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The Victorian Liberal Party this week unexpectedly ousted Brad Battin as opposition leader, electing unopposed the 35-year-old first-term MP Jess Wilson as his replacement.

The move came as a shock to many in Victoria. Brad Battin had been the party’s leader for less than 12 months, having mounted his own successful challenge against former leader John Pesutto on 27 December last year. Wilson becomes the sixth leader of the Victorian Liberal Party in the last seven years.

This article seeks to answer two questions:

What was the driving force behind the sudden change of direction? And exactly what direction are the Victorian Liberals changing to?

What did the polls say?

We would usually expect a leader’s underwhelming polling performance to be the main catalyst behind a leadership challenge. However, that was not the case here.

In fact, Brad Battin had been surging in the polls as Victoria’s preferred premier since June. A Newspoll conducted at the end of June had Brad Battin leading Jacinta Allan by just five points, 41-36.

The results from a Freshwater poll conducted between 14-17 November showed Brad Battin had extended to an eleven-point lead over Jacinta Allan as Victoria’s preferred premier, 45 to 34. The same poll had the Coalition leading the Two Party Preferred vote 51-49.

Battin’s critics argue that he should have made further headway given Allan’s unpopularity and Victoria’s rising crime crisis.  However, this was an extraordinary turnaround for a party struggling to make any indents into Labor’s lead.

Jacinta Allan had led in six of the seven polls conducted between her and Battin’s predecessor, Pessuto. Pesutto’s best result as preferred premier was 30%, while Battin’s worst result was 33%. Prior to Jacinta Allan taking over from Dan Andrews as premier, Andrews had led Pessuto by as much as 28 points as preferred premier in 2023.

Clearly, things were heading in the right direction under Battin.

If then, the spill was not about Battin’s performance in the polls, what was it about?

Internal Disputes

On 11 October 2025, following the resignation of senior Liberal MPs David Hodgett and Michael O’Brien, Battin conducted a reshuffle of his shadow ministry. This saw three first-term MPs, Richard Welch, Nick McGowan and Nicole Werner, promoted alongside Jess Wilson, who took over the Shadow Treasury portfolio from Battin ally James Newbury.

This reshuffle caused internal tensions to erupt, with both the moderate and conservative factions expressing discontent with Battin’s decisions.

Battin had already infuriated the conservative faction in June by approving a $1.55 million party loan to John Pesutto to pay his legal bills pertaining to his lost defamation case against Moira Deeming.

Battin’s failure to retain the backing of the faction that supported his bid for the leadership twelve months ago was the primary factor in his downfall.

Who is Jess Wilson?

So, who is Jess Wilson, and what does she believe? And, crucially, what direction is she about to take the party in ahead of next year’s state election?

Wilson belongs to the moderate faction of the Victorian Liberal Party. A self-described ‘classical, small-l Liberal’, she was a long-term staffer and senior policy adviser to Josh Frydenberg, a prominent moderate Liberal himself.

In 2023, Wilson voted in favour of expelling Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party room, aligning with the moderate faction led by John Pesutto, who was found by Justice David O’Callaghan to have defamed Deeming on five separate occasions, causing “serious harm” to her reputation.

Wilson has voiced progressive social views, revealing that she is pro-choice on abortion and voted in support of same-sex marriage.

She has promised to legislate 50 per cent emissions reductions by 2030, while also committing to net zero by 2050.

Additionally, she was the only Victorian Liberal MP who publicly supported the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

It is self-evident that these positions align Wilson more with Labor’s progressive base than the Coalition’s conservative supporters.

Identity Politics

This begs the question: on what basis does the Victorian Liberal Party expect Wilson to appeal to the Victorian electorate?

The Guardian wrote on Tuesday:

‘But others are blunt in that her age matches the profile of voters the party is chasing. They also argue her gender provides the party with a chance to present “a very different and compelling face for the Victorian Liberal party”.’

If this sounds like identity politics, that’s because it is.

Wilson’s backers insist that Battin’s social conservatism and hard-line approach on crime had capped the Liberals’ appeal with professional women. Therefore, they argue, a younger, moderate woman can appeal to these voters and neutralise Labor’s advantage among women.

The evidence does not support this belief.

It is the same thinking which led to Sussan Ley, another moderate Liberal, being handed the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party in May. Ley noted at the time that the Liberals are losing support among women, saying her appointment to the Liberal leadership “sent a signal” to Australian women.

Message Received

The signal they received was to abandon the Liberal Party in even greater numbers. The last four Federal opinion polls all have Ley polling at less than 30% as preferred Prime Minister, an average of 24 points behind Albanese. In the most recent Redbridge poll, Ley polled at an astonishing 10%.

So dire has Ley’s leadership been, that same poll had One Nation closing the gap on the Liberals in the primary vote, trailing by just 6 points. Contrast that with first Redbridge poll of this election cycle which had One Nation trailing by 22 points.

Already, signs point to a similar outcome in Victoria. 9News political reporter Heidi Murphy revealed that a big fundraising dinner was scheduled for Saturday, 29 November. The hope was “to net in excess of $300k”. After Tuesday’s leadership spill, nearly 30 tables pulled out and the event was subsequently cancelled.

Voters with progressive social views and a desire for climate action already have strong representation in Labor, the Greens and the Teal candidates. They will continue to vote for those candidates with a proven track record of delivering on these issues.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s conservative voters are once again left wondering who represents their views. Inevitably, this move to the left will cause even more of the Liberal base to move towards One Nation, the Liberal Democrats and Family First.

Conclusion

Jess Wilson represents a sharp leftward lurch on social and climate issues that will alienate the conservative base while failing to win over progressive voters.

The latest Liberal leadership spill is nothing more than an early Christmas gift to Jacinta Allan.

Victorian voters have not been waiting for a Liberal Party that sounds like Labor Lite. They have been waiting for a credible alternative.

The wait goes on.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.