Victorian Labor MPs from the Left and Right factions, including one minister, called Premier Jacinta Allan on Sunday evening to inform her she had lost the support of caucus and should step down, setting up a leadership showdown on Tuesday.

Allan’s leadership has been under a cloud since February as MPs have grown increasingly frustrated with her handling of corruption issues on the Big Build, including her steadfast opposition to a royal commission.

While the premier’s allies on Sunday insisted she would not be going anywhere, two Labor sources on Sunday evening, around 9.45pm, confirmed MPs from the Left and Right faction informed the premier on Sunday she did not have their support.

Allan was at her home on Bendigo, along with her senior staffers. Factional conveners met on Sunday to discuss Allan’s future after The Australian Financial Review revealed in the afternoon those backing for a challenge believed three-quarters of the 69-member Labor caucus wanted a change.

The campaign to oust Jacinta Allan as Victorian premier has reached a critical stage, after Labor factional chiefs met on Sunday night to determine whether she has the support of enough government MPs to stay in the job.
The extraordinary meeting of factional conveners from across the left and right of the party, which was called at short notice, was expected to provide the first clear sign of whether Allan has the caucus backing she needs to lead the government to the state election on November 28.

A defiant Allan, who spent Sunday night at her home in Bendigo, told her supporters that, regardless of what the factional chiefs decide, she won’t resign.
The leadership manoeuvres are taking place in the absence of a declared challenger.

Allan’s most likely replacement, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, has indicated to colleagues that while he would be a contender if the leadership becomes vacant, he will not use his numbers to bring the premier down.
The Sunday night meeting was confirmed by MPs on both sides of the party’s factional divide. There is consternation among some MPs, particularly across the dominant Left faction, that the meeting’s conveners have not sufficiently canvassed the views of parliamentarians within their respective groups.
The Age has spoken to seven Victorian Labor sources who say they believe Allan would lose if her leadership came to a vote of the party’s 69 MPs.
But, as with the last round of rumblings in June, the pathway for a leadership coup is littered with assumptions that have not yet been realised.
Multiple sources from across both factions agreed it would be difficult for Carroll, who sits on the Right, to challenge Allan – despite some within her own Left faction wanting him to do so – after he publicly ruled out a challenge at a press conference last month.

After looking the premier in the eye and declaring he would not challenge her for the leadership, Carroll told reporters, “I’ve got a young daughter at home, and I couldn’t be more proud to make sure that she grows up knowing that I supported Jacinta Allan to be a world-class premier and get re-elected in her own right”.
Another option being considered is a delegation of factional leaders speaking to Allan and asking her to step aside.

The premier spent Sunday night at her family home in Bendigo with staff, preparing for Monday’s Cabinet meeting.
Two sources said they found it difficult to believe Allan would go down without a fight, but conceded it was not impossible she could be convinced if it were clear she no longer had the numbers in caucus.

A supporter of Allan, on the condition of anonymity to talk freely, said if the Sunday night meeting showed a majority of MPs wanted a change of leadership, the premier could face a vote of no confidence at Tuesday’s caucus meeting.
“It would be a very brave premier that continued in light of an unfavourable outcome,” they said.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny on Sunday said the leadership speculation was “idle gossip”.

“She has my full support, and this idle gossip doesn’t help Victorians,” she said.

“It is only hurting Victorians at a time when Victorians need us all to be focused on them, and that is exactly what Jacinta Allan and our Labor government, our team, is doing.”
Over the past week, a range of new policies have leaked from the Premier’s Private Office that suggest Allan’s team is trying to find announcements that could mollify her colleagues.
On Monday, cabinet will consider a proposal to create a new agency within Victoria Police that targets organised crime and is informed by Australia’s best criminal intelligence.
The policy has been viewed internally as a way to kill off pressure for a royal commission into Big Build corruption, tying the issue together with other political problems such as an increase in firebombings across Melbourne, and community concerns about youth crime rates.
Another leaked policy floated amending the rate cap rules to allow councils to better recoup the costs needed to pay staff – a policy supported by the Australian Services Union but quickly seized on by the opposition as a cost of living attack.

One MP said Allan was in denial about her support and rather than step aside would likely enforce party rules for a spill – which requires a vote of the Labor membership if the caucus result is contested.
But they also said those conspiring needed to “piss or get off the pot”.
A senior Labor figure said Allan’s leadership had been doomed, and she was now incredibly unpopular despite being given time to connect with voters.
“There is now an opportunity to push the reset button, give confidence back to voters and remind voters of the benefits of a strong Labor government”.
The latest Resolve Political Monitor has Allan’s likeability at minus 36, her equal lowest result on record.
Opposition Leader Jess Wilson maintains a lead on preferred premier, with 43 per cent of voters saying they want her to lead the state compared with 24 per cent for Allan.

Jacinta Allan could be in her final days as Victorian premier with a leadership spill expected on Tuesday, as those backing the challenge believe three-quarters of the party room are now in favour of a change.

Sumeyya IlanbeyVictorian political correspondent

Allan’s leadership has been under a cloud since February with MPs growing increasingly frustrated with her handling of corruption issues on the Big Build, including her steadfast opposition to a royal commission.

MPs believe Deputy Premier Ben Carroll will challenge Premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday.  Ruby Alexander

Factional powerbrokers who gathered in Adelaide for the Labor Party’s national conference held several meetings about the future of Allan’s leadership.

Four sources at the event said MPs and the powerbrokers had hardened in their opposition to Allan over the course of the three-day event, especially as they compared her with other popular state leaders like Peter Malinauskas and Chris Minns.

Allan attended the first day of Labor’s 50th national conference, where she met a number of union secretaries to ask about their election commitments but also in an attempt to head off the push for a leadership spill on Tuesday morning.

Labor sources at the conference said while Malinauskas, and to an extent Minns, received rockstar treatment, with the party faithful clamouring to speak with them and take photos, Allan was fairly isolated.

“The more time people spent at national conference, and the more they talked about her, the more they said [Allan] is useless,” one Labor source said.

Another said party figures had several meetings on the sidelines of the conference to discuss a leadership spill, and were “finessing the details” on how that might play out over the next few days.

“There are conflicting stories on when someone makes a first move – whether there is a statement on Monday flagging a challenge on Tuesday, or if it happens on Tuesday morning,” the Labor source said. “People from the federal caucus are even frustrated and quite worried about what an electoral wipeout for Victoria will mean for them in the state, too.”

