Rachel Eddie is a Victorian state political reporter for The Age. Contact her at rachel.eddie@theage.com.au, rachel.eddie@protonmail.com, or via Signal at @RachelEddie.99
Labor MPs have been told to be ready for a meeting early next week, amid expectations there will be a vote on cabinet vacancies following several planned retirements.
The Liberal Party is directly confronting the threat posed by One Nation in the Nepean byelection, in a preview of their strategy to combat the minor party’s rising popularity.
At noon on Thursday, there were four candidates seeking Liberal Party preselection for an upper house seat representing Melbourne’s west. By the end of the day, there was only one.
The preselection battle between Moira Deeming and Dinesh Gourisetty was for months dogged by accusations of branch stacking and suspicions of an anti-Deeming conspiracy at work.
The Liberal Party will be forced to run its preselection again after it was revealed Deeming’s victor wrote a character reference for a friend who groomed and sexually assaulted a child.
Deeming quickly left the party’s headquarters without comment on Sunday after losing the hard-fought ballot, fuelling speculation she could defect to One Nation or the Libertarians.
Western District farmer Susanne Marro has withdrawn from a Liberal preselection battle after the party was alerted to allegedly troubling activity on her social media.
A tense round of Liberal preselection contests kicked off this weekend, amid the ongoing threat from One Nation.
With a recent poll showing only one in five people see her as their preferred premier, Jacinta Allan’s leadership is looking increasingly vulnerable.
Premier Jacinta Allan and a conga line of Labor MPs have dismissed speculative reports of a possible leadership challenge before the state election.