Victoria has a new Opposition Leader in Berwick MP Brad Battin, who as expected gained the leadership from Hawthorn MP John Pesutto after yesterday’s meeting of the state parliamentary Liberal Party. Pesutto stepped down after a motion to spill all leadership positions passed by 18 votes to 10, prompting a three-way contest for the leadership between Battin, Mornington MP Chris Crewther and Kew MP Jess Wilson. With Wilson excluded in the first round, Battin defeated Crewther in the second by 21 votes to 7.
Battin and Wilson each proposed leadership tickets earlier in the week with the other as deputy, with Battin further offering Wilson the position of Shadow Treasurer. But whereas Battin had solid support from conservatives, Wilson’s maneuvering against Pesutto led to a split among moderates, with Brighton MP James Newbury entering a deal in which he would take Treasury and the unaligned Sam Groth would become deputy. Groth was indeed elected deputy unopposed, replacing another moderate, Caulfield MP David Southwick.
The leadership vote was the meeting’s second order of business, the first being the readmission to the party room of upper house member Moira Deeming, whose clash with John Pesutto over her involvement in the Let Women Speak rally in March 2023 was central to his downfall. A week after the party room was deadlocked 14-all over the matter, The Age reports the motion passed “overwhelmingly”, Pesutto having dropped his opposition to the idea in a futile bid to shore up his leadership.
Two electoral tests face the new-look Liberal Party, the first being the Prahran by-election on February 8. This will pit the Liberals against the Greens in the absence of Labor in a seat the Greens won at the last three elections, which had previously been held by the Liberals. A head-to-head contest with Labor will have to wait for another by-election in the western Melbourne seat of Werribee, being vacated by outgoing Treasurer Tim Pallas, on a date to be determined.
Can we please keep this thread for discussion of Victorian politics. The open thread for general discussion is here.
I reckon Jacinta Allan would have had a restless nights sleep.
The Werribee by-election is massive. It will set the tone for 2025.
Hard yards for Victoria in 2025/26.
Spending out of control by a union captured state Labor government debt increasing rapidly with the bill compounding and then their is crime a leftie government pretending to deal with.Dud terrible premier and leftie Ministers.
Inner city may not suit libs in byelection does not matter everywhere else are angry it will be a long grind for Victoria whilst other states shine.
Yeah a leftie government, that invests in the state. My school has had capital works dode on it twice in it’s history, once by the Bracks government and just recently by the Andrews governement. Funnily enough no Tory regime has ever spent a cent on it. Yeah, we want the Tories back…I don’t think so! Thank go for a union dominated government hey.
By election time, Metro tunnel finished. West gate tunnel finished. Truck load of crossings removed.
All the Liberals have is, infighting, complaints the works cost money and the standard political yadda, yadda,yadda. And of cause Murdoch pushing the lost cause.
Liberals, the party that can’t build car parks, pretending they can manage a state.
You must be foreigner to Melbourne pied piper;
Melbourne’s population has grown by 40% in the last 15 years, has been and still is one of the worlds most livable cities.
I doubt many people in Melbourne wants to see it become like Sydney, which is why they are happy to see money spent on infrastructure, and why they vote for people who do things like remove level crossings.
It would have been negligent of a government to not spend money on infrastructure during that growth period when interest rates where at record lows and they had AAA rating.
Situations change, and they should pull back a bit now with higher interest rate environment and because the credit rating has gone down a notch. But its Australia’s fastest growing economy right now, and debt is only projected to be about 25% of GSP or so.
If Victoria was a corporation, the debt levels wouldn’t be concerning at all.
Labor will win 60+ seats in 2026. Battin won’t get my vote. I will be voting against the Coalition. This is the most right-wing leadership team since Bolte. and even makes Jeff Kennett look like a sane leader.
I know plently of people who will not vote Liberal under a right-wing leader but were willing to support them under a Turnbull-like Wilson or Pessuto.
Libs can’t win Victoria unless they can make a dent into Labors leads among Millennials and Gen Z cohorts.
There is simply not enough ”outer suburban” seats in Victoria for the Libs to win Gov. Don’t even think of suggesting Frankston, Narre Warren, Carrum, etc. They will not vote for this Sky After Dark approved party, and if they can’t win those seats, they aren’t winning back your Bayswaters, Ashwood’s, or your Glen Waverley’s either.
Labor is on the nose, but like Federal Labor learnt in 2019, You only need to do so much to become more unpopular than an unpopular government itself.
Even Kos Samaras doesn’t see the Libs winning under Battin and Tweeted yesterday Jess Wilson should be the choice if they want to win. Because voters like me will be required.
