The Victorian opposition leader, John Pesutto, will face a leadership spill on Friday, with Berwick MP Brad Battin emerging as his most likely challenger.
Battin and Liberal MPs Sam Groth, James Newbury, Richard Riordan and Bridget Vallence on Sunday called a party room meeting for Friday, where Guardian Australia understands a motion to spill the leadership will be moved.
Another motion will also be moved calling for exiled MP Moira Deeming to be readmitted to the party.
Battin’s backers were confident he had the numbers for the spill to succeed and would likely install former professional tennis player turned Nepean MP Sam Groth as his deputy. However, Battin was being urged by moderates to consider installing Kew MP Jess Wilson instead, which would help to unite the party’s bitterly divided factions.
Wilson was among moderate MPs who met with Pesutto over the weekend to urge him to stand down, though he refused.
The Liberal party’s upper house leader, Georgie Crozier, was also expected to lose her role as part of the spill to David Davis, who has previously held the position. Joe McCracken could make a tilt for deputy though Evan Mulholland is consider to have enough support to fend off the challenge.
It came after Pesutto made an extraordinary backflip by agreeing to return Deeming to the party room – just days after he used his casting vote to knock down an attempt to readmit her, which had been deadlocked at 14 votes to 14.
At the time, Pesutto said the vote “concludes the matter”. However, on Sunday, he said it had “become clear that there is now a definite absolute majority of my colleagues who want this issue resolved with [Deeming’s] readmission”.
He called for a meeting on 15 January and urged MPs to “put this behind us”, citing two upcoming byelections in Prahran and Werribee.
Pesutto apologised to Deeming in his statement on Sunday, though Guardian Australia understands he had not so far reached out to her directly.
Deeming declined to comment but confirmed she was not directly informed of Pesutto’s plan to hold a second vote on her readmission and found out via media reports.
One Liberal MP told Guardian Australia that Pesutto’s concession came “too little too late”.
“In hindsight, with the deadlock on Friday, he should have just allowed her back into the party room and all of this could have been avoided,” they said. “Instead this has dragged on for days and will continue to.”
Another said it was “desperate stuff”, arguing the backflip was a “slap in the face” to those who had supported Pesutto in Friday’s vote to keep Deeming out of the party room.
Deeming was expelled from the party in May 2023 after a rally she attended months earlier was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
A federal court judge earlier this month found Pesutto defamed Deeming by falsely implying in comments he made after the rally that she knowingly associated and sympathised with neo-Nazis, and ordered him to pay her more than $300,000 in damages.
