On Sunday, March 29, the Victorian Liberals proved once again that they have absolutely no idea how to run a functioning political party. They voted 37-29 to dump Moira Deeming from the Western Metropolitan preselection in favour of Dinesh Gourisetty, a decision so catastrophically stupid it might actually be the final nail in the Coalition's Victorian coffin.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Deeming is the woman who sued the Liberals' own leader for defamation and won. In December 2024, she took down John Pesutto after he expelled her from the party room for attending a Let Women Speak rally. She won the case and embarrassed him in court. The new leadership under Jess Wilson brought her back into the party room, welcomed her back into the fold. Then the moment preselection rolled around, they knifed her anyway because they only needed her votes, not her presence.
The Replacement
The replacement makes the betrayal worse. They chose Dinesh Gourisetty, a Melbourne business leader with some unfortunate baggage. In 2019, Gourisetty's catering company Indi Hots was slapped with a $25,000 fine by Wyndham Council after he pleaded guilty to 11 food safety violations. Inspectors found rat faeces, grease, and oil-caked grime in the kitchen, exactly the kind of public health risk that makes suburban voters nervous, not some minor technicality the party could brush off.
The irony gets richer: Gourisetty also donated to Pesutto's legal fund during that defamation case. The Liberals are replacing the woman who won against their former leader with the man who bankrolled their former leader's failed defence, a choice rich enough in symbolism that no further commentary is needed.
One Nation Is Watching
The timing couldn't be worse for the party, with One Nation surging across Victoria to 26.5% primary vote in a mid-February Roy Morgan poll, leading Labor at 25.5% and the Coalition at a pathetic 21.5%. On three-party preferred, it's even grimmer: Labor 44.5%, One Nation 29.5%, Coalition 26%. The Liberals are being squeezed from both sides, losing voters to One Nation on the right and Labor on the left, and their response is to implode.
This is the same party that kicked out Sam Groth in January over internal infighting. The same party that replaced Brad Battin as leader after just a few months. The same party that keeps burning through preselection candidates like they're disposable.
One Nation, meanwhile, is watching all this with interest. Warren Pickering, the One Nation state president, immediately extended an olive branch to Deeming after the vote.
And Rowan Dean at Spectator Australia was already laying out the likely endgame: "Final act: Moira Deeming joins One Nation and runs for the same seat and wins it." Given the polling trajectory, that's reasonable prediction rather than wishful thinking.
The Base Is Already Gone
The Liberals don't seem to understand that in a three-way contest where one party is collapsing, the party that captures its disaffected base usually wins. Deeming represents everything One Nation wants to be: a politician willing to fight, unafraid of cultural flashpoints, already victorious once against the establishment, exactly the kind of figure their base rallies around.
The polling makes this brutally clear: Jess Wilson is seen as a better premier option than Labor's Jacinta Allan by 51% compared to Allan's 42.5%, and a remarkable 67.5% of Victorian voters disapprove of how Allan is handling her job as Premier. The Liberals should be cruising toward an election win. Instead, they keep burning through candidates and stabbing people in the back. Wilson might have the numbers, but the party is rotting from the inside.
The Liberals won a court case against defamation claims, vindication in the eyes of the law. They lost the moral case, the political case, and now they're losing the electoral case. Deeming sued because Pesutto treated her unfairly, won her case, and was welcomed back by new leadership that claimed to have learned from the disaster. Now they've proven they hadn't learned anything at all, just become more careful about the optics while repeating exactly the same mistakes.
What They're Really Saying
What the Liberals are really saying with this preselection vote is that they'd rather lose to One Nation with someone beholden to the guy who lost to their own defamation defendant than run the candidate who actually won and brings the right cultural credentials. Preselection room politics matter more to them than winning elections. You can't trust them even if you do the right thing. The party is, in a word, irredeemable.
One Nation looks competent by comparison. Pickering's statement was pitch-perfect: respectful, welcoming, aware of the optics. If Deeming does switch to One Nation, she won't need to worry about being dumped every time the room votes. One Nation has had the same leader for 30 years. Whatever you think of Pauline Hanson, the party at least has institutional stability.
The Liberals had a choice on Sunday. They could have backed the woman who won, who fights, who represents the kind of politics their base actually wants. Instead, they chose food safety violations and legal fund donations. They chose continuity with the failed past over a bet on the future. It's the kind of decision that looks like politics from the outside. It's also the kind of decision that shapes electoral history. The question now isn't whether Deeming will join One Nation. It's how many other Liberals she'll bring with her.
TLDR
The Victorian Liberals voted 37-29 to dump Moira Deeming from preselection, replacing her with Dinesh Gourisetty, a business leader fined $25,000 in 2019 for food safety violations who also donated to John Pesutto's defamation defence. One Nation leads Victorian polls at 26.5% and has already renewed their offer to Deeming.
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