deep connections to old Werribee, was backed by Opposition Leader Brad Battin and party headquarters.

Part of their reasoning was that, when Gayle Murphy contested both the 2014 and 2018 state elections in Werribee and the 2016 and 2019 federal elections in the overlapping seat of Lalor, Murphy served as her campaign manager and gained a strong understanding of the local area and its politics.

Murphy, while not privy to the party’s preselection deliberations, said his involvement with his wife’s campaigns and experience as a real estate agent gave him a good insight into what Werribee voters needed.

“I am used to handing out and pre-poll and talking to people and I know the issues here,” he said.

“As a real estate agent, I have spoken to thousands of people over the years. You are sitting across their kitchen table and talking about their dreams, their goals, their failures, their successes, how they have dealt with death and divorce. You become a part of people’s lives for just that little bit.”

Murphy first moved to Werribee when it was a country town rather than a suburban hub hemmed in by growth areas. After a teenage stint as a police recruit and four years spent crewing a Leopard Tank with the army’s 1st Armoured Regiment at Puckapunyal, he worked as a town planner for Wyndham City Council before finding his calling in real estate.

Liberal candidate for Werribee Steve Murphy with Opposition Leader Brad Battin.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

His other major calling is the Catholic Church, which he served as a board member for Werribee’s MacKillop College, a parish council member for the St James the Apostle Church in nearby Hoppers Crossing, and as an office holder for a lesser-known Catholic organisation, the Knights of the Southern Cross.

The Knights of the Southern Cross is a laymen’s order established more than 100 years ago to combat discrimination against Catholics. More recently, it has advocated for stronger religious freedom laws, supported anti-abortion campaigns and opposed same-sex marriage by launching a “rosary crusade” to preserve traditional marriage.

Murphy joined the order 15 years ago, has served on its state council and is currently a district chairman. He describes it as a men’s volunteer group that carries out the good works of the church – mowing the lawns and painting the houses of elderly people, and providing scholarships to Catholic schools.

When asked for his views on abortion, euthanasia and gender, Murphy declined to answer, saying they weren’t at the top of his or Werribee’s political concerns. “I can have my personal beliefs, but I’m here to represent people, and what people are talking to me about is crime, infrastructure and cost of living. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had a single religious question.”

The preselection process for Werribee, in which the potential candidates were vetted by Zoom and had no opportunity to present in person to the 19 members of the administrative committee, reflects the lack of time the party had to prepare for the byelection.

It also provides a snapshot of the Liberal Party’s structural difficulties in trying to win over Melbourne’s west.

There were three potential candidates for Werribee considered by the administrative committee. They all live in Melbourne’s western suburbs. No one on the administrative committee does.

None of the potential candidates are members of the Liberal Party’s Werribee branch, which has fewer than 30 members, and no one from the branch had a say in the preselection. Murphy, a long-serving Werribee branch member before he moved out of the electorate at the peak of Melbourne’s COVID-19 travel restrictions to be closer to his children, was the only local voice in the entire process.

The Liberal Party has not held the seat of Werribee for 46 years. If Murphy goes close to winning on Saturday but fails to dislodge Labor, the party will question the wisdom of standing a candidate who speaks to old Werribee instead of someone who represents the new.

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