Never, in all my 45 years of experience inside the Liberal Party, have I witnessed a disgraceful, public humiliation on this level.

It is my opinion that what happened in Moira Deeming’s preselection exemplifies the factional warfare that threatens to destroy Australia’s greatest conservative movement.

As part of the fallout, a group of Victorian State Council members are calling for the resignations of the party president and vice presidents. Even a Spring clean of the executive cannot not fix this problem – only a return to membership democracy can guarantee voter confidence – and that is what the Liberal Reform Association is proposing.

In late November, Jess Wilson and Liberal leadership will ask Victorians to trust them with the Treasury.

Following the events over the weekend and on Monday, most conservatives wouldn’t trust them to watch their Easter eggs let alone the Treasury benches.

Consider this headline: ‘Liberal candidate who ousted Moira Deeming found ineligible over child sex offender reference.’

Not even the greatest enemies of conservatism could write these plot twists.

As Deeming said during the factional branch games:

‘We are now moving into the fourth year since the campaign to defame and expel me from this party began. Clearly that campaign continues to this day, despite my repeated attempts to resolve it internally.’

This all began when Moira Deeming’s staunch defence of biological reality and women’s rights created enormous embarrassment for the previous Pesutto leadership.

Deeming highlighted the extent of ideological left-ward drift corrupting the party where defending the rights of women suddenly became taboo and secondary to the ‘popular’ and ‘modern’ trans agenda.

When people accused the Victorian leadership of being ‘Labor-lite’, they could point to Moira Deeming as the last tide mark of Menzies thought.

Moira standing at the Let Women Speak rally, championing the rights of half the Victorian electorate, made people ask why the Liberal Party wasn’t standing there beside her.

Aren’t they supposed to be conservative?

Slandering Moira with idiotic ‘Nazi’ affiliations after a small group of professional agitators gate crashed the rally was a move so bewildering and false that Liberal voters struggled to comprehend the resulting media storm.

It was a time of ideological hysteria in Victoria fuelled by a weak Pesutto leadership struggling to find relevancy in the post-Covid world.

Labor, for all its faults, continued to dominate the polls while the Liberals fought against themselves.

Deeming sued for defamation – and won. It was an action that left her branded as a ‘troublemaker’ in certain political circles. Don’t forget, the Liberal Party bill for this madness has run into the millions. That’s money being diverted from fighting Labor.

Even if the story stopped here, it would make the case for party reform.

The faction – not the Liberal membership – and certainly not the voters – wanted Deeming gone.

It is my belief that a desire for retribution over Deeming’s refusal to ‘go away’ resulted in a bizarre preselection battle. Others have speculated that everything was in place to push Deeming out of the party and prompt her to quit.

And that’s almost what happened.

Moira Deeming’s loss to Indian community leader Dinesh Gourisetty triggered vulgar gloating on social media from sections of the moderate camp. It was unbecoming of an historic political party.

This was the second time Gourisetty had run against Deeming and many were bewildered that he was chosen given it was already on the public record that his Indian restaurant had been fined $25,000 after pleading guilty to 11 charges for unsafe food practices and cleanliness.

Over the next election cycle, the moderates were extremely effective in recruiting party delegates to support a future vote – as is their right under the current system. Gourisetty knew he had the numbers late last week, telling the press he felt ‘very confident’ before beating Deeming 37 to 29.

This took place despite Deeming raising concerns about branch meetings which were ultimately reviewed and dismissed.

Deeming’s performance as a representative was not being assessed – only her ability to recruit delegates. And she lost.

Losing Moira Deeming in favour of a moderate candidate disgusted many Liberal members and voters away who despise factional games.

This has had implications federally, as Moira’s popularity stretched right across the country.

On Sunday afternoon, there were widespread calls for Deeming to join One Nation.

Any side-step to Pauline Hanson has been put on hold since it was discovered that Gourisetty provided a character reference for a man convicted of child-sex offences. Gourisetty has explained and defended his position on this matter.

It has been debated by other publications how much the party executive did or did not know about this before the vote last weekend.

No amount of moderate spin could save this situation and yet on Monday a letter from party president was set out declaring that Gourisetty has withdrawn from the ticket and that the state executive had resolved to hold another preselection which Gourisetty would be ineligible to contest.

This was then almost immediately contradicted by Gourisetty who was quoted by the ABC: ‘Instead of feeling supported, I feel I have been pushed towards withdrawing, and even advised to consider resigning from the party I have served with dedication for so many years.’

Given that Liberal Leader Jess Wilson has now said, ‘Mr Gourisetty is not welcome on my team…’ it is effectively a certainty that Deeming will face a new factional opponent.

Yes, after all this, Moira Deeming will be challenged again instead of the party calling it a day.

The judgment of the Liberal executive is in ruins.

The fruits of the previous campaign remain embedded in the delegate numbers. It would be the advice of the Liberal Reform Association to dismiss all the delegates and put the vote to the 500-1,000 members of the party.

The party has the power to do this. And it would guarantee public confidence in the end result.

It is my opinion that the moderates have been exposed as the masterminds of a petty revenge plot that has nothing to do with serving or representing the people of Victoria. And Moira has to stand her ground and wait for the next challenger, knowing full well the moderates still have the delegate numbers.

This behaviour obviously has to stop. If the Liberals return to their membership, Moira would win in a landslide and everyone knows it.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott knows it too. Last week he said the Victorian Liberal Party has a ‘death wish’ given its determination to oust Deeming. He added that Deeming was ‘one of the bravest and most honest people in our public life today’ who has ‘shown remarkable magnanimity given all that’s happened to her since rejoining the party room’.

‘I can’t think of anyone who’s had to endure so much “friendly fire” yet remained a staunch Liberal, and any preselector who doesn’t want to keep her in the parliamentary partyroom I reckon has a death wish.’

The current party constitution and structure of delegate voting has arguably been open to misuse and factional games which has manifested as this total disaster.

The Victorian Party is damaging the entire Liberal brand with its behaviour.

It is time to reform the Liberal Party – to amend the party constitution – and return these decisions back to the membership.

Liberal Party members deserve to be given the opportunity to fix decades of rot which have left the party unelectable. We call on everyone who wishes to keep the conservative dream alive to join us in petitioning senior Liberal representatives to support critical reforms.

What happened in Victoria over the weekend can never happen again.

And the only solution to the problem of factional decay is for the party to restore democracy.