Nominations closed on Wednesday for Liberal Party preselection for the
regions of Victoria’s new reformed Legislative Council. They’ve received
almost no publicity, although there’s a brief mention at the end of Paul
Austin’s article in yesterday’s Age. The party doesn’t release the names or comment on them, but sources
have provided me with a reasonably complete list.

The shocking thing about the nominations is how few there are. Each
region will elect five members, but in the Southern Metro region, for
example, which is the Liberal Party’s suburban heartland, stretching
from Kew to Sandringham, only five people have put their names forward.
In Western Victoria region there are only four; in Northern Metro
(admittedly a strong Labor area) only two.

The Liberals have 15 sitting members in the Council, but four of them
are retiring (including Ron Bowden, who made no announcement beforehand
but has not renominated). Since they can be pretty sure of winning 14
seats under the new system (and conceivably as many as 19), it should be
possible to provide for all the incumbents, and many of them evidently
thought that’s what leader Robert Doyle had promised. But it hasn’t
turned out that way.

Most of the incumbents will be OK, although that will not prevent some
hard fighting. In Southern Metro, Andrea Coote and David Davis
(representing pro- and anti-Kroger groups respectively) will get the top
two positions, but the number one spot will still be hotly contested for
its prestige value. In Western Victoria, sitting members John Vogels and
David Koch will be the top two, despite the fact they are both anti-Kroger.

The bunfight is going to be in Eastern Metro, where there are three
sitting members plus Doyle’s chief-of-staff and former MP Ron Wilson. It
seems likely that Wilson and Richard Dalla-Riva will take the top two
positions; Andrew Olexander will miss out, and Andrew Brideson will be
relegated to third, although he may face a strong challenge even for
that from anti-Krogerite Vasan Srinivasan.

South-Eastern Metro has two sitting MLCs, Gordon Rich-Phillips and
Chris Strong, who will probably both get winnable spots; Eastern
Victoria has only one, current upper house leader Phil Davis, whose
likely running mate is former MP Florian Andrighetto. A number of other
recycled MPs are running, including Krogerite Bernie Finn, who will
fight out Western Metro with Jenny Matic, and Inga Peulich, who has
nominated for both Southern and South-Eastern Metro but may only get the
unwinnable third position in South-Eastern.

Incumbent Wendy Lovell is unlikely to be troubled for the top spot in
Northern Victoria, with half a dozen relative unknowns vying for number
two. And the single winnable position in Northern Metro will go to
Matthew Guy, whose only opponent is perennial candidate Dino De Marchi.

The preselections are expected to be held in October (subject to
possible disruption if the Electoral Boundaries Commission changes its
draft proposals), so expect some serious factional tension between now
and then. Neither group, however, will want to take responsibility for
the sad state of the Victorian Division that sees its potential
candidates reduced to such a depleted bunch.