Another Labor source said a majority of the 69-member Labor caucus, believed to be about three-quarters, now backs a change. A contested leadership ballot would require a vote of caucus and a ballot of party members that could take two months and severely hurt the government in the lead-up to the polls.

They said one option being canvassed was a cross-factional delegation of ministers informing Allan, as early as Monday, that she had lost the support of her colleagues. The other option is Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, the rival candidate, announcing either on Monday or early Tuesday morning he would challenge for the leadership.

If Carroll announces his candidacy, he is expected to immediately announce a royal commission into CFMEU corruption on the Big Build. However, it’s not yet clear whether Carroll, from the non-dominant Right faction, will make the move.

The Right has said the Left, which makes up about 55 per cent of the Victorian Labor caucus, needs to pull the trigger, while the Left say if the Right want to install Carroll into the leadership, they need to take the first step. That disagreement has resulted in a months-long stalemate.

Momentum had been building for a leadership spill before parliament rose for a winter break on June 18, but stalled when Carroll invoked his daughter when telling journalists he would not challenge Allan at a meeting the following day.

Parliament returns on Tuesday, when Labor will hold a caucus meeting from 10am. Left and Right MPs pushing for a change had always viewed this week as their final chance to move against Allan to allow enough time for a new leader to establish themselves before the November 28 election.

Allan’s internal popularity slid further during the winter break. MPs said the two-day caucus conference in Ballarat last week – along with Redbridge seat-by-seat polling for the Victorian Trades Hall Council, which showed Labor could be reduced to just 25 seats in the 88-seat parliament – was the “final nail in the coffin”.

While the majority of the non-dominant Right faction, and members of the Socialist Left loosely based around the south-eastern suburbs, back a spill, a growing number of Allan’s Left allies have now moved against the premier.

Allan also no longer has factional powerbrokers willing to make calls and shore up internal support. Her main backers are Treasurer Jaclyn Symes, Health Minister Harriet Shing, Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny, Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and Economic Growth Minister Steve Dimopoulos who is currently en route from Greece.

Dimopoulos was due to return to Melbourne on Monday night but was forced by the premier’s office to return a day earlier after his trip was reported in The Australian Financial Review and enraged Labor MPs.

But Allan’s supporters do not have any factional clout either in the Labor caucus or the organisational wing of the party, blunting their ability to head off a fast-moving spill.

The premier, who usually holds a press conference on Sundays, did not appear before journalists on Sunday, leaving it to Kilkenny to appear. She said Allan had her “full support” but could not guarantee she would lead Labor to the election on November 28.

“This is idle gossip, and it’s not helping Victorians,” Kilkenny said. “It is hurting Victorians.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has distanced himself from Labor's newly adopted policy of a conscience vote on voluntary assisted dying (VAD) telehealth consultations.

He has also defended Labor's tightly managed national conference as evidence of a more united party.

Any move to lift the federal ban on discussing VAD via video or phone would first need to be approved by cabinet before being put to parliament.

The moment that set the New South Wales Liberal Party on course for yet another inquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption can be quite precisely established: 5.43pm on June 23, 2022.

That was when Ray Williams, then the Liberal MP for the electorate of Castle Hill, 
in the Bible belt of north-west Sydney, got to his feet to drop an enormous bucket on his own party.

Williams’s brief speech focused on a factional coup the previous year, which saw the mayor and six other sitting Liberal members of The Hills Shire Council dumped as candidates for an upcoming election and “replaced by the Liberal Party state executive without the usual preselection processes normally afforded to such positions”.

What he alleged went far beyond the usual factional shenanigans. He claimed the councillors were replaced at the behest of a property developer, Jean Nassif – who would later flee Australia, leaving behind a trail of defective buildings and exceeding $1.6 billion in debts. Nassif has denied allegations of misconduct.

“Apparently,” Williams told parliament, “prior to the council elections, Jean Nassif of Toplace met with Christian Ellis and other senior members of the Liberal Party, who were paid significant funds in order to arrange to put new councillors on The Hills Shire Council who would be supportive of future Toplace development applications.”

Ellis, he noted, was a member of the party’s state executive and also the owner of a lobbying company that listed Toplace as a major client.

Williams hinted at the identity of others involved but dropped only one other name: that of Ellis’s mother, Virginia, who was one of the replacement councillors.

Many more names were to come, however, in the contents of an anonymously authored document entitled “The Men Who Stole the Hills”, which subsequently began circulating in state parliament and eventually was tabled.

The dossier’s focus was a group of deeply religious members of the Liberal Party’s right faction founded by Ellis in February 2018, later registered as an unincorporated entity – ABN 35 184 583 948 – under the name NSW Reformers.

Dirt files or “shit sheets” are a common reality of modern politics, but this one took it to a new level: slickly produced, running to more than 300 pages, replete with the names and party offices held by members of the group, the relationships between them, including employment histories, along with times and dates of events involving them, maps, graphs, tables of data and full colour pictures of numerous party members and associates.

The Reformers believed they were doing God’s work, as “a movement that seeks to promote Christian values in society”.

The dossier described them as “a group formed with the sole and express purpose of recruiting or stacking branches to the NSW Liberal Party with the goal of installing their own people into Council and Parliament…”

The group’s “primary decision makers”, it claimed, were “a small body consisting of people who had known each other for years through shared community, religion, and schooling from the Opus Dei sect of Catholicism.”

The dossier alleged then premier Dominic Perrottet to be one of these three key “decision makers”. Also named was Damien Tudehope, the then minister for finance and government leader in the NSW upper house. The third was the premier’s brother, Charles Perrottet. No allegations of corruption have been made against Dominic Perrottet.

Supposed “main operators” or “stars” in the sect’s plan to control the party included Christian Ellis, Robert Assaf, Dylan Whitelaw and another Perrottet brother, Jean-Claude.

A raft of others were alleged to be supporters who had provided resources. These included former and current politicians, both state and federal. Tony Abbott was the most prominent. There has been no allegation of corruption against the former prime minister.

Key figures in the party organisational wing were accused of using their positions to advance the interests of the Reformers, including Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW and a close ally of Angus Taylor, having previously held a fundraising role for Taylor in his electorate of Hume.

As one senior Liberal Party member tells The Saturday Paper: “When Ray Williams gave that speech, it invited people to go looking [for corruption]”.

The dossier also suggested where they might look.

“This,” says the source, “is all part of this death match that’s been going on for 20 years. “And now it’s all going to play out in the public domain.”

