The former Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy has blamed “faceless leakers” within the Liberal party, and the media, for his second crushing state election loss, while ruling out a return to the frontbench.
In his first interview since the November election, which saw the Liberals record their lowest primary vote since 1952, Guy criticised Sky News Australia’s “after dark” programming, describing them as “incredibly damaging” to his party.
“Sky after dark is more akin to the One Nation party than the Liberal party. In fact, I think they’re incredibly damaging to the Liberal party,” Guy told 3AW host Neil Mitchell in a podcast.
“Some [hosts] are dangerously politically stupid. I don’t have much time for some of them.”
Guy also called for the party’s state president, Greg Mirabella, to resign.
“He was not a help to the campaign, he was a hindrance,” he said.
Guy said Mirabella was not up to the task of tackling the structural challenges facing the party in the wake of state and federal election losses.
“We need a state president and an administrative committee that is focused on the structural reform and the structural stability of the party to support our federal and state MPs,” he said.
“We have a tough enough job to win back government, federally and at a state level, without being undermined by people in the party.”
Guy called out others within the party for disunity, repeatedly referring to two members who “leak” information to journalists, though he refused to name them.
He said they were very prominent members of the party, with one formerly serving in an administrative position.
“These faceless leakers profit from gossip. There’s two in particular, but there’s a number of others … [they] offer themselves predominantly to newspapers, but also to the ABC who are regular haters of the Liberal party, who will just gossip,” he said.
“They talk us down at every opportunity … sometimes they’re on the record, most of the time they’re off, but we need to expunge these faceless leakers from the Liberal party because they do damage.”
Guy also pointed the finger at journalists for their coverage during the election, which he described as “obscenely ordinary”.
“They judged the Liberal party a lot harsher than they were judging my political opponents,” he said.
“I can see it in people’s coverage. I know that a number of them who have either scattered or have been offered jobs by the government.”
Guy denied scandals – including former MP Tim Smith’s drunken car crash and a member of his staff proposing a donor make more than $100,000 in payments to his marketing company – cost him the election, but admitted both were “damaging”.
He said John Pesutto, who replaced him as opposition leader in December, was a “good leader” but needed his party to remain focused.
Guy said he wanted to remain a backbencher as the member for Bulleen and ruled out returning to the frontbench, saying he had “no interest” in taking on a shadow ministry or leading the party again.
Asked by Mitchell what his dream job was, Guy replied: “I’ll go run the Harden pub in New South Wales.”
Pesutto said Guy was someone he turned to for advice but stressed his party was working through the lessons of last year’s election loss.
“Matthew is a very good friend of mine and has a constructive role to play and he’ll continue to do that,” he said.
Pesutto told reporters on Tuesday he expected Guy would remain in parliament for the full term.
With additional reporting by Adeshola Ore
