Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell has secured the number one position on the Victorian Liberal Party’s Western Metropolitan Region upper house ticket, replacing Moira Deeming ahead of the November state election.
The Australia Today understands Ms Campbell won the endorsement through a vote of the Liberal Party’s state executive, which was given responsibility for selecting the replacement after Mrs Deeming was disendorsed last month.
The decision gives Ms Campbell one of the Liberal Party’s most valuable upper house positions and marks her return to parliamentary politics.
The number one Western Metropolitan position had become vacant after the party unanimously revoked Mrs Deeming’s endorsement on July 17 following a prolonged dispute over allegations she made against former Liberal leader Matthew Guy.
Mrs Deeming subsequently resigned from the parliamentary Liberal Party and moved to the crossbench, where she now sits as an independent MP for Western Metropolitan Region.
Ms Campbell emerged as one of the leading candidates almost immediately after nominations were reopened.
The outcome represents a significant victory for Ms Campbell and the party figures who argued that the Liberals needed a high-profile candidate capable of presenting a fresh public face after months of internal turmoil around the Western Metropolitan ticket.
Ms Campbell is a barrister and has served as Melbourne’s Deputy Lord Mayor since the 2024 council election.
She first entered the City of Melbourne as a councillor in 2020 and became nationally known when she was selected as the Liberal candidate for the 2023 Aston by-election following the retirement of former cabinet minister Alan Tudge.
Her move to Western Metropolitan gives her another path into Parliament, this time at state level and in a region stretching across Melbourne’s west.
The ticket position is highly valuable because the Liberals elected two members from Western Metropolitan at the 2022 state election.
Mrs Deeming was elected from the number one position and Mr Luu from number two.
That result means Ms Campbell enters the November election with a strong prospect of becoming a member of the Legislative Council if the Liberal vote remains competitive.
Her endorsement also brings an end, at least for now, to months of instability surrounding the party’s Western Metro ticket.
Mrs Deeming regained the top position in April after other eligible candidates withdrew or were ruled ineligible.
But her endorsement was again thrown into doubt after she alleged Mr Guy had assaulted her during a community event.
Victoria Police reviewed CCTV footage and said no offence had been detected.
Mrs Deeming maintained she had made the complaint honestly and in good faith but refused calls from within the party to apologise to Mr Guy.
The dispute escalated into legal action when Mrs Deeming sought to stop the party’s state executive from meeting to remove her candidacy.
She later withdrew the injunction and the state executive voted unanimously to disendorse her.
At that stage, Mrs Deeming remained a member of the Liberal parliamentary party.
That changed on July 28 when she announced she had resigned from the parliamentary Liberal Party and would continue representing Western Metropolitan as an independent.
Ms Campbell’s selection also gives the Liberals a candidate with a substantially different political profile from Mrs Deeming.
While Mrs Deeming built her support among conservative grassroots members and became nationally known through debates over sex-based rights and her disputes with the Liberal leadership, Ms Campbell has cultivated a more conventional profile around law, business, local government and economic issues.
As a barrister, she has practised in commercial law and has regularly appeared in political and media discussions.
Her role at Melbourne Town Hall has given her experience across economic development, city governance, business and major events.
The party will hope that background appeals to voters across a Western Metropolitan Region that combines established working-class suburbs with some of the fastest-growing communities in Australia.
The region includes areas such as Werribee, Point Cook, Tarneit, Footscray, St Albans, Williamstown, Sydenham and Sunbury.
Its rapid population growth, housing pressures, transport congestion and large multicultural population make it an increasingly important electoral battleground.
The Liberals have been attempting to improve their performance across Melbourne’s west, where Labor has historically dominated most lower house seats.
The party came within 693 votes of winning the Werribee by-election in 2025, producing a swing of more than 10 percentage points towards the Liberals.
That result reinforced Liberal hopes that traditional Labor strongholds in the west could become competitive as voters focus on cost of living, crime, infrastructure and state debt.
Ms Campbell will now become one of the party’s most visible representatives in that strategy.
Her endorsement also settles one of several internal disputes the Liberals have been trying to resolve as Opposition Leader Jess Wilson prepares for the November 28 election.
The Liberals will hope Ms Campbell’s selection allows the party to move the conversation back towards its election priorities.
The election will therefore test whether the Liberals can retain the two Western Metropolitan seats they won in 2022 while facing competition from independents, One Nation, Labor, the Greens and other minor parties.
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