John Pesutto has been ousted as the Victorian Liberal party leader after a successful challenge by Brad Battin during a meeting of MPs on Friday.
A snap vote to re-admit Moira Deeming to the party room on Friday morning morphed into a referendum on Pesutto’s future.
Emerging from the meeting as leader, Battin said he was now focused on cost-of-living issues and crime – along with roads, reducing taxes and the state of Victoria’s finances.
“We know Victorians are hurting. We know that the cost-of-living crisis here in Victoria is impacting each and every family across the state,” he said.
“Our crime crisis is out of control, and we need to make sure we’ve got policies that are working towards fixing that and ensure people are safe in their homes, in their communities, and in their businesses.”
He also thanked colleagues for their support, and Pesutto for his service to the party.
The former tennis star turned politician Sam Groth was elected unopposed as deputy leader.
Battin, who had been the opposition’s police spokesperson, was the frontrunner to depose Pesutto amid reports he had informed his boss of his intention to challenge.
The opposition’s finance spokesperson, Jess Wilson, a first-term MP, had also thrown her hat into the ring to be leader. Mornington MP Chris Crewther followed suit in the early hours of Friday morning.
“If a spill motion is successful tomorrow, I will be a candidate for leader of the state parliamentary Liberal party,” Wilson said in a statement on Thursday.
“Holding Labor accountable for their economic vandalism, and its consequences, and presenting a positive agenda to provide Victorians with a real choice at the next election is what is driving me to stand for the leadership.”
On Friday afternoon, Battin appeared with his new leadership team, including David Davis and Evan Mulholland, who will lead the party in the upper house.
Asked about the lack of women in the leadership team, Battin referenced his support for Deeming but declined to say whether he agreed with her views.
“I fought to bring a woman back into the party room,” he said.
Deeming said Pesutto had shaken her hand and said sorry to her in today’s party room meeting.
“He has apologised to me today, and that’s the end of it,” she said.
As he walked into Friday’s meeting, Crewther, the party’s whip in the lower house, called for unity once the leadership question was resolved.
“We need to concentrate on things that matter to Victorians. At the moment there’s bushfires near Horsham, which is where I grew up, we have people that are being evacuated,” he said.
Pesutto’s job had been on shaky ground ever since he lost a defamation case brought against him by Deeming. He walked into parliament alone ahead of Friday’s party room meeting.
A federal court judge found the Liberal leader had defamed Deeming by falsely implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a Melbourne rally she attended and ordered that he pay her $315,000 and costs.
Groth subsequently quit the opposition frontbench, citing his leader’s refusal to stand down after the court loss.
A meeting called less than a week later to decide whether Deeming would be allowed back into the party room split MPs, with Pesutto casting the tie-breaking vote to bar her return.
He had deemed the matter “resolved”, but then proposed a 15 January meeting to return the upper house MP to the party room.
“There is now a definite absolute majority of my colleagues who want this issue resolved with her readmission,” Pesutto said at the time.
But that last bid to quell tensions failed, with Groth, Richard Riordan, James Newbury, Brad Battin and Bridget Vallence signing a petition to meet on Friday to bring the issue to a head.
The battle to helm Victoria’s opposition comes less than two years before a state election at which the Labor government will seek a rare fourth term.