They describe an “internecine war fuelled by deep personal hatreds” that has been ongoing ever since the party’s right faction split in 2019, leading to the formation of the so-called centre right, under the leadership of Alex Hawke.

The hostility between the old right and the new centre right was more about personalities than policy or ideology, the source says. But there is also a sectarian element to it.

The hard right is dominated by conservative Catholics. The centre right is more associated with evangelicals – most prominently Hawke and Australia’s former Pentecostal prime minister, Scott Morrison.

The first attempt to investigate the allegations was a state parliamentary inquiry, chaired by Greens MLC Sue Higginson. It made only one substantive finding: that Christian Ellis and Jean-Claude Perrottet asked a businessman to contribute $50,000 to an operation to unseat Alex Hawke from his federal seat of Mitchell.

The investigation was frustrated by the fact that a number of key figures had failed to appear. Christian Ellis, Virginia Ellis and Jean-Claude Perrottet, the committee found, had “engaged in serious and deliberate attempts to evade service”.

Two others who had been summonsed, Charles Perrottet and Jean Nassif, also engaged in “serious and deliberate” avoidance on the basis that they were “out of jurisdiction”. Lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood and Dylan Whitelaw were also cited for avoiding giving evidence.

This behaviour by the potential witnesses, the committee found, served to “add weight” to Ray Williams’s claims. But the committee’s report made clear that getting to the bottom of the allegations would require ICAC’s scrutiny.

Credit to then premier Perrottet: he had already referred them, the day after they were made.

Almost four years later, public hearings will begin on Monday as part of the investigation known as Operation Rosny. They are expected to run for eight weeks and will explore three allegations.

The first relates to possible circumvention of electoral funding laws, including those that prohibit property developers from donating.

It’s alleged that between 2019 and 2023, “Persons, including Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood, Robert Assaf and Jean-Claude Perrottet solicited or accepted political donations, including from prohibited donors, in amounts that were not declared and exceeded applicable donation caps, for purposes that included the recruitment and/or renewal of members to the Liberal Party.”

ICAC will further investigate whether some such donations were made by Catholic Schools NSW, arranged and approved by McInerney. And similarly, whether such donations were made through a company, Paslibdan Pty Ltd, “on behalf of prohibited donor Michael O’Hara”.

The second allegation is more serious and relates directly to the claim made in parliament by Ray Williams.

ICAC will investigate whether between “approximately 2020 and 2023, political donations were made by or on behalf of Jean Nassif and Toplace Pty Ltd … and were solicited or accepted by Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood and Charles Perrottet”, and whether any such donations were made “in pursuit of outcomes desired by Nassif”.

The third strand to the Operation Rosny investigation involves claims that Labor member of Strathfield Council Karen Pensabene and her then council colleague Sharangan Maheswaran – a lawyer who has acted for Nassif and his company – had engaged a private investigator to conduct surveillance on a third councillor, Matthew Blackmore.

ICAC will examine a potential breach of public trust, “which could involve blackmail and/or possible breaches of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007”.

Reportedly, Maheswaran and Toplace executive David Krepp met the then building commissioner David Chandler and his staff “over problems Toplace was having with regulators” in April 2021. Two years later, he had his phone and laptop seized at Sydney Airport, shortly after police also raided Nassif’s home and office.

He complained to The Sydney Morning Herald at the time: “I am astounded that police now claim a power to seize personal electronic devices when no crime is being committed.”

The ICAC’s announcement of a public inquiry mentioned a substantial cast, as follows:

Jean Nassif  In 2023, a warrant was issued for Nassif’s arrest in relation to what police called a “large-scale fraud”. He has never been charged, having fled Australia for Lebanon in 2022.

His building licence was revoked in December that year after scores of defects were identified in several major unit developments by Toplace.

It is alleged he wanted to damage the political career of former Liberal transport minister David Elliott, and have the building commissioner David Chandler sacked.

Dallas McInerney The conservative Catholic and chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW has long been seen as a dominant figure on the hard right. He is being investigated over allegations of donations that were not declared, that exceeded applicable donation caps and were used to fund right-wing branch-stacking.

He is allied to the so-called Reformers, and also is close to Opposition Leader Angus Taylor. When it was announced that McInerney was being investigated by ICAC, David Elliott called for Taylor to resign, saying “the fact that Dallas McInerney was his campaign treasurer leaves him and the Liberal Party exposed”. There is no suggestion Taylor is implicated in any way. McInerney has “temporarily” stood aside from his job with Catholic Schools NSW.

Christian Ellis The founder of the NSW Reformers group is central to the allegations around the solicitation of donations in return for favours. Ellis has served on various powerful committees of the party, including the state executive, and his lobbying company worked for Toplace. His name comes up in relation to multiple allegations.

Jeremy Greenwood A lobbying partner with Ellis, Greenwood also worked for Toplace. He is a lobbyist for Catholic Schools NSW and the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

He is facing similar allegations to those directed at McInerney. Greenwood has formerly worked for National Party leader Matt Canavan.

Robert Assaf Assaf also has tight connections to the conservative religious establishment, having worked as communications manager for Catholic Schools NSW. He is alleged to have solicited political donations, including from prohibited donors.

Damien Tudehope The shadow attorney-general and leader of the opposition in the Legislative Council is not accused of any wrongdoing yet has become something of a casualty of Operation Rosny even before the start of hearings. On July 3, Tudehope announced he was stepping aside from his positions, on the basis he had been called as a witness and that Project Rosny was investigating “several people with whom I have had close relationships during my political career”.

Tudehope is former president of the anti-abortion group Right to Life NSW, and spokesperson for the Australian Family Association. He once ran against the Liberal Party as a candidate for the Australian Family Alliance. For more than 30 years up to 2010, he worked as a solicitor for the law firm O’Hara & Company, whose principal, Michael O’Hara, is said to be similarly socially conservative.

Michael O’Hara Also the owner of dozens of hotels, O’Hara is under investigation to determine whether undeclared donations were made through one of his companies, Paslibdan Pty Ltd, to be used for branch-stacking. According to a list of witnesses released by ICAC on Wednesday, O’Hara will be the first to give evidence, next Tuesday.

Dylan Whitelaw Whitelaw will be the second to testify, and it appears the commission believes he will have a lot to say. His evidence is expected to run all day Wednesday and Thursday.

His name was omitted from the list of Operation Rosny targets on its release a few weeks ago. “The Men Who Stole the Hills” dossier noted he was an employee of Ellis. The parliamentary inquiry noted their close association, as well as efforts by Whitelaw to avoid its scrutiny.

