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On Monday morning, Opposition Leader Jess Wilson woke to the news that her party had a problem. Or, to put it in the Liberal-speak of one frustrated insider, a “catastrophic, engulfing f---–up.”
At its simplest, the problem was a failure of process. Liberals pay $5000 to nominate as an election candidate in Victoria and of this, $3000 goes to cover the cost of vetting, which involves almost 100 questions about their integrity, financial background and legal history.
Despite this, no one at Liberal HQ or the consultancy the party contracts to run background checks had bothered to type Dinesh Gourisetty, the name of a candidate gunning for Moira Deeming’s upper house seat, into the Austlii legal database.
If they had, they would have noticed that Gourisetty had provided a character reference for a friend who in August 2024 pleaded guilty to grooming and sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.
The Deeming-Gourisetty battle for a safe Western Metropolitan seat had for months been dogged by accusations of local branch stacking and suspicions of a bigger, anti-Deeming conspiracy at work inside the party’s Collins Street office. Both candidates saw the belated disclosure as evidence of a stitch-up.
Deeming – herself a survivor of child sex abuse – was alerted late on Sunday night that the man who toppled her had previously vouched for a child abuser. At 8.51am on Monday, a member of the party’s state executive circulated the details. For reasons beyond her control, Wilson was waking to a full-blown crisis.
Gourisetty’s political career is over before it began. Wilson, once she was briefed on the developing scandal, declared he would not be welcome in her party room after the November election. Even as Gourisetty was trying to convince members of the state executive that he remained a viable candidate, Liberals were briefing out that he had withdrawn from the race.
But at the time of writing, Deeming is uncertain about her political future, state president Phil Davis’ decision to call a rerun of the preselection convention is cloaked in conjecture, and two of Davis’ constant critics within state executive, Colleen Harkin and Marcus Li, are calling for his resignation.
A similar motion was on Monday circulated by members of state council, a larger group elected from the party’s membership.
One of Deeming’s most impassioned detractors, speaking in confidence to discuss internal party matters, believes the only way out is for Deeming to be re-endorsed as soon as the party can make it happen. “You have just this inferno of f---wittery,” they said. “The realpolitik of this means Moira will end up being re-endorsed. The least painful way is to make that happen quickly.”
But one influential party figure predicted that Deeming, having suffered the devastation of losing such a high-profile ballot, would not nominate again. “I think she is just jack of it,” they said.
When Liberal MPs gathered at parliament on Tuesday morning, Deeming was a no-show. She hasn’t joined party room meetings for weeks.
Wilson said it was a matter for Deeming whether she contests again, but she expressed hope that the upper house MP would. “It’s been, clearly, a tough few days for Moira. I’ll give her the space that she needs and respect that she needs.”
All Liberal candidates, as part of the standard preselection process, are required to provide a statutory declaration with responses to 97 questions about their relationships, social medial activity, business ventures and interactions with the justice system. This is followed by an interview with the applicant review committee, a panel of four or five people that includes the party president and parliamentary leader or their delegates.
Although the Liberal Party uses an external consultant to conduct background searches on candidates and produce vetting reports, the system still relies on full answers from candidates.
One of the questions in these statutory declarations is as follows: “Have you been involved in any criminal or civil proceedings before a court or tribunal, or are there any current circumstances that could give rise to you being involved in any such criminal or civil proceedings?”
Irrespective of their factional allegiances, Liberals are disturbed at the failure of the party’s background checks to pick up the character reference Gourisetty provided to his good friend Kashyap Patel, who was 40 at the time of his crimes and subsequently sentenced to nine months’ jail.
Gourisetty, condemning Patel’s crimes, told the state executive he had not known the full details of the case when he provided the reference and believed his friend was pleading innocent. The reference, released by the County Court on Monday afternoon, contradicted that claim. “I understand that Mr Kashyap Patel has to attend court about child grooming and sexual assault charges,” the reference reads. “He is very upset about the charges and I truly believe he is extremely sorry to the complainant for what he has done.”
Members of the state executive are considering a damages suit against the consultancy it uses. Wilson said the failure would be reviewed.
“The situation that we found ourselves in yesterday should never have happened,” she said on Tuesday. “The situation should not have occurred. And it’s fair to say I’m frustrated by this. My team is frustrated by this.
“We need to do better every day.”
Some Liberals have privately floated the need for a federal intervention against the state branch, as happened in NSW. Wilson rubbished the idea.
Davis has announced a fresh preselection will be run and Gourisetty barred from contesting. The state executive is yet to decide when it will be held – though they hope it’s quick – whether new candidates will be able to contest and whether new preselectors will need to be decided again.
It would be open to MP Trung Luu, who retained the No. 2 candidate position in Sunday’s preselection after running third behind Deeming and Gourisetty in the contest for the No.1 spot, to recontest. He did not respond to The Age on Tuesday.
The preselection snafu dovetails into a long-running dispute surrounding the party’s decision to loan former leader John Pesutto money he needed to pay the legal costs he owed Deeming after he was found to have defamed her.
Colleen Harkin, the state executive member now calling for Davis to resign, is the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court challenge against the party-approved loan that spared Pesutto from bankruptcy. That case, which was initiated in June last year, is yet to go trial.
“The candidate review panel exists specifically to identify risks, exercise sound judgment, and safeguard the party’s reputation,” Harkin wrote in her motion on Tuesday. “This failure represents a serious lapse in leadership, governance, and due diligence.
“For the sake of restoring integrity, credibility and public trust, Phil Davis should resign has party president.”
Davis has not responded to the letter. He did not respond to a request for comment from The Age.
Wilson endorsed Deeming as her preferred candidate for the Western Metropolitan Region, providing a written reference and making calls to preselection delegates on Deeming’s behalf. This is consistent with her support for all sitting MPs facing preselection challenges.
The challenge to Deeming infuriated prominent figures in the party, including former prime minister Tony Abbott, his chief of staff Peta Credlin and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Its spectacular failure has reopened deep fault lines.
A phlegmatic Liberal MP said that with One Nation promising to contest all state seats, it would not be the last candidate implosion before the Victorian election.
“It is not a dark conspiracy. It was just a f---–up.”
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