Kew – Victoria 2026

Jess Wilson has incumbency which will help her out and she is a moderate, Liberal hold with a swing toward her.

Agree. I can’t see any reason that Jess Wilson wouldn’t improve on her 2022 result with a sophomore surge.

Jess Wilson is exactly the type of demographic the Liberals need to get back into: young, professional, small-L liberal women. She has shown herself to be an effective MP, quite moderate aligned (supported the Voice Referendum and was aligned with Pesutto), and the fact she already has a pretty high-level Shadow Ministry position supports this. I see no worry for her losing, especially if the Liberals are getting a swing to them.

@James I agree, when she wins her seat I wonder what the criticism will be then. Could potentially lead or deputy lead the party too.

I sense Jess Wilson will retain her seat with a sophomore surge. Last election, she was new and the previous member, Tim Smith, was a very controversial one. There is less of a case for a teal candidate in 2026.

@James, Nether Portal, I don’t think the right-wing of the Liberals, Sky After Dark and Advance will be happy with her as leader.

From what I have seen Jess Wilson is a good media performer. She seems to have leadership potential but probably unacceptable to Bev, Moira and Renee.

@Votante so?

@redistributed bev is 76 so wont be round much longdr to see her become a candiadte and thees no guarantee moira will get preselection so i doubt she will need to worry

This was a seat which had a serious independent challenge in 2022 – Sophie Torney fell 200 votes short of making the final two and would probably have got very close to winning had she managed to get ahead of Labor. She’s now mayor of Boroondara which would give her some additional profile (maybe not so much these days). I haven’t heard anything about whether she intends to run again for Kew.

The Age is reporting that Brad Battin has made a reshuffle following several retirements – with former leadership rival Jess Wilson now the new shadow treasurer, while key Battin backer James Newbury who initially had the role moved into the shadow attorney general portfolio and reported was strongly opposed to this move.

A risky play that if it goes wrong could seriously destabilise Battin’s leadership, but in theory a strong move putting Jess Wilson as a former BCA executive in charge of the Coalition’s economic narrative, which the Liberals seriously need when Battin looks to be narrow cast as only pushing on issues relating to crime.

Jessica Wilson is leadership potential. She can hardly be considered a rival as she’s new. Needs some time to cut her teeth in parliament. Similar to Jacinta price

Battin seems to be trying as hard as he can to play both sides and keep the party together, needs to keep Southwick and Pesutto mostly sidelined but can afford to promote Wilson who is going to help with eastern marginals. Get the feeling Wilson will struggle to make leadership as the majority of Liberal gains this election are likely to come more from Big L type seats and Wilson already seemed to lose moderate backing in the spill that Battin won.

Wilson is impressive though, I think she’s a decent chance of cracking 50% primary here

If Jess Wilson is successful with tomorrow leadership spill it will be the first state election in Victoria’s history where both leaders are female. Jess Wilson will certainly help the liberals in the sand belt seats and clay wall seats.

Agree if she is succesful she will be more popular among more affluent voters.

Only question is if the right flank and Sky After Dark will sabotage her

Will Battin fight the spill or not? Rumours are contradictory this evening.

@Nimalan,
Agree, it’s almost like Sky News is rooting for the Liberals demise.

Those earlier reports ended up being true I guess. I’m not sure what Battin was thinking beforehand with his most recent shadow cabinet reshuffle, but he clearly ruffled the feathers of many of his (likely now former) supporters.

@Nimalan With an economic agenda to prosecute (led directly by Jess Wilson as opposition leader) as opposed to solely the crime focus that Battin was pushing, the Liberals may finally be able to get past the line and return to the government benches. Time will tell of course, and I don’t expect it to be a landslide (Labor’s campaign machine is still a force to be reckoned with, as the Liberals have found time and time again and there’s many Labor seats that have high margins, not to mention infrastructure completions coming online like the Metro Tunnel and West Gate Tunnel), but it just might be enough.

