Victorian Liberal Party spill is on as Brad Battin challenged

Opposition Leader Brad Battin will face a leadership challenge on Tuesday as state Liberal MPs launch a second end-of-year spill in as many years to reboot their party’s bleak electoral fortunes.

Battin was on Monday night weighing whether to contest his position or yield it to shadow treasurer Jess Wilson without a fight.

According to sources across the factional divide, Wilson has support to win a leadership ballot. Other Liberals, furious at the latest party room ructions, insist the numbers are not clear and the challenge could yet fail.

A delegation of MPs – conservatives Bev McArthur and Renee Heath, centrist Nick McGowan and Wilson’s chief backer Brad Rowswell – met Battin on Monday afternoon to inform him he had lost the support of the party room.

Further MPs informed Battin on Monday night that they were withdrawing their support from his leadership and would back Wilson in a challenge.

Wilson spoke with Battin after 8pm to confirm her intention to run for the leadership. One of the youngest and least experienced MPs in the Liberal party room, she agreed to challenge after months of encouragement by people inside and outside the parliament.

“It took a bit of convincing, but she’s agreed to put her hand up in the morning,” an MP said on condition of anonymity. “Things will progress at tomorrow’s party room.”

Neither Battin nor Wilson issued a public statement on Monday night.

If Wilson is successful, she would become the third Liberal leader within 11 months and the first woman to lead the Victorian Liberal Party since the state division was founded 71 years ago.

A successful spill would also open Sam Groth’s position as deputy leader.

When asked on Monday afternoon whether Battin would remain leader, Groth replied: “Only time will tell.”

McArthur, in return for convincing conservative MPs to support Wilson, has been promised the position of upper house leader – an elevation which would give the hard right of the party more scope to pursue its ideological convictions in the Legislative Council.

The current upper house leader, David Davis, is expected to fiercely contest the attempt to dislodge him from the role.

Those supporting a spill view it as the best option to try to return the party to an electorally competitive position a little over a year before the next state election.

Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett said Liberal MPs needed to put the party before their own interests.

Speaking to 3AW on Monday evening, the former Victorian Liberal Party leader said he couldn’t believe the news, but conceded that “there is a degree of self-destruct within the Victorian parliamentary party, as we’ve seen over the last few years”.

Kennett said he’d had a gutful of the party’s political infighting, and said it needed to show unity.

“It’s time the party put the state first, and I think Brad Battin is making great progress in terms of convincing the public that he is trustworthy to lead us into the next election and win,” he said.

Describing Wilson as a “very nice, young, educated lady”, Kennett said that three years in parliament was not enough time to become a party leader.

Joking about the revolving door that has become the state leadership, the 77-year-old suggested he could return to parliament.“I might have to put my own hand up [to become leader],” he said. “Everyone should have a turn, right? And they should have it before Christmas.”

Victoria’s Coalition parties have been in opposition since 2014 and for all but four years this century. On its polling trajectory, the Coalition is heading towards another electoral disaster next November.

The possible elevation of Wilson, a 35-year-old first-term parliamentarian who previously served as an adviser to former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg and a director of policy at the Business Council of Australia, would significantly alter the competitive dynamic with Premier Jacinta Allan and create a contest between two women vying to become the first to win a state election in Victoria.

Others warn that the transaction cost of another leadership change would be greater than whatever electoral benefit a shift to Wilson might bring. “Whether Brad is good enough or not good enough is immaterial,” one MP said. “Another spill will cruel our chances.”

The Liberals have changed leaders five times since Daniel Andrews led Labor back into power in 2014.

Battin’s leadership was widely considered “terminal” after a reshuffle of his shadow cabinet last month that sought to stall Wilson’s leadership ambitions instead disenfranchised some of his own party room supporters. Several sources at the time told The Age it had cost him the votes of at least six MPs who had backed him in the December leadership coup.

Liberal MPs have also complained the opposition has become too one-dimensional in its focus on crime under Battin’s leadership, at the expense of other priorities. The risk of this singular approach became evident last week, when the government made a series of law and order announcements that closed the point of difference between Labor and the Coalition on questions of bail, sentencing, knife crime, youth justice and retail crime.

“It left Brad looking completely flat-footed,” one MP said.

This criticism has come against the backdrop of a series of Resolve Political Monitor surveys, published by this masthead, showing that electoral support for the Coalition has eroded under Battin’s leadership from what was a possible winning position under his predecessor John Pesutto.

However, the greatest impetus for a spill is the approaching end of the parliamentary year. Liberal MPs meet every Tuesday morning during parliamentary sitting weeks. There are just two sitting weeks left for the year – this week and in a fortnight – before MPs break for the summer and enter an election year.

If a Liberal MP wants to call a leadership spill outside a sitting week, they need the signatures of four additional colleagues and to give the party room three days’ notice of an extraordinary meeting.

Although the Liberals have demonstrated a preparedness to take extraordinary steps to knife leaders – when they toppled Pesutto over Christmas – it is the preference of the majority of MPs to move during an existing party room meeting.

A spill this week would also ensure that all MPs are available to vote. By coincidence, regional MP Bill Tilley, who has decided not to recontest his seat and stopped attending parliament for health reasons, will be in parliament on Tuesday.

He had no knowledge of an impending spill when he was contacted by this masthead.

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