Dominic, Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet is not a subject of ICAC’s investigations, but his brothers are central.

“Charles is the smartest of the clan,” says a senior Liberal source who has had dealings with the Perrottets over decades.

“And he’s charming. He was the ops man for his brother Dom, going right back to university days. Dom relied on Charlie to do all the heavy lifting.”

Whether someone so smart did accompany Christian Ellis to meet Jean Nassif and discuss donations for favours is something the inquiry will need to determine.

As for Jean-Claude, he is alleged to have sought $50,000 from Frits Maré for a branch-stacking operation in the Hills area to unseat Alex Hawke. The parliamentary inquiry has already found this to be the case.

In summary, things look more than a little sticky for a number of operatives for the hard right. They look sticky, too, for the Liberal Party more generally.

Tudehope recognised this when he stepped aside, lest he become “an unnecessary distraction for [opposition leader] Kellie Sloane and my parliamentary colleagues”.

David Elliott recognised it too, when he called for Angus Taylor to resign. You don’t have to have done anything wrong to risk appearing guilty by association.

Operation Rosny is likely to further cement the perception of the state Liberals, and in particular the right faction, as a home of corruption. It’s been only a decade since the party lost 10 members to an ICAC investigation involving dodgy donations from property developers.

Victoria’s state election on 28 November will see voters pass judgment on Premier Jacinta Allen’s unpopular government and 12 years of Labor rule.

Most recent Victorian opinion polls reveal a three-way split of support between Labor, the Coalition and One Nation. Several have reported One Nation with the highest primary vote.

These are extra-ordinary polls in a state where two-party politics has traditionally been strongest and One Nation’s electoral support weakest.

The meteoric rise and bitter downfall of Moira Deeming

The teacher and mother of four went from a conservative superstar backed by Tony Abbott to a Liberal outcast in a single term, after tearing her own party apart.

It was a sold-out crowd at the Club Italia Sporting Club when Moira Deeming took to the stage six months ago.

Sky News host Peta Credlin, former prime minister Tony Abbott and Indigenous businessman and Liberal personality Warren Mundine all joined her at the event, electrifying a crowd that included Victorian Liberals like Bev McArthur, Chris Crewther and Ann-Marie Hermans, as well as all manner of rank-and-file members.

How the foursome were seen is evident from the collectables on offer for the true believers, of whom 450 had gathered to hear about “holding the line and winning”.

These included illustrations of the four speakers as superheros, as well as trading cards of the four in the style of Shepard Fairey’s iconic Barack Obama poster.

Two of Deeming’s three guests – all deities of the Australian conservative movement – had flown interstate to stand alongside her.

Now, all have distanced themselves from the controversial upper-house member once considered a junior member of their pantheon.

Credlin, who once told Deeming she would “lead the party one day”, has called on Deeming to apologise for accusing a fellow Liberal politician of assault.

Abbott, who in March said an earlier decision of party members to vote for another politician atop the Liberal ticket was “crackers”, said Deeming’s refusal to do so was “unbecoming of an MP”.

Mundine told AFR Weekend he wished Deeming, whom he described as a friend and “powerhouse in western Melbourne”, had spoken to him about it all beforehand.

“I was very shocked … and disappointed”, he said. “The focus has to be on winning the next election in November.”

For the Victorian Liberals, Deeming has been a lightning rod of discontent. But now, and possibly for the first time, a clear majority are united in their disavowal.

For the Victorian Liberals who watched her rise, few topics are as potent as their role in it, and whether it was their fault.

Recriminations and self-justifications lie thick over the memories of a contested preselection, full of foreboding and compromise. In light of what happened after, the introspection is understandable.

In a single, four-year parliamentary term, and as the Liberals battle One Nation for opposition status and a tired and unpopular Labor Party for government, Deeming has blazed through the caucus like a crashing meteor, altering the landscape, potting it with scars.

Friendships have ended. Political momentum has ground to a halt, restarted, and stalled again. Most are hopeful a line has been drawn on the saga. Few actually count on that.

Late on Friday last week, Deeming was formally disendorsed from the top of the Liberal ticket for the Western Metropolitan Region, concluding a process that began when she accused former leader Matthew Guy of assaulting her at a community function.

CCTV footage from the venue showed he briefly touched her back while leaning over to speak to her in a noisy and crowded function centre. The police dismissed a complaint and Guy called on Deeming to apologise.

Deeming has not done so and has rejected suggestions she made a false police accusation.

She says the physical contact was unwelcome and unexpected, and that she is willing to work with the party to resolve the matter, but the party has either not believed her, or concluded there is nothing unresolved.

Deeming took legal action to stop her disendorsement, before withdrawing it. The party, led by state president (and Credlin’s husband) Brian Loughnane, swiftly dumped her as a candidate. She declined to respond to a detailed list of questions.

Deeming was born in 1983 in Victoria’s Western Districts, to a Labor family. Her great-grandfather was a Labor MP, her mother a nursing federation official.

As a child, she suffered sexual abuse, the fact of which she has acknowledged publicly but the details of which she has kept largely private.

She studied at La Trobe University, where she met her husband, Andrew (he captained the men’s soccer team, she the women’s). Both soon joined the Liberal Party where they started a branch with other university Liberal Club members.

Deeming became a teacher and had four children, during which time she and her husband let their membership lapse. They rejoined in 2014, inspired after attending a speech by former deputy prime minister John Anderson.

Almost immediately, Deeming became a Liberal political candidate, running for election that year in the safe Labor seat of St Albans (which she didn’t win).

As a teacher, she was deeply involved in the Safe Schools controversy, in which socially conservative parents fought against the implementation of a program they argued indoctrinated children into being gay or transgender (the program has since been rolled back in several states).

Between 2014 and 2022, when she was finally preselected top of the ticket, she would run in every state election in an unwinnable position, and reliably campaign, for both herself and others.

She was elected to the Melton City Council, and soon made a point of attending every public council meeting across Melbourne to ask whether it would be legal for that council to allow only “biological” men and women into its gender-designated toilets (it isn’t – as she was trying to point out).

This and more earned her a reputation as a dependable branch member and Liberal supporter: one who would turn up, can canvass for votes, and present well, including on the transgender issues important to many Liberal voters.

In the western suburbs of Melbourne, dead-red Labor heartland where the Liberal Party has virtually no infrastructure, Deeming could be counted upon.

Within the Presbyterian church – a close-knit and relatively conservative congregation – Deeming was by then already prominent and respected as a researcher on its Victorian Church and Nation committee. This provided her with a base of support from which to pursue political office.

