The coverage of the Victorian Liberal Party’s blog war has, naturally enough, concentrated on the targeting of Ted Baillieu.
However, senior Liberal insiders say Baillieu is merely collateral damage in what is a clear, and probably very successful, attempt to damage outgoing Liberal state director Julian Sheezel as part of the jockeying over pre-selection for Peter Costello’s seat of Higgins – if and when it falls vacant.
The discovery of the authors of the website – Liberal staffers Simon Morgan (who is said to have had minimal involvement with the blog) and John Osborn – and their sacking occurred last month. However, the information was only leaked to The Sunday Age ’s Josh Gordon for last weekend’s edition. The identity of the leaker is the subject of considerable speculation within the Liberal Party and on political blogs.
Party insiders say the purpose of the leak was to damage Sheezel, who is running for Higgins preselection as a representative of the Costello/Mitch Fifield/Tony Smith forces within the party. His strongest likely opponent, former Liberal state vice-president and now CPR consultant Jason Aldworth, has the support of his former JT Campbell boss, Michael Kroger, Senator-elect Helen Kroger and Michael Ronaldson.
The Kroger and Costello forces are normally closely aligned, and recently comprehensively defeated supporters of Baillieu (linked to the Kennet side of the party) at the Victorian State Council elections. However, the Kroger-Costello group is hopelessly split over who should succeed Costello in Higgins.
Insiders are adamant that supporters of Aldworth are behind the leak, intended to show up Sheezel’s lack of support for the Parliamentary leadership. Sheezel also has some form on the blogging front, having run an anti-Steve Bracks blog without apparently informing Baillieu during the 2006 election campaign. Phil Coorey today summed up Sheezel’s chances in Higgins now as “terminal”.
The fact that Baillieu has been damaged in the cross-fire – what sort of leader gets white-anted by his own organisation? – is simply a nice little addition. “It’s a perfect storm for the Aldworth forces,” one insider said. Aldworth supporter and staffer for Michael Ronaldson, Tony Barry, was seen dining with The Age ’s Gordon and Jewel Topsfield last week, but as press secretary for Michael Ronaldson, that’s part of his job, and Crikey has no evidence to suggest that he is the link. Barry declined to comment.
Two things are extraordinary about these revelations. One is the bizarre lack of nous of Liberal Party members who either lack the basic internet savvy or couldn’t care less that running a page on Blogspot that could be simply traced. These guys lacked even the good sense to run it from home.
And second is the apparent focus not even on factional opponents, but intra-factional opponents. Never mind John Brumby. This is why the highest office in the country this mob control is the mayor’s gig in Brisbane.
Two things to me: 1. Howard pulled all the self assured talent above politics of personal destruction and hard on the issue/policy, into the federal sphere. This left ratbags to run the show. 2. The Liberal talent cut loose after Nov 24 either haven’t found their way back to the ranks of the state oppositions, or were never intending to go back after the trauma and luxury of the federal govt experience. // I suppose the third possibility is that they are returning and the competition and pressure for very limited opportunities is generating perverse behaviours ignoring their real ALP opponents. But I would say it’s quite naive to think that winners in this ‘game ‘ of big party politics are any different from Liberal to ALP. Power tends to corrupt the and duopoly major parties constantly evidence that axiom, some more covert or latent than others depending on the perks, sinecures of the time. It’s a rotten gerrymander and aware voters are increasing.
You have to wonder about the political universe these blackguarding bloggers inhabited. According to them Ted Bailleau is ‘Red Ted’. By that standard Nelson must be a raving Maoist violently shoving The Little Red Book into voters faces. This is funny farm politics and all too typical of the party’s decline during the Howard years into a haven for ratbags.
Too right (!) David Sanderson. Recent political history shows that political parties obviously don’t study recent political history. The Libs can either go back to their mad 80’s and early 90’s ways, or they can harden up and look like a serious political organisation. They’ve obviously chosen the former. They need to ask themselves why they are out of Government despite near wall-to-wall governments in the mid 90’s, why their branch structures are collapsing, why ordinary Australians want nothing to do with them and then think about what Kevin Rudd did to address similar (but arguably slightly lesser) issues within the ALP. But they won’t, or if they finally do it will be a decade from now.