Victorian Liberals miss crucial federal redistribution deadline, face internal backlash

The Victorian Liberal Party is reeling after it missed the deadline to lodge its submission with the AEC on the looming federal redistribution by three minutes.

Peter Dutton, Leader of the Opposition and Parliamentary Leader of the Liberal Party.

The Victorian Liberal Party is reeling after it failed to lodge its submission in time to the looming federal redistribution.

In an extraordinary bungle, party chiefs missed the deadline to the Australian Electoral Commission, undermining its pitch to protect vulnerable seats.

It missed the deadline by three minutes on Friday evening and its work has been excluded from the AEC website.

Sixty-three other parties, including the ALP, teal MP Monique Ryan and the Nationals, have had their submissions published.

The Greens appear to have submitted their draft submission.

Liberal strategists have been scrambling to ensure their position on the new boundaries is heard and treated seriously by the AEC.

“It’s just incredible,” a senior Liberal said. “They had one job and completely stuffed it up.”

Another Liberal source said the party had been assured by the AEC that the missed deadline would not preclude its submission from being considered.

The major impact, the source said, would be in missing one of the steps in the process and the embarrassment of failing to meet the deadline.

However, the error is reverberating around Canberra after years of unhappiness with the way the Liberal Party has functioned in Victoria.

“It’s a terrible look. We look like fools. Again,’’ another Liberal said.

The Liberal Party has lost its inner city heartland in Victoria and this year was defeated in the outer eastern seat of Aston.

Victoria will lose one seat at the next election because of population changes, dropping from 39 to 38 and argument about changes has included key Labor territory north of the city and traditional Liberal territory in the east..

Political parties are allowed to submit to the AEC where boundaries should change and the job of collating this document is among the most important job of any parliamentary term.

The Liberal Party has not commented publicly on the submission debacle.

It has sent the redistribution document to its members.