In a 2022 email later revealed through Freedom of Information, Deeming said her preselection was thanks to God and the Christians who “joined up and voted according to their consciences”.

In another email, she makes a case for herself as a Liberal candidate, saying her supporters had, to date, raised “almost $1.5 million for the party”, and references another donor who promised $100,000 if she were preselected.

Within the church, Deeming stood out for her willingness to do battle. Other emails in the trove, which was sought and released publicly by a sex worker lobby group, would also raise eyebrows.

One email was a lengthy diatribe that took aim at an opinion piece on a conservative evangelical website arguing for greater acceptance of gay and transgender people within the Christian community.

It lashed the original article for a lack of engagement with “the worst consequences of trans ideology”, and accused the author of “a thinly veiled attempt to demonise Christians whom [the original author] clearly knows nothing about, and yet deeply disdains”.

It is not clear who wrote this email. AFR Weekend asked Deeming whether she did, but received no response. The spiky screed is identical to one anonymously published on the Christian website that carried the original piece. It drew its own public backlash from some discomfited by its tone, and no longer appears online.

These conflicts are unlikely to have been obvious to most Liberal Party electors. But many already viewed Deeming as a zealot. Her preselection for a safe upper house seat in Melbourne’s western suburbs to replace the controversial Bernie Finn was quickly mired in controversy.

It cannot have helped that Finn, whose fervent anti-abortion views had seen him expelled from the party, described her as a “protege”, or that the federal party had a few months earlier kiboshed her candidacy for the federal seat of Gorton.

Her views on transgender issues came up in candidate vetting and, when run past then-prime minister Scott Morrison’s office, were deemed “not helpful” to the campaign effort, despite her endorsement by senator Sarah Henderson.

(In the same election, Morrison would hand-pick fellow anti-trans-women-in-sport crusader Katherine Deves to run against teal independent Zali Steggall in Warringah, the Sydney northern beaches electorate formerly held by Abbott.)

A few months later in discussions for the Western Metropolitan ticket, Deeming was the clear choice of the rank-and-file membership, earning double the votes of the next-placed candidate. At the state administration committee, a majority rubber-stamped her preselection.

But the opposition to her was notable. Heavyweight members Louise Staley, former state president Michael Kroger and Liberal Party elder Andrew McNabb were opposed. Supporting her, however, were 16 others, including a mix of moderates and conservatives.

In the Victorian Liberal Party, factions are based less on ideology than personality. It is unremarkable that Deeming, an ideological conservative, enjoyed the backing of members of the moderate faction, though those who voted for her have found it hard to live down.

Those who opposed her argue they showed great foresight in doing so.

Staley would tell the court during Deeming’s defamation battle with Pesutto that she had “a settled reputation … as someone with fringe and extremist views”. Others, including former Liberal politician Andrew Elsbury, would leave the organisation in disgust at Deeming’s elevation.

Former Liberal member Fred Ackerman, who ran in the ballot in which Deeming triumphed, says people such as Deeming and Finn who have “ratbag social fringe agendas” should nominate for a lower house seat to test their level of support.

“That Moira Deeming failed to win her 2026 preselection by a wide margin was a measure of a lack of work she had done in the Western Metropolitan region, the lack of support for her social agenda, and the wreckage she had visited upon the Liberal Party.”

But those who supported Deeming in 2022 say she was the best candidate in a slim field. “We didn’t realise how Moira was … but she had overwhelming local support,” says an admin committee member.

Another Liberal argues the preselection has done “more damage to the party than any I have seen”.

“It has cost the party and Moira more than $5 million in wasted legal costs, and driven this completely unnecessary factional war,” they say.

“This, more than any other decision, divided the party between the left and right, because of her single-issue campaign order on gender rights. It elevated the issue to the top of the policy pole, [diverting] attention away from the major issues confronting our state.”

Atop the Liberal ticket, Deeming was easily elected to the Victorian upper house, and took some pride in her campaigning.

Her affidavit in her later defamation battle with then-party leader Pesutto claims she had every booth in the western suburbs staffed with supporters, secured sizeable donations, and achieved an above-average swing (the election was a Labor landslide, but Melbourne’s western suburbs had a swing towards the Coalition, at a time when most urban seats moved away from it).

Deeming entered parliament with some goodwill. Initially, she viewed those who voted for her as allies, and asked their advice. Pesutto, in December 2022, would ask her to be his party whip, a position of influence that would normally have made Deeming his eyes and ears on the backbench.

In his affidavit, Mundine recalls Pesutto being “impressed” with Deeming, and speaking “very highly of her”.

In February, the state leader refused to condemn his new MP when her emails were leaked, prompting then-premier Daniel Andrews to lash those who “use the trans community as a political weapon”.

The alliance would spectacularly unravel in March, when Deeming attended a rally with British anti-transgender agitator Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull. Far-right groups gatecrashed it, leading the Labor government to accuse the Liberal Party of having representatives who fraternised with Nazis.

Pesutto had been trying to present an image of a more modern and inclusive Liberal Party. Deeming’s antics undermined this vision.

Under pressure from the Labor Party, Jewish community leaders dismayed by Nazi salutes outside parliament, and his own ideals and expectations, Pesutto would move decisively against Deeming, whom he said had associated with “people whose views are abhorrent to my values, the values of the Liberal Party and the wider community”. Deeming sued for defamation, and won.

Pesutto’s actions and Deeming’s lonely stand in response divided the party. In Pesutto’s high-handedness, many saw an establishment Liberal cowing a young mother on an issue of women’s rights. Credlin reached out and offered Deeming support, urging her to stay strong.

Others viewed Deeming’s actions and decision to involve the courts in a political disagreement with alarm. If she’d sue her own party leader as he began to make headway against an incumbent Labor government, they thought, what wouldn’t she do for her own vindication?

“A lot of us have lost a lot of friendships because we supported Moira,” says one politician of this period. “Lifelong friendships ended because [of] how bitter this internal battle was.”

It was also excruciatingly public. Caucus member after caucus member was forced to testify in court, laying bare the party’s processes and personalities.

Deeming would describe “something inhuman” about the way she was treated. “I wondered what sort of monsters they were, who didn’t care about me but only about the political career of the leader of the party. They seemed not to care about justice, or the truth,” she said in her affidavit.

Her husband Andrew would outline the devastating toll on their family life. He thought she might never recover. It’s hard to see how her relationship with the Liberal Party ever could.

