John Pesutto fast running out of options … and time

Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto. Picture: David Crosling

John Pesutto’s leadership is in freefall.

There is a narrow path for him to hang on, but this is now looking increasingly unlikely.

The warring groups in the Victorian Liberal Party are having back-channel discussions about what can be done to retrieve the situation.

Pesutto has botched the politics of Moira Deeming and botched the defamation.

Many of the 28 MPs in the partyroom meeting called at 9am on Friday left the room stunned.

Pesutto, standing next to the leader’s room in Parliament House, looked equally shocked by the result, even though insiders had been speculating about a tight vote all week.

That Pesutto had to vote twice to save his position shows just how bad things are for him.

For the first time, well-placed MPs who have until now backed Pesutto are starting to question how he survives.

One option being considered is to back former Josh Frydenberg staffer Jess Wilson to run as either leader or deputy, with Pesutto opponent Brad Battin as either leader or deputy.

Let the pair fight out a leadership ballot and the winner gets the biggest office.

As much as anything, the machinations of the partyroom stunned MPs.

At one point, Pesutto went to contact two MPs missing from the ballot, reportedly by text, for guidance on how the vote should go.

Because of ambiguities in the rules, the partyroom also became bogged down on the question of whether a majority was 15 or 16.

A leader running on a conviction platform is going terribly when he has to rely on technicalities to save his fried bacon.

Having comprehensively won the Federal Court action, Deeming was in a reasonably strong position to expect to be returned to the fold.

Moira Deeming. Picture: NewsWire/Ian Currie

But such are the divisions over the whole women’s rights fracas that started last year, she still couldn’t get over the line.

However, momentum is key in politics and she appears to have an increasing number of people who see the argument for her being returned.

This is important.

It may well mean that she is back inside the political tent sometime in the new year.

Yes, Pesutto can potentially hang on to the job if he smashes two looming by-elections.

But the way things are going, it may not even matter.

The poor old Liberal Party desperately wants, and needs, to win an election.

The poor old people of Victoria desperately need a viable option so that Labor’s nuttiness is confronted head-on.

With Pesutto so wounded by the Deeming affair, MPs are desperate for the sort of stability the incumbent seems incapable of delivering. In short, it’s about winning. About 10.30am on Friday, Pesutto wasn’t looking like even running a place.