Liberals ‘disillusioned’ by Dutton-backed intervention in key seat

Fury over the Peter Dutton-endorsed dumping of a Liberal Party candidate to accommodate former MP Katie Allen is threatening to imperil the opposition’s hopes of winning back a key Melbourne seat from Labor.

Theo Zographos was chosen as the Liberal Party’s candidate for the eastern suburbs seat of Chisholm in December, but the party replaced him with Allen earlier this month after her former seat of Higgins was abolished because of population trends.

Katie Allen, top right, was going to run in her old seat of Higgins until it was abolished prompting the party to dump Theo Zographos as the candidate in Chisholm.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen, supplied

A large chunk of Higgins, which Allen wanted to return to, now sits in Chisholm, which gave party officials the option of selecting a new candidate because the seat’s character had changed dramatically.

Despite officials acting within the rules of the party’s constitution, Zographos emailed party members on Sunday night claiming “anger from party members has not gone away since the unprecedented decision”.

“There is also an overwhelming sense of disbelief that if this could happen to me, someone with 20 years of distinguished service to the party, it could happen to anyone,” said Zographos in the email seen by this masthead.

The 34-year-old Monash City councillor said Liberal members had told him there was broad support for a vote in which they, rather than a small group of party officials, would decide who should contest the seat.

“I was on track to win the seat,” Zographos wrote, but “many of you are so disillusioned and angry that many fear we won’t be able to present a united campaign to the people of Chisholm”. He has separately gone public with his claims in broadcast interviews.

As reported in this masthead last week, Liberal Party polling showed it was in front of Labor in Chisholm with Zographos as the candidate. Labor’s Carina Garland holds the seat with a 6.5 per cent margin after snatching the electorate in 2022, but the boundary changes have halved the margin.

Dutton – via his proxy, federal frontbencher Dan Tehan – backed the switch to Allen at a meeting of the party’s administrative committee earlier this month following his earlier intervention in the troubled NSW division of the party.

Campaign officials presented research to the committee when it made the decision on September 8. It showed Allen, who has a higher profile than Zographos from her previous term in parliament, had a better chance of winning the seat than her rival, sources aware of the confidential briefing said.

“We are trying to turn this division around and become serious,” said a senior party official familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak on internal matters. “We want to win this seat.”

Allen is a former paediatrician and Liberal moderate who lost the inner-city seat of Higgins in 2022. She is known as a strong fundraiser and the party was also keen to select a woman given the high number of men in its parliamentary ranks.

Zographos’ call for a member vote is unlikely to make one occur but highlights division within the troubled Victorian division that is grappling with a high-profile defamation case involving Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto.

Dutton’s campaign team has a focus on Victoria as it prepares for an election to be held by May, targeting four seats – Chisholm, Aston, Goldstein and McEwen – and hopeful in two more.

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