It’s being reported in the Melbourne newspapers that the state Liberal leadership of embattled incumbent, John Pesutto, is likely to be challenged before the Victorian Parliament resumes next week.

That may be welcome news to many readers, and to our editors. Indeed, Pesutto needs to take responsibility for his misjudgments and mismanagement of the Moira Deeming fiasco, and be prepared to pay the price of losing his leadership for both his hasty and precipitate moves last year to expel her from his party room, and how he sold these to his Liberal colleagues and the Victorian public. But, like Saint Augustine’s taking a vow of chastity, it’s a case of Lord, not yet.

Notwithstanding the Deeming fiasco, the Liberal dirty linen aired during the Deeming defamation trial reveals what most people already knew: the Victorian Liberal party is a cesspit of personal animosities, ego, and factional skullduggery. The mostly Labor-lite parliamentary leadership, with its keenness to be seen as inner-city Melbourne-style socially ‘progressive’, and environmentally greener than green (witness Pesutto’s refusal to endorse Peter Dutton’s putting nuclear power on the energy agenda), is diametrically opposed to its largely socially conservative and environmentally mainstream membership base.

Victorian Liberal MPs are pointing to their 10-point primary vote lead over the flailing and failing Daniel Andrews-Jacinta Allan government, but what are we talking about? The Deeming defamation trial and all that dirty linen. When the Greens’ vote is factored into the polling equation, the state Coalition is still behind Labor on a two-party preferred basis, and a Liberal house divided against itself surely cannot stand.

But removing Pesutto right now won’t change anything. If there were a viable alternative candidate, I would say go ahead, change now, but there isn’t.

Look at the names being suggested. Long-serving frontbencher Brad Battin: a good bloke, a former policeman ideal for the police and emergency services portfolios, and who’s tried for the leadership several times before. But a charismatic leader and strong communicator able to cut through to a cynical Victorian electorate? Sadly for him, no.

Sam Groth: a first-term MP who has been there for the metaphorical five minutes, whose claim to fame is as a former professional tennis player (professional singles tennis being one of the most selfish sports there is, not a team game), and who needs to demonstrate policy and political ability beyond his legendary big serve? Surely no, or not yet at any rate. Hard-working and likeable he is (and he is well-regarded in his own seat), but Groth needs to prove himself in the parliamentary bear pit and as a media communicator (a hostile press gallery is not a soft courtside interview with Jim Courier), if he is to serve for the Victorian Liberal political championship.

James Newbury, a drippingly-wet frontbencher who coordinates parliamentary tactics but has barely troubled the scorers in terms of substantive policy contributions, who in 2018 almost lost his ultra-safe seat to a 19-year-old Labor kid who barely campaigned at all, and who is probably the least acceptable candidate to the Liberals’ coalition partners in the National party? Can’t see it.

The only viable emerging candidate, in my view, is shadow treasurer Brad Rowswell. He has five considerable strengths as a potential leader: he is competent; he can ‘do policy’; he has sound political judgment; he is a team player; and, perhaps above all, he has an engaging personality and ability to get on with people that can make him attractive to a jaded electorate and, presumably, get along with his party room fellow MPs regardless of factions and personalities. What’s more, I’m aware his Labor opponents see those qualities in him too, and he would be their least wanted adversary. But, despite his considerable promise, Rowswell needs more time to become the seasoned and battle-hardened leader the Vic Libs so desperately need: to elevate him now is to risk his getting burned off unnecessarily. It is not yet his time – but it may well be a year or so out from the November 2026 election.

John Pesutto is a decent man who made a series of huge leadership mistakes that brought the threats to his leadership on himself. He’s also, however, the best policy brain in the Liberal party room. Without a strong immediate alternative and, pending the defamation trial verdict, it is better to leave him in post, for the time being at least. Who knows, what hasn’t killed him politically will yet make him stronger. At any rate (cue reader disagreement) Pesutto deserves at least some opportunity to redeem himself.

But with the needless defamation trial concluded and the judge’s verdict likely months away, it’s up to Pesutto and his divided, fractious, dysfunctional team to at least paper over the ugly fissures that have become so public, hold Allan Labor to account for their incompetent government and shoddy governance and, most importantly, get back to the vitally important work of developing visionary yet fiscally responsible centre-right – not Labor-lite – policies that can lift Victoria out of the merde into which it has been plunged by a decade of Andrews and Allan.

So, the Vic Libs should buy time for themselves and keep Pesutto as leader, for now.