‘I was mortified’: Party insider spills on Liberal campaign shambles

Party consultant and former Liberal candidate says she was “mortified” by what she witnessed during Victorian campaign.

Liberal Party leader Matthew Guy, with wife Renae, gives his concession speech on Saturday night. Picture: David Caird

A leadership team with “egos as big as houses but not necessarily the brains to match” has been blamed for the Victorian Liberal Party’s thumping in yesterday’s state election, with an insider accusing the campaign team of extreme dysfunction.

A consultant to the party, and former Bendigo candidate, Megan Purcell, has revealed her experience from three weeks spent inside the campaign, claiming the Liberal Party’s campaign team was allegedly so riven by a refusal to delegate, that Opposition Leader Matthew Guy was directly involved in details including which streets the campaign bus would drive down, which in her view was at the expense of policy development and campaigning.

“I spent the last three weeks at CHQ and I was mortified. It was an embarrassment to the professionalism I have seen elsewhere,” Ms Purcell said in explosive Facebook spray .

“The leader and his team were directly involved in details of things like what specific streets the bus driver should drive on but not focused on big issues like actually winning votes with good policy,” Ms Purcell said.

Planning was also shambolic, she said, so that “each campaign day was mapped out, planned and then scrapped and started again numerous times, often late at night.”

Party consultant and former Liberal candidate Megan Purcell. Picture: Jay Town

Her most forceful comments were reserved for a “senior leadership team (of seven men) with egos as big as houses but some of them have not necessarily the brains to match.”

She slammed them for a “focus on being too tricky and just not bloody hard working enough, whilst others were treated dismissively and disrespectfully.”

The Maldon-based businesswoman and army reservist stood for parliament in the 2004 election, and again for Bendigo in the 2016 election where the ALP’s Lisa Chesters pipped her by a margin of just 1.26 per cent.

Taking to social media this morning, Ms Purcell said she had been impressed by the Liberal Party’s candidates, as well as Opposition Treasury Spokesman Michael O’Brien’s team, which she praised for his work on the party’s costings and a number of strong announcements.

She also commended State Director Nick Demiris for taking the time to listen to her when she raised her concerns, but said it was too late to address them.

But she savaged the campaign leaders for what she said was a four week program beset by micro-management as well as chaotic planning.

As the Victorian Liberal Party members and MPs survey the damage of a crushing defeat and prepare for the prospect of the Coalition controlling less than one-third of the lower house, recriminations are flowing thick and fast from some of the party’s staunchest supporters.

The Victorian Labor Party thumped expectations of returning government with marginally increased majority to storm home to victory with 52 seats out of the 88 seat Legislative Assembly. The Coalition’s hold on 37 lower house seats could be whittled away to just 24 seats, with high profile MPs and potential frontbenchers including South Barwon MP Andrew Katos and Burwood MP Graham Watt among those to lose seats.

While former premier Jeff Kennett has urged party president Michael Kroger to resign, there are bigger questions circulating within the party on whether Opposition Leader Matthew Guy will stay in his current role or throw the door open to a new leadership ballot.