Controversial Victorian MP Bernie Finn will lead the Democratic Labour party into the state’s November election, saying he hopes the fringe party will help control the balance of power in the upper house.
Last week, the Victorian Liberals voted to expel Finn from the parliamentary party after he posted on Facebook saying abortion should be banned, even for survivors of rape. The decision forced Finn to move to the crossbench in the upper house.
Speaking to 3AW radio on Thursday morning, Finn confirmed he was now a member of the DLP and would run for the party in the Western Metropolitan region – the area he has represented since 2006.
He said the party, which split from the Australian Labor party in 1955, was a “genuinely conservative Labor party”.
“That is going to appeal to both sides of the fence,” he told 3AW.
“We’ve got a Labor government that has totally destroyed the state, that is corrupt and incompetent beyond words, and on the other hand we have a Liberal opposition … [that] is like a cork in the ocean – they’re just all over the shop.”
Finn said the DLP would aim to win four upper house seats and run in a number of lower house seats, including marginal electorates.
“I think it would be very possible that, if we didn’t have the balance of power by ourselves, we’d be a very important player in controlling the balance of power in the upper house,” he said.
The upper house MP said the DLP would support workers, small businesses and traditional families.
Finn said he was approached by about eight parties to join, including the United Australia Party.
“I decided the DLP was a far better fit for me.”
In March, the DLP was deregistered at a federal level due to low membership. But the party still exists in Victoria.
Finn, who has repeatedly expressed opposition to abortion, had previously come under fire for social media commentary, including a post in which he compared the premier, Daniel Andrews, to Adolf Hitler last year. He has also shared pro-Trump conspiracy theories including the claim that the former president was “improperly” removed from office.
Finn has been an upper house MP since 2006. Between 1992 and 1999 he was a lower house MP for the electorate of Tullamarine before it was abolished in 2002.
After the vote to boot Finn from the party, the opposition leader, Matthew Guy, last week said he expected “discipline” from Liberal MPs and for his colleagues to “uphold standards in their public discourse”.
He also denied that the decision was about “navel gazing” following the federal election, where the Liberal party lost blue-ribbon seats like Goldstein and Kooyong to teal independents, and Higgins to Labor.