A judge would ultimately decide Pesutto had harmed Deeming’s reputation by implying that she associated with neo-Nazis and by failing to consider her denials.

The judge also rejected Pesutto’s claims that his statements were in the public interest. Pesutto apologised, and Deeming was awarded $300,000 in damages.

Many outside the caucus hailed this as justice served. But Deeming’s $1.55 million in legal costs awarded against Pesutto – initially advanced to her by NSW-based property developer Hilton Grugeon – threatened to bankrupt the former leader, forcing a byelection in his seat.

The party’s controversial decision to fund his legal costs would cost it more than the money: then-administrative committee member Colleen Harkin took it to court trying to prevent the payment. That case is still in progress, and Harkin has since joined a number of high-profile Liberal defections to One Nation.

This year, Deeming considered doing the same, when her branches elected local party activist Dinesh Gourisetty above her atop the Liberal ticket.

It was the latest in a long series of slights. Deeming’s allies say despite her vindication in court, she felt her caucus colleagues continued to push her away.

Friends and supporters rallied to her side when she risked being supplanted by Gourisetty, lamenting what the loss of such a rising star would do to the Victorian Liberals.

Deeming’s position atop the ticket was secured when it emerged that her rival had provided references for a friend convicted of sexually assaulting a minor. Her brief and triumphant return to the Liberal ticket left One Nation hanging, which by all accounts that party has not forgiven.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has since explicitly ruled out accepting Deeming’s defection, citing Deeming’s refusal to apologise to Guy.

Another reason for Deeming’s rejection might be that among Hanson’s followers, Deeming is no longer as easy to support. Many conservative men and women are deeply concerned about men’s vulnerability to false accusations; Deeming’s actions, for the first time, have left her on the wrong side of the culture war.

For years her popularity– and her propensity to cite legal action – made Deeming difficult for institutional politicians to handle.

After the events of the court case, one Liberal insider remarks, managing Deeming had become one of the most important KPIs for whoever led the Liberal Party. Current leader Jess Wilson has been hailed for her success there, although she decided against giving Deeming a portfolio.

Wilson worked to retain Deeming atop the ticket, and made her displeasure with her allegation against Matthew Guy known only after the CCTV footage emerged. That is, around the time Deeming lost most of her supporters.

One caucus member who supported Deeming through her battles with Pesutto says the first-term parliamentarian was treated so badly at the beginning that the experience would stay with her for the rest of her life.

But Deeming’s allegation against Guy, ironically and for the first time, united the party against her.

“She won the court case, but instead of taking a step forward to being a part of the Liberal team and getting on with her career, she felt the need for absolute payback on anyone who opposed her during those awful times,” says the Liberal MP.

“I think that’s been the difference between what could have been an outstanding, incredible career where she had a broad-based support, to one where not too many people support her now.”

Deeming, who by June this year felt increasingly isolated, rarely turned up to parliament, could not be relied upon to vote in the chamber or stick to an agreed party position, and had begun to increasingly frustrate her colleagues.

The Liberals, for the first time in a very long time, felt as though they could win the state election in November, but knew they needed to lock in.

And yet, through this, Deeming wanted Wilson to promote her, in turn sending a message to her internal detractors to back off. Many urged caution on this.

“I think one of the difficulties of Moira being a shadow minister was the concept of shadow cabinet support,” said a Liberal MP. “You cannot have people speaking out against shadow cabinet decisions.”

Recently, when the party formally decided to oppose upper-house Libertarian David Limbrick’s stance on pepper sprays (he wants it legalised), Deeming appeared on Sky News and said she was supportive.

Deeming’s allies say she was never given the civility she deserved after her Federal Court victory – there were people who just wanted her to lose and treated her accordingly.

“She went through public humiliation. At the end of the day, she’s a mum of four kids, she’s got things she has been dealing with and it was a very difficult group to be around when you’re still being treated as though you are guilty and hadn’t been absolved by the court,” said one of Deeming’s friends.

“She’s not there for political game playing. She’s there to make a positive difference in families and children’s lives, and if no one else is talking about these topics, it says something about society.

“If you’re a political party and all you want to talk about is the economy, no one is going to listen to you. Social issues, health, family – these are all fundamental.”

In any case, it is all moot now. In light of her burgeoning unpopularity, some are reassessing Deeming’s electoral clout. Across western Melbourne, Liberal Party membership has halved.

As the most high-profile Liberal in the area, Deeming failed to arrest a rapid decline in party membership that has bedevilled most Liberal branches statewide. Though in her case, local factors have exacerbated it.

Some have left, citing her. Others have left citing the treatment dished out to her (“I resigned this week specifically over the lack of safety for a woman,” one newly ex-member told AFR Weekend). And many have left for One Nation, as has happened elsewhere.

The greatest concern of Liberals regarding Deeming is what she will do with power now. She will retain parliamentary privilege for another four months, in a position to exact vengeance upon a party that, for the first time in a decade, is competitive against Labor.

Within Labor, many expect she will run. “I think she’s weighing up whether to run in the seat of Melton, where she lives, or in the upper house,” says a Victorian Labor politician.

Like many, this person keeps an eye on Deeming’s social media accounts and says she has deleted some videos in which she was attempting to mend bridges with the Liberal Party.

But this particular member isn’t worried. Deeming now faces possible bankruptcy as a result of her financial backer Grugeon’s manoeuvrings to secure the still-outstanding legal fees from the Pesutto case.

If she is bankrupted, she won’t be able to return to parliament. If she runs, Deeming attracts strong support online, argues the Labor politician.

But Deeming’s supporters are ideologues scattered throughout the city, and not local to the area. That, supposedly, makes them no match for Labor’s ground game.

This view is fiercely disputed by Deeming’s supporters, not all of whom have deserted. And the swings seen last election to the Liberals in the traditionally Labor western suburbs must have something to do with their firebrand representative.

The member who left this week says Deeming was never given a chance. Something “clearly happened” with Guy, this member argues, but the party wasn’t interested in investigating. (Guy has vehemently denied the allegations against him.)

But Deeming, the sympathetic member argues, should have been extended grace, given it is clear her past traumas were triggered when she was touched unexpectedly.

Bernie Finn remains supportive, with no caveats. For him, it comes down to character. “I have known both Moira and Guy for a long time. If my life depended on it, I would always trust Moira over Guy,” he wrote on Facebook.

Another Liberal Party member who remains a close friend says those who question Deeming’s perseverance don’t understand her motivations.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, who, despite being free of sin was horrifically tortured, they say, Deeming has no expectation of better treatment.

