Top Liberals call in decision to replace Tudge in bid to match Labor

Top Victorian Liberal Party officials will handpick the party’s candidate for the Aston byelection on Tuesday night after the party opted against an open preselection process in favour of a speedy nomination to match Labor, which has already picked a candidate.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick on Monday announced the byelection, triggered by former Coalition minister Alan Tudge’s resignation, would be held in just under six weeks on April 1.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Mary Doyle, Labor’s candidate for Aston, at Bayswater Bowls Club last week.Credit: AAP

It was the earliest date that complied with the required 33-day notice period and fell after the NSW election on March 25, prompting an emergency Monday night meeting of Victorian Liberal officials.

The country’s most senior Liberal official, federal director Andrew Hirst, phoned into the meeting on Monday and emphasised the importance of picking a candidate as soon as possible.

Hirst, Victorian division president Greg Mirabella and senior federal MP Dan Tehan spoke strongly in favour of the committee picking the candidate, arguing the risk of losing the seat to Labor grew each day it could not campaign on the ground.

The Liberal Party’s initial plan – agreed before the April 1 date was picked – was for a ballot of local members on March 4 to select a candidate. Under those plans, the Liberals would have spent between now and March 4 without a candidate as Labor’s Mary Doyle, a former trade unionist and finance worker, knocks on doors and puts up posters across the conservative mortgage-belt electorate taking in Rowville, Knox and Wantirna.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who wants the party to pick a woman to replace the scandal-plagued Tudge, said earlier on Monday that he expected a swift decision.

“I would very much like – in a democratic process that we have in the Liberal Party – for a female candidate to be selected in Aston. But, ultimately, that’s a question for the division in Victoria, so we’ll work on that,” he said in Perth.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in Melbourne last week speaking about the Aston byelection.Credit: Nine

Some members of the administrative committee voted against the proposal to handpick a candidate, highlighting the importance many Liberals place on party democracy and local voting to select future parliamentarians.

Denying local branch members the chance to vote risks angering the same Liberal members required to campaign in the byelection. But it would guarantee a woman – likely to be barrister Roshena Campbell – was picked, avoiding the possibility of local members picking a male candidate, Emanuele Cicchiello, and defying the wishes of Dutton and senior MPs.

Some senior Liberals have speculated that the federal executive could use its extraordinary powers to overturn the preselection result if Cicchiello, a former candidate, were to win.

Labor strategists said an April 1 byelection would create distance between the poll and the May budget, avoid the predicted peak of mortgage rate rises and allow the Albanese government to begin campaigning straight away with a known candidate.

Dutton pitched his party as the underdog on Monday. It is rare for opposition parties to lose byelections because voters traditionally become dissatisfied with the government. Campaigners in both major parties believe the Liberal Party is likely to win the seat it previously held with a 10.1-point margin before the swing against the Morrison government in last year’s election reduced the margin to 2.8.

“The government’s still in its honeymoon and there are a lot of local issues at play, but I’m confident, ultimately, that we can win, but I think it will be a tough fight and I think we go into it clearly as the underdogs,” Dutton told reporters.

Climate 200’s Simon Holmes a Court said a community-backed candidate had not yet emerged, making it unlikely a teal independent would run in the seat.

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