@ Spacefish/WL
Totally Agree. I think Jess Wilson is certainly a more formidable leader than Battin and Liberals are at te best when the argue an economic narrative. However, the risk is that the right flank will cause distractions Bev Macarthur, Moira Deeming, Anne-Marie Hermans and Richard Ridordan are the ones that will cause it. They may keep repeating the mantra that Jess Wilson is Labor lite.
I do think many in the Liberals drink the Kool Aid from the fire horse.
You have to question Battin’s judgment in giving Moira Deeming a portfolio. The question should be was it all worth it to remove Pesutto and replace him with Battin. The Liberal Membership Sky News, CPAC, Advance got fired up with the Moira Deeming saga but did the Average swing voter in the Claybelt and Sandbelt care.

@Nimalan The Oz reports that Battin was confronted by a cross section of the various factions – Beverley McArthur, Nick McGowan, Renee Heath and Brad Rowswell all telling him he had lost the support of the party room. Rare show of unity and also being above ideology when across the board it looks like they’re all backing the former BCA executive, moderate, net-zero supporting, Voice supporting first termer to be their next leader.

@ WL
That is a good sign
I justhope she is not being pushed later to drop Net Zero. There are no Coal seats in play in Victoria. Last time Coalition promised Net Zero by 2045 and still won Morwell comfortably.
If Jess Wilson is able to hold the party together I think Pesutto will be re-elected easily. While people of Hawthorn maybe upset that Pesutto was ousted as leader they will still be impressed that a Moderate woman from the neighbouring electorate was elected as leader.

This party is allergic to government.

I don’t say that because I think Jess Wilson is a bad choice. Quite the opposite. She’s about as good a choice as they have in the party. But a second leadership spill in 11 months, only a year out from the election, and to a leader who I think it’s almost certain that the right-flank, groups like Advance, and Sky News commentators are likely to constantly undermine, looks like yet another act of self sabotage and reinforces the common perception (and frequent Labor attack line) that the Liberals are focused on themselves while Labor are focused on delivering.

Especially timing it to occur at the same time that Labor are about to cut ribbons on the Metro Tunnel and West Gate Tunnel, Albanese has just committed to more SRL funding, the federal Liberals are doing their best to completely destroy the party brand by dumping net zero, and there are rumours swirling about Sussan Ley’s leadership which is also reinforcing the view that the Liberals are focused on themselves.

@Trent
Your comment “This party is allergic to government” made me laugh.

I’m not even confident that Jess Wilson will make it to the next state election due to Sky News After Dark will almost certainly not take a liking to her at all. She was the only member from the state Liberal devision to support the voice which will certainly anger the conservative commentators.

Despite the lack of visibility, it is amazing the Libs were leading 51 -49 in the polls only a few weeks back. Jess Wilson is definitely the best thing they have – she might be able to make that a lead. Brad Battin concentrated on one thing – crime – but they need more than that. The government will get a sugar hit from the metro and the second Westgate – but will it last? There is nothing to say that Jacinta will survive until the next election anyway. And if Jess Wilson can herd the Liberal Party cats then she can run the state. They just need to send Peta Credlin on a long cruise to the North Coast of Alaska where she do no harm.

By the way, what has happened to the Liberal preselections?

@Redistributed No one will give a fuck about Credlin as long as her BS isn’t followed.

Brad did prove to be more pragmatic than I expected him to be, but he was just too focused on crime and not enough economically.

The only thing that might stop her will be a possible inability to win seats in the red wall.

In a world where the party is drifting further right federally, people like Jess Wilson are gifts the centre-right needs.

Bring her in as leader I say. And remove Moira Deeming from the frontbench.

@ Scart
If Liberals focus on economic difference and not social issues then they can attempt to win seats like Monbulk, Bellarine, Macedon, Eltham which are socially progressive and more Tealish
In the Red Wall, they can limit their targets to only Melton, Yan Yean, Niddrie and Sunbury. These seats can be won if they priortise MM2, Airport Rail, Melton electrification over SRL.
If they win seats elsewhere including regional seats like Eureka they dont need to focus as much on Red Wall.

When you look at the polling, you’d be scratching your head wondering why there’s a leadership spill. Brad Battin is preferred premier, though a lot are “unsure”, and the Coalition is neck and neck with Labor in the 2PP. It was 51-49 LNP’s way not long ago.

