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My, my, how fast things change in politics. One minute, you’re sacking one of your own MPs because you’re too gutless to stand up to the hard-left; the next, you’re fighting a losing battle in court for falsely smearing her as a Nazi.
The minute after that, you’re battling to save your own leadership.
As I’ve previously reported, Kellie-Jay Keen’s Melbourne and Hobart rallies were obvious warm-ups for the violence mob that stormed the park in Auckland a few days later. In Melbourne, the rally was gatecrashed by a small group of neo-Nazis who, escorted by high-fiving police, stood on the steps of Victoria’s parliament performing Nazi salutes. Neither Keen nor any of the other women’s rights speakers, including Liberal MP Moira Deeming, were aware of the Nazis.
That didn’t stop the left (the same left who now rail against Jews every weekend) going into hyperbolic overdrive. In panic, weak, wet Liberal opposition leader John Pesutto publicly branded Deeming a ‘Nazi sympathiser’ and expelled her from the party.
Not one for turning, Deeming has hit back with a defamation case, currently running in the courts. The case is going badly for Pesutto.
And now, so is his leadership.
Opponents of defiant Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto are preparing to unseat him in a long-running campaign regardless of whether a spill motion is successful next week.
Numbers are being counted to see whether a majority of the partyroom – 16 votes – can be secured to pass the spill motion and then hold ballots for the four leadership positions.
MPs are debating how Mr Pesutto should be forced out of the job, with some arguing a bloody coup could further divide an already split party.
The only ‘split’ is between the wet party leadership and its rank-and-file. What should be a traditionally centre-right party has been dragged further and further left by a leadership whose idea of leading is to run, feebly shouting, ‘Us, too!’ in the wake of the loony left.
Pesutto has apparently not learned from his existing legal troubles.
Mr Pesutto on Monday effectively dared his opponents to bring on a spill motion next week, even though his hold on the top job has weakened […]
If he were to survive the spill motion, Mr Pesutto would then be pressured over the outcome of the court case.
If he loses the defamation fight, Mr Pesutto will be forced to stand down regardless.
But will the Liberals grasp the nettle and admit that they’ve been backing all the wrong political horses for too long?
The defamation case debacle where he is being sued by exiled former colleague Moira Deeming has escalated tensions within the partyroom.
The three most likely leadership candidates, if a vote eventuates, are frontbenchers Brad Battin, James Newbury and Sam Groth […]
Mr Battin and Mr Newbury are senior frontbenchers with the most experience […]
They are being discussed as the most experienced potential candidates while Mr Groth – a 36-year-old former professional tennis player – is being sold as a new direction for the party.
Good grief, have the Liberals learned nothing? At least two of those would be nothing more than a continuation of the same woke bullshit that’s condemned the party to over a decade in opposition. Former tennis star Groth at least vocally opposed lockdowns when every other politician was cowering behind Dictator Dan’s ‘Ring of Steel’ longest lockdowns in the world.
Maybe there’s a chance for the Victorian Liberals, after all.
