Thoughts from a Bulldozer Driver

A party divided: the struggle between grassroots conservatism and top-down factional control. We’ve all had those moments where something happens that seemingly makes no sense. Something that makes you shake your head, and try to work out the “why” behind it. Usually the issue de jour bounces around in your head for a while before being shoved to one side by the priorities of real life. The original perplexity becomes a curiosity, then a footnote, then forgotten. But not this time. A couple of days back, Jess Wilson (who?) suddenly appeared as the new Liberal leader in Victoria. Brad Battin, the former leader, was hardly a conservative powerhouse, but he had finally been making some progress, albeit slow and quiet. He even edged ahead of Jacinta Allan in at least one preferred-Premier poll. After years of the Victorian Liberals wandering in the weeds as an “opposition in name only,” backing the Government on everything from Covid to climate change, they had finally installed a leader w...