Winning over working families in outer suburbs with 2-3 kids and tradies in those same areas is not the strategy to win powers, and they actually risk it backfiring badly and LOSING seats in 2026.
Face it. The Liberals in Victoria are a shambles and electing Battin as leader just confirms it.
Pesutto was a right wing IPA operative, hardly a “moderate”. but Battin is the Sky After Dark favoured one and captive to the christian cult or the Taliban as it known in this fair state.
Battin held Gembrook with a margin of 4,000 and managed to hold by a margin around 670 in 2018. It was a 9% swing. He has been rescued by a favourable redistribution and now holds Berwick. This means he does not endear himself to the voters.
Fascinating how cheaply the “moderates” were bought by Battin. Groth cost Deputy dog title, Newbury cost shadow Treasurer and the execrable David Davis a return to leader of the upper house. The public are more vexed by bushfires and the changing fortunes of Test Cricket. In any event most folks would not know who these Liberal people are and nor do they care.
Yes, really stupid of the Liberals to dump the moderate guy who was leading in the polls, and then replace him with the far right religious nutter, who will just alienate the millennials in the mortgage belt. And it’s now an all male leadership team, not a woman in sight.
I think Jacinta Allen will be fine for 2026, and Ben Carroll is a rather capable deputy and education minister too.
Agree this is a terrible choice for their prospects. Pesutto’s messaging on financial management seemed to be gaining traction, and he was palateable enough to be winning back the swathe of voters they lost across the Eastern suburbs especially in 2018/22.
Unfortunately no talk that I’ve seen of him resigning and leaving Hawthorn to a by-election – but it would be ripe to be lost to a teal. Hopefully Prahran sends them a message
Sidenote William: The Repository of Links doesn’t have the 2022 Vic election (can still be accessed by manually changing the URL, but may want to add)
Thanks Chris, I’ve corrected that and otherwise given the page (which I didn’t imagine anyone ever visited) a good seeing to.
The government promotion of “Big build” has seen the response of “what about the debt”
Governments have responsibility across the spectrum of society – and governments are not a business because if they were they would be seeking a profit from the investments they make into such as education, health, the Courts etc etc, governments being a public service funded by tax payers
As a former banker, the question re debt levels is the performance of the assets that debt is invested into
In regard government debt, that asset is a cohesive society – including the society we leave for our future generations
So there is investment in hospitals, in schools, in the rail and road networks and the list goes on and on
The option to not investing is decay – so amenities not fit for purpose
And in regard leaving debt for the next generation, well the next generations, so plural, will benefit
And if you do not continually invest in society and the amenity of society what is the eventual outcome?
Because nothing will be cheaper than what it is today – look at house prices and what you could once buy a house for
And the mod cons you now have in that house
And that is the same across society
Those raising the issue of debt are back in the horse and buggy days (so not even the days of “red rattlers”!)
With the smell of rotting manure they leave behind after jumping up and down and waving to their god, speaking in tongues
Remember the campaign re Eastlink?
Well, go for a drive from Fitzroy to Portsea
And that is just for starters
And in terms of where the Liberal vote will contract to have a look at the locations of the huge Pentecostal buildings, so the feet of the Dandenongs
Four in four years. Even for the Liberals that must be a record.
Democracy Sausagesays:
Saturday, December 28, 2024 at 3:21 pm
I think Jacinta Allen will be fine for 2026, and Ben Carroll is a rather capable deputy and education minister too.
_____________________
The VCE Year 12 exams fiasco must have escaped your attention.
Carroll was asleep at the wheel.
The VCE Year 12 exams fiasco must have escaped your attention.
Carroll was asleep at the wheel.
If you say so.
https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/education/vce-boss-quits-after-exam-paper-debacle-20241118-p5krik
The new Liberal leadership team. All male, all pale, all stale…
The Liberals have moved this vote… back to Labor.
The very worst Labor can be about this leadership change is to be smug and content about it.
The next elections are by no means decided already, they need to approach this situation seriously. The worst they can do is think it’s all in the bag 2 years out, all up unto a point where in fact it isn’t, and then Battin actually wins and turns out to be a Victorian Dutton mixed with Kennett.
These times call for caution.
Kirsdarkesays:
Sunday, December 29, 2024 at 12:40 am
The very worst Labor can be about this leadership change is to be smug and content about it.
The next elections are by no means decided already, they need to approach this situation seriously. The worst they can do is think it’s all in the bag 2 years out, all up unto a point where in fact it isn’t, and then Battin actually wins and turns out to be a Victorian Dutton mixed with Kennett.
