The nation’s highest ranking female Liberal officeholder – with a penchant for expletives and withering character assessments that would put Malcolm Tucker to shame – is gone.
It appears Premier Jeremy Rockliff was hoping to keep a lid on the independent investigation he had quietly ordered into allegations of bullying and inappropriate conduct by Elise Archer.
The Australian put paid to that strategy, breaking the story on Thursday.
Rockliff then woke on Friday to read the follow-up in The Australian: text messages apparently sent by Archer excoriating staff and colleagues, including himself as “too gutless to be leader”.
The Australian then received a fresh batch of leaked WhatsApp missives, apparently sent by Archer to staff, describing ex-premier Will Hodgman as “a liar”, a female departmental secretary as “f..king useless” and a male minister as “shit”.
It’s unclear exactly what caused Rockliff to flip from secret inquiry to public sacking. He denies it was our front page, alone, but rather further comments by Archer he had become aware of.
Whether these were the fresh batch received by The Australian, or another pile of alleged invective, is also unknown.
What is certain is that the Premier is presiding over a shambles.
He has lost two MPs to the crossbench over the new AFL stadium and Marinus Link cable debacles and will probably have to again shut down parliament to avoid a no-confidence motion.
One never knows if life or politics, but it’s hard to see things getting any better for Rocky.
Archer’s most likely replacement – elected on a recount – is a fellow Liberal, Simon Behrakis, advisor to Rockliff’s ambitious deputy, Treasurer Michael Ferguson.
While that will restore the numbers on the floor of the Assembly to shaky rather than catastrophic, it does not improve Rocky’s numbers inside the PLP.
Rockliff’s support as leader is finely balanced and almost every day brings speculation about a leadership change to … Ferguson.
Archer may have doubts about Rockliff’s intestinal fortitude – at least up to the point he asked her to quit – but she is understood to have been even less of a fan of the Treasurer.
Forced to choose, Behrakis, however, would likely back his boss Ferguson in flash.
Some in the Liberal Party – and inside government – are celebrating Archer’s demise.
But whatever her alleged shortcomings as a boss, Archer was also a big vote-pulling, blue-blooded senior Liberal figure.
Notoriously feisty and now more disgruntled than ever, she may not go quietly into premature retirement.
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