Liberal turmoil exposed in leaked emails
THE scale of dysfunction within the Victorian Liberal Party has been laid bare, with leaked documents exposing plans to dump candidates, trashing of Coalition policies, and brawls over female representation.
News Corp has obtained a series of emails sent between the Liberals’ powerful administrative committee.
They reveal a September proposal from Ivan Stratov and David Mond to dump veteran MPs Bernie Finn, Kim Wells and Bruce Atkinson and replace them with women. The motion was slammed by Liberal Women’s section head Helen Kroger and admin committee member turned upper house MP Bev McArthur, who said it would distract from the election campaign.
Ms McArthur also complained about “self-absorbed” federal female Liberals who have “forgotten how privileged they are to be pre-selected”.
“This focus on gender is a Marxist construct,” she wrote.
She also savaged the Coalition’s free school books policy as “blatant pork-barrelling and socialism to boot”.
Other emails show Mr Mond and Ms McArthur slamming the lack of business and tax policies coming from the state opposition, and Mr Mond accusing outgoing party president Michael Kroger of “bullying in the workplace”.
In a further blow yesterday, Mr Mond quit as party treasurer, savaging “dysfunction”, leaks, a “culture of belittling and intimidation”, and governance issues within the Liberals.
Members of the admin committee have been contacted for a response.