As I wrote in the dying days of last year, the Victorian Liberals seemed unlikely to wait out the traditional season to dispose of the pathetic leadership of John Pesutto. Pesutto’s fate was all but sealed on December 12, when the woman he ousted from the party, Moira Deeming, won a stunning vindication in court. Pesutto was found to have repeatedly defamed Deeming – and by extension Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull and Let Women Speak – when he denounced her as a ‘Nazi’, ‘white supremacist’ and all the rest of the standard left-wing slurs.
The Vic Libs were clearly keen to rid themselves of the Pesutto millstone – just two days after Christmas, a hastily-convened party room meeting ended his leadership. Even more spectacularly, Deeming was returned to the Liberal Party room.
The question, though, is whether the Victorian Liberals have really learned anything. Pesutto was yet another in the conga-line of wet, woke ‘moderates’ who’ve alienated traditional, centre-right Liberal voters, and doomed the party to oblivion. So, what did the Libs do? Elect another ‘moderate’ leader, in Brad Battin.
Of course, the spin tried mightily to convince voters otherwise.
An ex-copper and former Bakers Delight owner, Battin is an authentic outer suburban guy and a father-of-two with a pretty good “daggy dad” routine as a politician thrown in.
Pass the barf-bags. We heard enough the ‘daggy dad’ bullshit during the Scott Morrison era in federal politics. In the US, the Democrats tried to spin the same guff about Kamala Harris’ running-mate, Tim Walz. American voters didn’t buy it, either.
Battin is very different from the Liberals who hail from the party’s inner-eastern suburban heartland. There was no silver spoon in his house growing up […]
After taking over the leadership on Friday, Battin repeatedly drew on his experience as a copper and small business owner.
“I’m a former police officer, I’m a former small business owner, and I’m a family man with two children,” was how he introduced himself to Victorians for the first time as their alternative premier.
All well and good, but what does he stand for? Tellingly, although Battin is prepared to trot out the newly returned Deeming – who regularly packed out town halls during her time in the political gulag – for the crucial campaign in the upcoming Werribee by-election, there was no return to cabinet.
On Tuesday, he announced major changes to his shadow cabinet, which he said was the team he would take to the 2026 election.
“This is a team that I have confidence in, that will be united,” Mr Battin said.
From here, though, it reads like a roster of the same ‘moderate’ clowns who have seen the Libs fail repeatedly to take down even a government so on the nose as Victorian Labor. Including this howler of an appointment:
Matthew Guy, who led the party to two election defeats, has been handed a new portfolio of transition to government.
I’ll take that as a sign of just how serious the ‘new look’ Vic Libs really are.