I’m guessing part of it is to do with Brad Battin’s cut-through with the electorate (or lack thereof) and that he’s almost a single-issue leader.

I don’t think Jess Wilson is a bad choice. She was touted as a rising star. If she wins the spill, she’ll likely have to stay on and fight the election.

@Nether Portal at the same time, Pesutto shouldn’t be back on the frontbench, and right-wing policies that don’t piss off the centre (e.g. removing treaty) shouldn’t be removed as well.

And as far as I can tell, she’s the first leader of major party in the country born in the 90s or later.

They dont need the red wall

The Moira deeming group has to shut up and let the liberals win for Victorias sake

@Up the dragons They at least need the seats that Nimalan mentioned.

The libs were on track to win under pesutto just as they were under O’Brien but they decided to stab themselves. Pesuttos demise was of his own making though if he had of just shut up about Deeming and bit his tongue he’d be on his way to Spring Street in 12 months.

Wilson’s just won the leadership spill. Hopefully for the sake of the Victorian Liberals this will be the start of some decent economic policies that will actually make a difference and less of the sniping from all corners.

The Deeming/Heath wing of the party won’t be happy though.

Jess Wilson is new Leader and Battin has been ousted after less than a year. It was said his support for Loan to Pesutto was one of the reasons the right faction turned on him despite him being more right wing than Jess Wilson and from Outer Suburbs.

Jess Wilson has just been elected Leader

At least with Wilson as leader if I was a Victorian I’d know that there’s at least a credible and likeable alternative option to vote for come next year. Battin was just the furthest thing from leadership material and was a one-trick-pony.

Labor, Greens and Liberal all now have female leaders.

@John, I don’t recall the Liberals ever being in a position to win under O’Brien. The reason he was deposed was that the polling wasn’t moving and he wasn’t cutting through at all.

They were legitimately in a winning position under Pesutto though and threw that away over internal bickering.

This leadership spill was also clearly over personal & factional disputes rather than polling. Not that Battin was in a winning position, but was at least in a somewhat competitive position. This was all about his cabinet reshuffle and MPs who lost their positions having the knives out.

Interestingly, The Age reported that it was a group of moderate MPs this morning who actually tried to prevent the leadership spill from happening and keep Battin in the job, not because they don’t support Jess Wilson, but because Bev McArthur becoming leader of the upper house was a condition of the right faction switching their support to Wilson.

Which all in all sounds like a pretty precarious situation to me, when you have Jess Wilson’s opposing faction supporting her leadership due to a combination of retribution and getting one of their own elected to lead the upper house, and Jess Wilson faction opposing the new leader of the upper house so much that they would have preferred to stick with Battin.

Who thinks the party will remain unified for the next 12 months?

I’m sure they can squeeze another leadership change before the next state election, after all never underestimate the Liberals ability to change a leader when they start to cut through.

I congratulate Jess Wilson on her election as Liberal leader. It’s amazing to see a credible moderate be elected, especially with the federal decision to dump the net zero target.

I do genuinely hope the party can unite around her, she seems very promising and the Victorian Liberals really need to unify as the election draws closer. It’s a huge weakness for the party which I feel has been a factor in their losses in the past few elections.

Congratulations Jess Wilson on being elected as the first female leader of the Victorian Liberal Party! Victoria needs someone like her in charge, to get them out of the mess that they’re in now.

From an outsider’s perspective, I think Wilson being the Leader of the Victorian Liberals might just be the tipping point to get them into Government.

@ CJ
I think she is an excellent choice so long as she does not get sabotaged by the Sky After Dark mob.

Sky After Dark is irrelevant to anyone outside of the Coalition or One Nation. For the Coalition’s sake, they need to recognise that.

Moderate Liberalism will play better in a state like Victoria than the conservatism previously shown by the party.

@ CJ
Sky After Dark is only relevant to one Faction of the Coalition, ONP and the Christian Right. It is possible that there are some “DLP style” voters out there (Economically Left, Socially conservative) but would not like Jess Wilson but i think they can be sacrificed.

Even if those types of voters vote for One Nation or another right party, their preferences will return to the Libs anyway.