Toxic Victorian Liberal Party eyes off recycled charisma

The surprise is that anyone is surprised that Victorian Liberals have pulled on another leadership spill.

For months, the party has been awash with speculation about Matthew Guy running against Michael O’Brien.

If Guy gets a majority of the 31 partyroom votes, it will mark the fourth leadership change in eight years in what has become a really miserable, toxic political machine.

The Guy camp was confident on Monday it had the numbers to defeat O’Brien.

Whoever loses on Tuesday will effectively be finished and, depending on whether they can take the financial hit, may well force a by-election.

The party rebels looking to Guy are buying into his charisma and political experience. He led the party from 2014 to 2018, is personable and has been around politics since his early 20s.

His challenge would be setting the right tone against Daniel Andrews, who is backed by a largely united ALP, energised union movement and sympathetic public sector.

If elected, Guy would need to quickly work out where the community sentiment lies.

The Victorian Premier’s switch last week to embrace a cautious reopening of the state will complicate things for whoever leads the Victorian opposition but not massively.

There are many political opportunities, starting with the brutal nature of the lockdowns, the failure to sufficiently fund public health and a looming budget time bomb caused by the pandemic.

The effect of the pandemic means the Coalition probably already has won back its small business and private sector base.

The challenge will be in broadening its appeal after decades of under-performing, and uniting the divided factional groups.

The Liberal Party has just 21 of the 88 Legislative Assembly seats, plus six Nationals, needing 45 seats to govern.

It is not impossible for the Coalition to win the next election but whoever secures the leadership is probably looking at a two-election strategy. The question is whether the party has the stamina and discipline.

If there is any criticism to be made of O’Brien, it is the failure to sufficiently unite the opposition and party as a whole.

More broadly, he has been a technically solid leader who has tried his best to make relevant a party rendered irrelevant to ordinary voters because of the dominant role of government in the pandemic. That is terribly hard to counter.