Liberal leader Ted Baillieu stands accused of covering up far more disgusting conduct among staff at his party's secretariat than merely opposing Baillieu's policies.
WHAT DID TED KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
He and his office have had possession of emails, at least one of which reveals a Baillieu loyalist Susan Chandler is a filthy, foul-mouthed anti-semite grub, as we reported earlier.
Even worse, we understand when confronted on 3AW by Neil Mitchell with the claims of anti-semitism against the Liberal party official, he refused to say whether she should be sacked.
As one very angry Liberal told the OC:
"If you privately or anonymously denigrate Ted Baillieu's performance, personality or policies, you will be purged from the party. But if you profanely denigrate one of the world's great religions with anti-semitic filth from their Party Secretariat it's covered up by the Party leader. Where are Ted Baillieu's values? What drives him?"
The OC understands that Baillieu has had these emails for nearly a month and that his staff have been slowly trawling through them.
Baillieu allies tell the OC they have been closely reviewed to help them detect all those acting disloyally to the Liberal leader.
ANTI-SEMITES OPERATING WITH TED'S CONSENT
But it seems they had turned a blind eye to vastly more despicable misconduct than dissing their boss. It seems they were happy to tolerate racism and the free expression of a despicable anti-semitic statement, as long as the person making that statement was loyal to Ted Baillieu.
And doesn't that perfectly show the pure folly of the bizarre course of factional grudge-settling and his pursuit of a "hit-list" of targets in an opposing faction.
Liberal leader Ted Baillieu is conducting a personal jihad against those in his party who he says are conspiring against him. He has every right to pursue vendettas, should he feel that's the best thing for him to do. The fact that it's complete madness is more amusing than anything else for our point of view.
He will be cut down as Liberal leader, it's just a question of when. It probably won't happen this year but it will certainly happen prior to the next state election. Few doubt it other than those who are blinded by their belief in Baillieu as a "good bloke".
Well a good bloke doesn't tolerate anti-semitism. Not for a second.
So he can settle all the scores he wants but the community has every right to expect him to root out every demonstrated anti-semite from the Party's ranks.
And what emerged this morning is that Ted Baillieu's office has had possession of a lot of emails to and from the work email accounts of former Liberal staffers Simon Morgan and John Osborn.
A select number of those emails were leaked on Baillieu's personal instruction to The Age Paul Austin.
It was an extraordinary thing to do for a range of reasons not least of which was the massive political risk Baillieu was taking.
THE DAY AFTER
The tactic has massively backfired from his point of view. And Liberals of all persuasions are left wondering what's next for them.
Who will be expelled?
Who will Party President David Kemp be tapping on the shoulder to resign?
Who will be revealed for engaging in all sorts of misconduct as a result of the party's investigations into disloyalty ?
The OC had a good story about two bright young blokes who were sacked for telling the truth about Ted Baillieu's leadership. Julian Sheezel made it into a much bigger deal than it would have been with a pre-emptive strike/statement that named and shamed the two and vilified them.
Ted Baillieu and his crew of supposed "moderates" in the Party are now embarked on the kind of paranoid witch-hunt which would leave the Stalinists in Labor's Socialist Left quite impressed.
The Victorian Liberals are a party in crisis and they have only Ted Baillieu to blame.
Game on.
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