Who’s in the running to lead the Victorian Libs? Here’s what we know

On Saturday Matthew Guy locked in another four years out of office for the Victorian Liberal Party, the second time he’s led them to a disastrous election result.

There was no question that the leadership would change even if Guy hadn’t immediately stood down. Director Sam McQuestin has also stood down.

Here’s who has thrown their hat in the ring so far. With the Liberals being advised to court a younger and more diverse vote, and adamant at a federal level that quotas are unnecessary tokenism, it won’t surprise at all to read that all are so far white men, and all are saying they would reverse Guy’s partyroom ban on ultra-conservative church member Renee Heath.

John Pesutto

Pesutto has long been considered leadership material, likely to have taken over as leader from Guy had he held his seat in 2018. Indeed that was very much the theme when he announced his intention to return to politics ahead of the 2022 election. He has a pretty flawless CV for a certain kind of Liberal MP: a former director of the productivity and employment unit with the Institute of Public Affairs in 2010 and a lawyer and and a member of the Office of the Premier from 2011 to 2014 holding senior advisory roles for both Denis Napthine and Ted Baillieu.

He was the highest-profile casualty of the Liberals’ 2018 election bloodbath, famoulsy watching it slip away live on the ABC. Assuming he scrapes back against Melissa Lowe (it’s still too close to call at time of writing) in Hawthorn, he — along with election of Jess Wilson in Kew — will be just about the only good new the Libs got on Saturday.

Brad Battin

The youngest challenger at 47, this will be Battin’s second attempt at the leadership, having come for Michael O’Brien in March 2021 and lost 22-9. We noted at the time that Battin would “fail to go down in history as the politician who inspired his colleagues less than Michael O’Brien”, but Battin insisted it wasn’t an embarrassing result, with O’Brien’s supporters banding together with those who wanted — and ultimately got — O’Brien replaced by Guy and not Battin.

A former policeman, he has held a raft of shadow ministries over his 12 years in Parliament. Disgraced Liberal candidate for Narre Warren North Timothy Dragan once called him a prick but one person Battin seems to be able to rely on for support is Warrandyte’s Ryan Smith, who pulled out of the race this morning: “With consideration, and after discussions with Brad Battin, I have concluded that our vision for the party and our approach to the next four years are closely aligned.”

Which is interesting, given he’s already given his leadership pitch to The Australian. Smith showed admirable, some would say bananas, levels of optimism about what the election tells us about Liberal Party support in the state, arguing the narrow holding off of teal challengers, the swings against Labor in its safest seats, and the success of the Nationals as a sign the party had a “reasonable balance in terms of centrist policies versus left and right”. So does Battin agree that it was simply “the articulation of our message and the enunciation of our values” and not those policies that lead the party to its lowest primary vote this side of 1952?

Richard Riordan

The party’s housing spokesman, Richard Riordan, has been at times an effective opposition member, attacking the government on the undisclosed relationship between Public Accounts and Estimates Committee chair Lizzie Blandthorn and then jobs minister Martin Pakula’s chief of staff, as well as disturbing allegations the police accessed security camera footage from his office to issue harsh fines to anti-lockdown protesters.

More recently, he shared the Herald Sun‘s “stairgate” story on his Facebook page, in a perfect combo of mean-spirited humour and conspiratorial winking about Andrews’ “terrible luck” with stairs, giving rise to the more explicit theorists in the post’s comments. Riordan was among the MPs who supported Battin’s March 2021 challenge.