It’s all about Jeff. Then again, everything always is, in the world of the Victorian Liberal Party. He’s their elder statesman, Forever Dear Leader and Fuhrer, all rolled into one. There’s nothing the party backroom men won’t do for Jeff – including wrecking the party’s standing against even the most dire Labor government in living memory.
Why the party elders have been so determined to save John Pesutto from his own obstinate stupidity has long been a bit of a puzzle. Sure, they might have wished to avoid a potentially embarrassing by-election, but Hawthorn is no more Victoria than Ponsonby is New Zealand. The party could have easily weathered a possible loss to a Teal-style candidate while keeping its eye on the greater prize of next year’s state election.
It turns out, though, that it was all about saving Jeff, not Pesutto.
The Australian has been told by members of the Victorian Liberal Party administrative committee that the deal struck last Thursday was less about saving Pesutto, or even doing the right thing by Deeming. It was rammed through to protect former premier Jeff Kennett and others who potentially faced legal action for third-party costs if Pesutto went bankrupt and couldn’t pay what he owed Deeming.
That explains why Deeming received no apology from Pesutto last week. She was, after all, surely owed that, along with full payment of the legal costs incurred to defend her reputation. A scathing judgment found the former Liberal leader had made several highly defamatory comments about Deeming, including that she associated with neo-Nazis and was unfit to continue to be a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party. How could Pesutto, with a straight face, ask Liberal Party members to save himself and his family from financial ruin without offering Deeming an apology last week?
Part of that is for the same reason that Pesutto never apologised and retracted the remarks, which would have stopped the defo case in its tracks: he’s just too stupid and obstinate to admit he was wrong. Qualities he shares, as it happens, with Dear Leader Jeff, only without the political mongrel and the dry-as-toast economic sidekick of Alan Stockdale.
Those qualities and the sidekick made Kennett the Man of the Hour in 1992, for sure. With the state drowning in Labor debt and incompetence – Victorians sure know how to keep picking ’em – and needing someone with mongrel to do what had to be done and not give a rat’s arse about the whining media-left, paired with an accountant who knew what had to be done, Kennett was the right person at the right time. His usefulness, though, ran out as soon as the books were balanced. Kennett won the war but was unable to adjust to the peace and promptly lost office in a landslide.
Ever since, though, he’s haunted backrooms of the party like a fart in a spacesuit.
Though last Thursday’s bailout was presented as one to save Pesutto and to save the party from a by-election in his seat of Hawthorn (a certainty had he become a bankrupt), many members of the administrative committee were in no doubt about the unstated motive. “Phil Davis worked hard to force us across the line for one reason only, and that is to protect Kennett and co from litigation,” one administrative committee member said on Monday.
Deeming’s legal team had received a letter from the Victorian Liberal Party’s organisational wing informing it that the party was not liable for any costs arising from the defamation. That meant that if Deeming were successful in securing costs against Pesutto – let alone third-party costs against Kennett or others who helped Pesutto – those individuals would be personally liable […] once Kennett and co were in the line of fire, a rescue package for Pesutto was a done deal.
Which has done nothing to heal the dysfunction in the party. Some are unhappy that Deeming took the matter so far, more are upset that the fool who started it all has walked away without personally paying a cent – and neither have those who ‘funded and egged Pesutto on’.
Worse, they’re still meddling while the state burns.
The Victorian Liberals are nothing if not predictably dysfunctional. The same evening the administrative committee of the Victorian Liberal Party was saving Kennett (and others) from any potential litigation, the very same former premier was reportedly telling a private function that senior ranks of the state party need to be cleaned out and he wasn’t sure [Brad Battin] is up to winning the next state election. How’s that for thanks.
But, hey, at least Jeff’s hip pocket and ego are protected.
