John Pesutto has been removed as leader of the Victorian Liberals - and replaced with the Shadow Police Minister Brad Battin - after a party room meeting this morning. Liberal MPs have also voted to readmit exiled MP Moira Deeming to the parliamentary team.
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TVTranscript
00:00Another year, another Liberal Party spill. Leadership spill. A short time ago the meeting
00:07wrapped up behind me and Brad Batten has emerged as the new leader of the Liberal Party. The
00:11meeting was originally convened to try and readmit Moira Deeming. Now she was kicked
00:15out of the party room in 2023 after she attended an anti-trans rights rally and John Persudo,
00:21the now former leader, what he said was defamatory essentially. She later sued him and that pushed
00:26her out of the party room. She won that federal court case. She's now been readmitted and
00:30straight after she was readmitted there was a spill on the leadership because people have
00:33been unhappy with John Persudo's treatment of her. He was removed as leader and Brad
00:37Batten emerged from three contenders to be the new leader of the Victorian Liberal Party.
00:42I think he's the fourth. We heard Matthew Guys had two goes at being opposition leader.
00:46Michael O'Brien's had a go. John Persudo. So this is the fifth opposition leader since
00:50Labor won government in 2014. I want to thank John Persudo for what he has done for our
00:55party over the last two years and the last 30 years in service with the Victorian Liberal
00:59Party. He's a true believer of our values and he's a man of his word and he's worked
01:03tirelessly between now, obviously when he got in, and to now. We now have an obligation
01:08to move forward. I'm very thankful for the support I've got from my colleagues in the
01:13party room today to ensure that we can come out united and getting on message for the
01:17message we need to have.
01:20Richard, what can we expect now?
01:22Well, the big challenge for Brad Batten is to unify this very deeply divided party. Many
01:28of the things he rattled off in that very post-haste doorstop there was the same things
01:34that John Persudo has been saying. Cost of living. Crime going up. Very similar comments.
01:39Very similar rhetoric. So very similar campaign ideas. So this is about personalities, about
01:44John Persudo's judgement, which is why he lost out. So the challenge to Brad Batten
01:49is to unify the two great blocks within this party room. There's only 31 of them, to try
01:55and get ahead and focus on the government. He's said that himself, but it'll be really
01:59interesting to see what the make-up of his shadow cabinet is, what issues they're going
02:03to pursue that are a bit different to John Persudo. We're expecting to hear from him
02:06in a more fulsome way in the next hour or so.