Ted Baillieu tape exposes divisions

ROGUE Liberal activists have been blamed for leaking a secret recording of former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu.

ROGUE Liberal activists have been blamed for leaking a secret recording of former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu condemning several colleagues and fuelling a politically damaging abortion debate during a conversation with a Fairfax Media journalist.

In the recording, which was ­allegedly stolen, the former premier unloads to the journalist about the abortion issue and a contested state preselection.

Premier Denis Napthine yesterday failed to back Mr Baillieu after The Sunday Age recording was leaked across the Liberal Party, detailing Mr Baillieu’s covert dealings with the journalist.

In an extraordinary turn of events, The Sunday Age’s off-the-record interview with Mr Baillieu was leaked after Fairfax claimed a recorder was stolen, enabling a political opponent or opponents to swoop.

Mr Baillieu was quoted attacking state Liberal MPs Michael Gidley, Murray Thompson and Bernie Finn and — by implication — the party’s candidate for the safe inner-eastern seat of Kew, Tim Smith.

The recording has embarras­sed the newspaper and appears to have been distributed nationally, possibly using email addresses ­aggregated from the party ­membership.

The party is expected to call in forensic experts to determine who gained access to the emails, which included key advisers in the ­Abbott government.

The crisis has strong parallels with a 2008 scandal when Liberals from party headquarters were found to have run a blog openly condemning Mr Baillieu, who was then opposition leader.

Several senior Liberals yesterday slammed Mr Baillieu for speaking to The Sunday Age ­reporter, whose dictaphone allegedly disappeared earlier this year.

It is not normal for journalists to record off-the-record conversations with MPs, with the convention being that only on-the-record discussions are taped with the ­permission of the interviewee.

Mr Baillieu, also recorded attacking this journalist, has refused to comment.

Several government MPs yesterday demanded Mr Baillieu be forced out of the government, ­although he is endorsed for his safe inner-city seat to run again at the November 29 election.

In the recording, Mr Baillieu ­alleges that rebel independent Geoff Shaw was sponsored by key members of the Liberal Party.

“Shaw has been sponsored into this position by a bunch of people from the very first day led by (antiabortionist MP) Bernie Finn and some of his crazy mates in the ­parliamentary team,’’ Mr Baillieu says in the conversation.

He says that this year’s Kew preselection was “really, really nasty’’ and draws a comparison with the 2002 leadership coup ­suffered by Dr Napthine and the preselection of Mr Gidley in 2005.

Asked if Mr Gidley was anti-abortion, Mr Baillieu says: “Yep. yep.’’

On Mr Gidley, Mr Baillieu says: “And he was no good then.’’

On Murray Thompson, a veteran MP who is the son of former premier Lindsay Thompson, Mr Baillieu says: “No idea who you’re talking about because I never hear his name mentioned anywhere anymore. Not even by himself.’’

The recording was leaked with a largely accurate transcript and “dirt sheet’’ alleging the reporter is actively involved in Liberal pre­selections, a claim that’s strongly denied by The Age’s editor-in-chief Andrew Holden.

‘‘It appears the dictaphone of one of our reporters has been stolen, and one conversation on that recorder used to attack her and a member of parliament. The actual recording proves the transcript has been edited in such a way as to support those attacks,’’ Mr Holden wrote on The Age website.