Greg Hunt asked to lead Victorian Libs amid political crisis facing John Pesutto over Moira Deeming case

Former federal health minister Greg Hunt was asked to re-enter politics to lead the Victorian Liberals amid a crisis over John Pesutto’s leadership.

Former Liberal health minister Greg Hunt. Picture: NewsWire / Brendan Beckett

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Former federal health minister Greg Hunt was asked to re-enter politics to lead the Victorian Liberals amid a crisis over John Pesutto’s leadership and the party’s failure to rejuvenate in Australia’s most left-wing state.

Liberal powerbrokers have been circling potential high-level candidates with the aim of breaking the leadership impasse, which has festered for about 18 months after exiled MP Moira Deeming was expelled from the parliamentary party.

The Weekend Australian can reveal Mr Hunt was approached about running in the state parliament, with the plan of contesting the marginal Labor seat of Hastings on the Mornington Peninsula, which is within his old federal seat of Flinders.

Mr Hunt ultimately declined the approach but sources said attempts were under way to find another high-level potential candidate of the former federal minister’s calibre to replace Mr Pesutto.

“Greg was the preferred target,’’ a senior Liberal said.

Senior party sources said a state election battle plan had already been worked on but the administration was focused on the looming federal poll. The message had been sent out that internal unity was crucial to Peter Dutton’s cause, sources said.

“It’s not meant to be about the state MPs, as much as they keep making it about them,’’ a senior party figure said.’

Mr Hunt, 58, is a long-serving former federal Liberal MP who was in charge of the Coalition’s pandemic response, was Yale University-educated and was a senior adviser in the Howard government. His family has been involved in Victorian Liberal politics since 1948 and his late father Alan entered the Victorian parliament in 1961. Greg Hunt declined to comment.

Liberal powerbrokers are bewildered at the way the Victorian party has been paralysed by the dispute between Mr Pesutto and Mrs Deeming, which has ended in the Federal Court after she pursued him for defamation.

Mr Pesutto’s enemies have been trying to have a spill motion brought on at next Tuesday’s party room but a positive opinion poll and the looming defamation judgment appear to have taken some of the heat out of the push for action next week.

Mr Pesutto will be forced to resign the leadership before Christmas if the court rules that he defamed Ms Deeming over comments he made after she attended a women’s rights rally last year that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

The defamation battle has split the party and led to a push this week for Mr Pesutto to be axed as leader, but the “go harder” faction appears to have tempered its position. It is still possible that a spill motion will be moved on Tuesday but confirmed candidates for any ballot have not emerged. Multiple sources said Mrs Deeming would not be readmitted to the party room if a vote were held on the issue. This assumes, also, that Mrs Deeming would want to return to the party room after 18 months of controversy.

Mrs Deeming says she was unaware Nazis were coming to the event she helped organise. A battle followed between Mrs Deeming and Mr Pesutto over the way he characterised the event and her role in it. Mr Pesutto and a majority of MPs ultimately expelled her from the parliamentary party.

Mrs Deeming alleged Mr Pesutto defamed her as a Nazi sympathiser, which she isn’t. Mr Pesutto denies this allegation.

The Victorian Coalition needs to win 17 seats to win office in 2026, a huge task given internal Liberal friction. A RedBridge opinion poll this week found the Coalition held a 51-49 per cent two party-preferred lead. It comes after a horror run for Labor’s Jacinta Allan in her first year as Premier.