Victorian Liberal party shapes up for ‘nastiest, most toxic’ state council in years amid leaks and infighting

The Victorian Liberal leader, Brad Battin, pictured, said party director Stuart Smith’s resignation was the ‘right thing to do’. Photograph: Diego Fedele/AAP

Timing is everything in politics. It’s a principle worth recalling when nine-month-old messages are made public just two days before the Victorian Liberals’ annual state council meeting.

The messages, taken from a WhatsApp group involving a small handful of party headquarters staff, are undeniably sexist and inappropriate. In them, Victorian Liberal party director Stuart Smith mocked the party’s women’s council, saying it could only make decisions at a meeting “after two men told them they had to”, and joked that upper house MP Bev McArthur had dementia.