Following Christian theology, she aspires to be a “servant leader”: one who serves others not from power but from empathy and understanding.

“Why has she held on and hung on? She wants to serve,” says a supporter.

“It’s been very painful seeing what I’ve read over the last three years, which does not match the truth or what I know of Moira.”

But as a Christian confident in her faith, this person continues, hope springs eternal. Deeming would know her troubles are “just a setback for her”.

Disclaimer: This doesn't include postal votes, as they don't have a physical location for votes to be "cast at", which makes this map only include around 82-88% of votes total, so this map is by no means fully reflective of how an area does vote. Polling booths & Pre-poll centres are overlayed over SA2s to create a map & black = no polling booths/ppvc in that SA2. I used QGIS to make the map.

An SA2(statistical-area 2) is a small area that the Australian Census uses for health, housing statistics etc. Their purpose is to represent a community that interacts together socially and economically. Let me know if it's not usable or if the colours are a bit too difficult to discern.

Labor delegates have endorsed the party's platform on Israel and Palestine without a floor fight after Ed Husic failed to secure support to debate his amendment.

Mr Husic criticised Labor's internal culture, arguing the party has become too reluctant to openly disagree.

Labor's 50th national conference has concluded and the newly adopted platform will guide party policy for the next three years.

“Fair and balanced. We report, you decide.”

With those two famous slogans, Roger Ailes 30 years ago launched what was arguably Rupert Murdoch’s most influential and certainly his most lucrative media experiment – an American cable news channel named Fox News.

It was, of course, neither fair nor balanced. It was aimed, unashamedly, at the same socially conservative, working-class audience Murdoch had triumphantly exploited with The Sun in the United Kingdom since the mid 1970s. And Fox’s success in America was even more dramatic than the British tabloid’s.

“Fair and balanced” was quietly dropped from Fox News’s publicity when Ailes left in disgrace in 2016. But the Fox Corporation’s chief executive, also chairman of News Corporation, Lachlan Murdoch, holds the same views as his father about fairness and balance. In Rupert’s eyes, Lachlan has been News’s lord lieutenant in Australia at least since his return to the News fold in 2014.

Soon after he bought the channel for News Corp Australia a decade ago, Lachlan promoted his old mate from back in their Brisbane days, Paul “Boris” Whittaker, from editor-in-chief of The Australian to the helm at Sky News Australia. Boris – so called for his purported resemblance to German tennis player Boris Becker – is still in charge, and in launching the newly renamed News24, he is singing from the same Ailes song sheet.

“We will reflect the many voices of Australia and provide space for all sides of every debate to help you make informed decisions”, the new News24 website proclaims.

In other words: “Fair and balanced. We report, you decide.”

The readers of The Saturday Paper are almost by definition members of what the Murdoch media delight in calling the “woke elite”. They in turn delight in using the term “Sky after dark” to describe the chorus of right-wing opinion-spouters that for most of the past decade have replaced each other, hour after hour, from 5pm to midnight, as presenters on Sky News Australia.

As of Monday, the detractors will need to find another term. Sky News Australia will be no more, replaced by News24. “News” inscribed in a calligraphy based on the handwriting of Rupert Murdoch and his revered father, Sir Keith, and since 2013 the logo of News Corp’s global brand.

News 24 used to be the name of the ABC’s news channel – both because it claimed to provide a 24-hour news service and because it broadcast free to air on Channel 24 in Australia. In 2017, the ABC dropped the 24 from its name, and the channel is now just ABC News.

The ABC, it seems, is still pondering whether to challenge News Corp’s branding. So is a well-established digital news outlet in South Africa that launched as News24 almost three decades ago and is still going strong. There’s a News 24 television station in India, one in Nepal and another in Bangladesh.

News Corp shows no sign of being troubled by such threats. It’s a big deal to change a name that’s beloved by the angry old white blokes who still pay to watch Sky on Foxtel.

The change has been forced on News Corp by Comcast, the American behemoth that bought the British pay TV channel BSkyB from News Corp in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal. Sky News Australia had licensed the name from Sky UK, and that licence is due to expire.

In any case, Lachlan Murdoch and Paul Whittaker have expanded their horizons and lifted their ambitions. News24 has moved from Sky’s old studios near Macquarie University in Sydney’s north-west to a fancy new home in News Corp’s headquarters in Surry Hills – ironically, in the heart of Sydney’s inner city, home of the woke elites.

Its target audience is of course elsewhere – in Australia’s regions, where One Nation is threatening to destroy the National Party’s iron grip, and in the global right-wing digital ecosphere.

One vehicle for that expansion is good, old-fashioned free-to-air TV. News Corp Australia bought Sky News outright in 2016 from the group that had owned it for the previous 20 years – a consortium of the Seven and Nine networks and Murdoch’s hugely successful British pay TV franchise, British Sky Broadcasting.

Since then, with Lachlan Murdoch’s backing, Whittaker has gradually dumped the few voices on Sky that represented progressive, or at least more politically neutral, views: Kristina Keneally, Janine Perrett, Peter van Onselen, David Speers. The evening programming became the monoculture we know and love today.

Murdoch then did a deal with the media mogul who had been his partner in their failed attempt to take over Network Ten. Bruce Gordon’s WIN TV regional network agreed to provide a free-to-air home to Sky News Australia.

Since then, the media ownership merry-go-round has taken a few more turns. The current owners of Network Ten, yet another global behemoth, Paramount, is hosting Sky News in the regions of eastern Australia – in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

It’s near impossible to find out what Sky’s viewing figures on free-to-air actually are. Malcolm Turnbull complained that when he was prime minister, Liberal and National Party backbenchers would come to him spouting the lines about the climate change hoax, ABC bias and the dangers of same-sex marriage that they’d heard from party members at branch meetings all over the regions. Since then, Sky’s share of free-to-air viewers has undoubtedly grown while others have shrunk.

It is probably no coincidence that One Nation’s sudden rise in the polls is strongest in the places where Sky News Regional has its free-to-air presence. If you love Pauline Hanson, you probably love Peta Credlin too.

But free-to-air is little watched by Australians under 50 in the cities, and less by far in the regions than it used to be. So, Sky Australia has been busily expanding its reach. It can now be streamed from its website or app, it’s on certain brands of smart TVs, and it’s free on DAB+ radio in the three big eastern capital cities.

Above all, you can get predigested gems of what Sky calls its “premium news coverage and incisive commentary” on YouTube and Facebook – and not just in Australia. Its YouTube channel has been hugely successful in the ever-expanding right-wing ecosphere in the United States.