These times call for caution.
================================================
Assuming Battin makes it to the election. Which is still close to 2 years away. I wouldn’t back him to survive that long. Given the past history of this party and its opposition leaders tenure periods. My money is just before the election they appoint Matthew Guy as opposition leader. It happened every other time, so why not this time as well?
The art of being a Victorian Liberal is not to be opposition leader except at election time. The Matthew Guy method.
Say No to Pentecostal and other Evangelist Extremists!
The contradiction I will never understand is that the Liberal Party promotes small government and government get out of the way, people responsible for their own decisions and the outcomes (so if you can not afford it you do not get it – reminding me of Obama saying that if 2 next door houses were on fire, the fire brigade would only put out the fire at the insured house this being the Republican DNA)
So “free markets” and all of that
However they then oppose the decisions of people in regard same sex marriage, abortion, assisted dying and the list goes on and on (so their god botherer issues)
So don’t tell us what to do but we will tell you what to do, you at the bottom of the trickle down ladder
Then the perennial law and order plus the opposition to anything, the opposition to anything probably consistent with them being a do nothing Party (apart from telling people how to live their lives)
So can the rusted on Tories on this site and their enablers, the Greens, please explain this contradiction?
Peter C @ #21 Sunday, December 29th, 2024 – 10:22 pm
It’s quite simple, really. At heart they’re just vile evil hypocrites that get legitimised by billionaires that use their money and power to discredit and defeat their opponents, so long as they act as their servants in passing policies beneficial to them.
And going by this Musk-MAGA battle in the USA this week, it may not be going all that well for them.
Living in the seat of Prahran myself, the Liberal candidate had been flanked by the trio of Pesutto, Crozier and Southwick at every single appearance. Now all 3 have lost their leadership positions, I doubt they’ll be seen again.
On Saturday, however, Brad Battin was out campaigning with her at South Yarra Station. Guess what the one topic he spoke about was? Crime, and how Prahran Police Station looks the same as it did in 2005 when he was stationed there.
Do they not learn their lessons? How did the crime campaign go in 2018?
I imagine the Liberals will take a beating at the Prahran byelection now. I had expected that especially in the absence of a Labor candidate, Pesutto might have been able to win over a decent amount of the ~25% Labor voters and claw the 2CP back to maybe 55-45 or something. Not anymore, I expect it’ll be closer to 60-40 again.
I’m tipping both Pesutto and Southwick won’t recontest their seats in 2026. That leaves the Liberals very vulnerable to losing both:
– Without Labor incumbency, a teal would be in a strong position to win Hawthorn;
– Southwick has a very strong personal vote in Caulfield and if Labor run a strong Jewish candidate, the Liberals will struggle to hold it without incumbency.
If Josh Burns happens to lose Macnamara next year (a very real possibility), I believe he would defeat a non-incumbent Liberal in Caulfield, which he contested as an unknown candidate in 2014.
If the Liberals lose both Hawthorn and Caulfield in 2026, that increases the number of seats they need to win elsewhere to form government from 17 to 19 which is just not realistic at all. It requires gaining seats on margins up to 8.3% across extremely different areas (inner, outer, sandbelt, west, east, regions, etc) where it’ll be really difficult to target one type of seat profile without sacrificing others.
As it stands, gaining 17 seats on margins up to 8.0% across very different areas really isn’t much easier… But defending Hawthorn & Caulfield after Pesutto & Southwick have been rolled certainly doesn’t help.
After a few days reflection, including spending a few days out in middle rural Victoria with many of partners’ very conservative relatives (think DLP, Family First, One Nation etc) I think that on the whole this change is a positive for Labor. The enthusiasm some had for the defenestrating of anyone like Pesutto considered moderate was much higher than the actual enthusiasm for the new ‘team’.
Not getting Jess Wilson as Deputy was a really poor decision on several levels.
Kirsdarke – yes this may not actually change the election result, but at the very least I think it will have limited Labor’s losses in the event of a change of government.
Trent – I immediately thought about Prahran and agree that this will help the Greens’ margin.
The Werribee by-election will be interesting. 10% is certainly not insurmountable at a by-election. It will be fascinating if the media build it up as a certain Liberal win – then the consequences of a loss could be bad for Battin (up to and including being challenged for the leadership later in 2025!)
I’ll put myself down for a Lib win with Prahran.
Libs to > 40% on primaries, and win on a 2PP < 55%
Interesting Nadia
I know you think through these things insightfully. Are you willing to explain the reasoning?