Yesterday's headline, "Former Liberal MP Tim Smith considering return to Spring Street," has created such a storm that the headline has changed to: "Pesutto faces fresh leadership test after being blindsided by MP’s resignation."
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/he-s-back-former-liberal-mp-tim-smith-considering-return-to-spring-street-20230531-p5dcrv.html
tl;dr: Tim Smith is a self-serving fool, and he can't see that he's being used as a pawn in a leadership spill.
Tim Smith has ambitions to return to politics. A few months after drink-driving his car into the side of a house, he feels he's spent his time in the wilderness and wants to get back into Parliament.
Meanwhile, the RWNJ faction of the Victorian Liberal Party are as keen as ever to nudge the Overton Window further to the right. Nowadays, this faction is frothing for Moira Deeming because they're mostly TERFs and Neo-Nazis -- I say "and" here, not "or" because there's such an ideological overlap that they're basically the same type of person.
Seems they see this bye-election as a win-win scenario: if they win the election then the party gains a seat in Parliament, and if they lose the election then the extreme-right faction will use the loss as a pretext to spill John Pesutto and install an even more extreme leader.
All the need is a candidate who's highly visible, can appeal to rusted-on conservative voters, but can also rile-up the extremists.
Tim Smith is the perfect tool for this job.
#AusPol #VicPol #SpringSt #TimSmith #TERF #MoiraDeeming #JohnPesutto #LibSpill