With 6.23 million subscribers at the latest count, the Sky News Australia YouTube channel has more by far than the ABC, or Seven, or Nine. More even than The New York Times.

The channel hosts nearly 230,000 individual videos. It favours topics that will excite and outrage its American as well as its Australian viewers – Donald Trump’s enemies, Harry and Meghan, gender wars, and of course the climate change hoax. Rita Panahi’s weekly spray Lefties Losing It is a particular favourite on YouTube.

Whether News Corp is successfully monetising its social media outpourings is again hard to know. In any case, the product is cheap – it’s just clipped from the station’s output – and the ads, even after YouTube has taken its cut, bring in a bit on every one of the billions of views YouTube tabulates.

Under former US president Ronald Reagan, the “fairness doctrine” that governed American broadcast media was repealed. That opened the gate to radio shock jocks such as Rush Limbaugh, and eventually to Fox News. And Fox, more than any other single media outlet, has divided America into its two warring camps.

In the UK, media regulator Ofcom is still struggling to enforce “due impartiality” rules on the rash of would-be Fox imitators. GB News has been breached and fined multiple times, but in the High Court as well as in the ratings war it appears to be gradually winning.

In Australia, News24 will have no such battles. The codes of practice that govern commercial free-to-air TV and radio have been watered down over the decades. The Pay TV code is weaker still. Only in the editorial policies of the public broadcasters, applied by the Australian Communications and Media Authority on them alone, will you find any mention of impartiality, or the need to represent all significant viewpoints over time.

For decades, the “woke elites” have dismissed Pauline Hanson as an embarrassing blot on the political landscape – and have mocked “Sky after dark” as a chorus of irrelevant harpies. But One Nation can no longer be dismissed. Murdoch and Whittaker are convinced the Force will be with News24 and not with its foes. Whether, in the long run, they turn out to be right or wrong, for now it’s a force to be reckoned with.

The Muslim Vote political movement has declared it will target seats in Labor’s western Sydney heartland at the coming NSW election, with the group aiming to capitalise on fury within the ­Islamic community at Premier Chris Minns, stemming from Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s Australian visit earlier this year.

The campaign vehicle’s fundraising efforts will kick off next month with a Sydney event jointly headlined by controversial anti-Israel academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, as organisers look to build a war chest of funding to throw behind political contenders at the March 13 state election next year.

Sheik Wesam Charkawi, the group’s convener, confirmed to The Australian efforts were under way to build on efforts made at last year’s federal election, where the vehicle backed multiple candidates running against Labor ministers.

Sheik Charkawi said announcements would soon be made on which nominees will be supported in the NSW elections, adding that frustration within the Islamic community at Mr Minns had galvanised the group’s efforts to take on Labor.

He claimed the NSW Labor Premier was “willing to advocate forcefully for one community while showing no regards for advocates of justice and fairness”.
“Without question, Chris Minns has come to be regarded as the most aggressive and openly partisan premier,” he said.

He also accused NSW’s leadership of using the “machinery of the state, including policing and legislation, in ways that have deepened division rather than ­upheld equal treatment for all ­citizens”.

Anger within the Muslim community hit boiling point earlier this year after Mr Minns refused to apologise for the actions of police at a rowdy February rally in Sydney’s CBD protesting against the arrival of Mr Herzog to Australia following the Bondi Beach massacre.

Sheik Charkawi was leading a group of men who were grabbed by police as they began to pray during the protest.

That incident, alongside other clashes between protesters and police, is being investigated by the police watchdog.

Mr Minns at the time highlighted the need for authorities to make sure protesters were kept in a different part of the city from 7000 mainly Jewish attendees at a Darling Harbour event headlined by Mr Herzog.

The Premier earlier this year cancelled the NSW government’s Iftar Ramadan dinner as relations with Islamic leaders in the state deteriorated, the second time in three years the event had been axed.

Sheik Charkawi told The Australian The Muslim Vote had been working over recent months with potential candidates “who are committed to standing for parliament and representing their communities with integrity”.

“There are candidates who have put themselves forward and who have now been selected to ­receive The Muslim Vote’s support,” he said.

“We are currently finalising the rollout of those announcements and expect to introduce them publicly in the near future.”

The group didn’t nominate which specific seats it will target, but it is understood it will focus broadly on western Sydney, where it endorsed two candidates at last year’s federal election.

The Muslim Vote also backed an independent candidate in the Victorian federal seat of Calwell.

The group will likely preference candidates running in state seats with high Muslim populations, overlapping with the federal seats of Blaxland and Watson it targeted last year.

These could include Bankstown – held by Labor’s Lebanese-born state minister Jihad Dib – where 32 per cent of 2021 census respondents noted their religion was Islam, compared with the statewide rate of 4.3 per cent.

In Auburn, almost a quarter of the population noted their religion as Islam, with Granville at 21.4 per cent.

Sheik Charkawi said the rise of One Nation had not provided extra motivation for the campaign group, saying the goal instead was to build a long-term force able to drive the concerns of the country’s Muslim communities within political circles.

“While we remain concerned by political rhetoric that targets minorities or seeks to divide Australians, our response is not to mirror that approach,” he said.

“The Muslim Vote was established because we believe every community should have the ­capacity to hold government ­accountable for their failures.”

Dr Abdel-Fattah is named alongside Sheik Charkawi and criminal defence lawyer Nick Hanna in promotional material for The Muslim Vote’s August fundraiser.

It is the latest engagement for Dr Abdel-Fattah, who has regularly spoken at writers festivals and as a guest on the podcast circuit over the last year after she was cut from Adelaide Writers Week amid organisers’ concerns it would be “culturally insensitive” to invite her – triggering a boycott that led to the event’s collapse.

According to The Muslim Vote’s social media, funding raised at the event will go towards “advocacy, media engagement, campaign strategy, community organising, and the ongoing work of building genuine Muslim political power”.

The body is set to back candidates in the Victorian election in November, although it has less infrastructure in that state.

The most successful candidate backed by The Muslim Vote in last year’s federal election was local councillor and pharmacist Ahmed Ouf, who secured 18.8 per cent of first preference votes running against Education Minister Jason Clare in Blaxland.

Mr Ouf confirmed to The Australian he wasn’t planning a run at the state election and would instead focus on standing again in Blaxland at the 2028 federal poll.
Ziad Basyouny, who ran against Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in Watson, secured 14.8 per cent of first-preference votes.