The Victorian Coalition is facing two distinct challenges from the internal leak that derailed a pre-election parliamentary week.
In the first instance, Matthew Guy’s integrity campaign against Labor has been blunted, with the government wide open to turning the attack back on to the Coalition.
This could undermine leader Guy’s attempts to claw back credibility in inner to middle-ring seats where integrity is likely to matter most.
This despite Labor having piled up all sorts of integrity scandals of its own.
The second factor is harder to read but potentially even more significant.
Who leaked the details of the thwarted secret payments and what was their motivation?
Senior Liberals fear they are dealing with an internal hit against Guy, motivated by revenge or maybe even just crude political mischief.
Given the number of people aware of former chief of staff Mitch Catlin’s contract discussions, it won’t take much of an inquisition to work out who was behind it.
A would-be donor is not the obvious villain, given the motivation for helping political parties tends to be future influence in one capacity or another.
That suggests it is highly unlikely that the donor would have been the leaker.
The added angst for Guy is that he cannot afford to present an image of a divided Coalition as he heads to the November 26 election.
One of the core challenges facing any long-term opposition is convincing voters that they are worth supporting at any election.
Guy must convince voters that not only can the Coalition win, but that the opposition is capable of doing a good job once it gets there.
In his favour is the fact that Catlin has resigned over a contract that never was formally rubber-stamped.
That’s hardly going to lead to serious police or anti-corruption interest.
But it will focus attention on whether the Coalition is a serious contender to win the next election or just a carbon copy of other failed experiments.
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