The Victorian Liberal Party’s State Council on Saturday is shaping as more than a routine internal gathering. It is becoming a referendum on control of the party machine, candidate vetting, multicultural representation and whether the Opposition can rebuild trust in Melbourne’s west before the November state election.
The meeting, promoted in one factional poster as taking place at Caulfield Racecourse on Saturday, 23 May, comes after weeks of internal unrest triggered by the Western Metropolitan Region upper house preselection debacle involving Dinesh Gourisetty and Moira Deeming.
Gourisetty, an Indian-Australian long-time Liberal Party figure, defeated Deeming for the number one spot on the party’s Western Metropolitan upper house ticket in March. But the result unravelled within days after it emerged he had previously provided a character reference for a man convicted of child grooming. The party then moved to re-run the preselection, and Deeming later secured the top spot after Gourisetty withdrew or was blocked from proceeding. The Australia Today reported at the time that the Liberal Party had decided to re-run the contest after the revelation about the character reference, and that Gourisetty had beaten Deeming before the controversy forced another preselection process.
The political damage has gone well beyond one candidate. The episode has reopened old wounds inside the Victorian division and raised hard questions about whether the party is serious about giving winnable representation to migrant-heavy branches in Melbourne’s west, or whether multicultural members are mainly valued as campaign volunteers, booth workers and fundraising networks.
Two rival sets of WhatsApp material circulating ahead of the State Council, reviewed by The Australia Today, show how bitter the internal blame game has become.
One poster, which The Australia Today is given to understand was created by the group that wants to oust the current executive team, titled “Dinesh Won Fair & Square.” It accuses the party of taking Gourisetty’s money and then refusing to endorse him after he won. It claims that in 2022, Gourisetty spent thousands of dollars nominating for Western Metro and alleges the State Director said even if he won, administration would not endorse him. The same poster says Gourisetty nominated again in 2026, had enough support and won, asking: “Why wasn’t he endorsed, he WON!!!”
The poster directly blames the State Executive, saying: “They took his money, and they refused to vote for him when he won.” It also argues that more Indian community members should nominate for preselection and become MPs.
Another section asks, “Who Have Admin Endorsed?”, listing Dinesh Gourisetty, Bobby Lakra and Chander Sharma as people who had nominated, before claiming that only Satish Patil had been endorsed from the Indian community.
Its call to action is blunt: “This Saturday is State Council. We get to vote out everybody who took our money and refused to endorse Dinesh. Anybody would be better than these people.”
One senior liberal party member who is taking part in the state council told The Australia Today, these people (creators of the poster) opposed and voted against Gourisetty’s candidature but now want to take advantage of the disappointed multicultural community members after that fiasco.
Another material presents a different case. Promoting a “2026 Liberal Party Executive” ticket calls for members to vote for a “Fresh Start” and lists candidates including Susan Morris, Nigel Kibel, Shona McKeen, Marcus Ford, Colleen Hart, Marcus Del Moy, Marta Dunshion and Dale Harriman.
The accompanying message frames the State Council vote as a test of whether Opposition Leader Jess Wilson can become Victoria’s 50th premier. It says Wilson “can do it” but only if supported by “an experienced and professional executive, united behind a common goal”. The message argues Wilson does not currently have the support she needs and tells members: “If we can correct course, we can deliver Victoria a better tomorrow.”
Together, the posters show a party fighting two different internal campaigns at once. One side is running on anger over multicultural representation and the handling of Gourisetty. The other is running on discipline, professionalism and the need to give Wilson an organisation capable of winning government.
But the risk for the Liberals is that both messages may be true. The party does need discipline after years of factional turmoil. It also needs multicultural credibility in the suburbs it must win.
That credibility is now under serious strain.
The Australia Today is given to understand that several western suburbs branches have seen members disengage or allow memberships to lapse after the Gourisetty episode. The sharp falls in Liberal branch membership across parts of Melbourne’s west, including Point Cook, Tarneit, Werribee and Laverton, after the Western Metro preselection fallout. Some local Liberals had questioned whether the party understood or valued the West’s fast-growing Indian and migrant communities.
The problem is not only symbolic. It is operational.
Melbourne’s west is supposed to be central to the Coalition’s path to government. Werribee, Point Cook, Tarneit, Laverton and surrounding growth suburbs are full of voters frustrated by congestion, crime concerns, hospital delays, housing pressure and infrastructure failure. These are exactly the issues the Liberals say they want to campaign on. But to convert frustration into votes, a party needs local networks, trusted community figures and volunteers on the ground.
Instead, the Gourisetty episode appears to have left some of those networks wounded.
The Australia Today is given to understand that a recent meet-and-greet for Reece Clark, endorsed as the Liberal candidate for Werribee for the 2026 state election, drew only 18 people, with only one attendee said to be from Werribee. Five attendees were allegedly candidates or staffers. The Australia Today has not independently verified the full attendance list, but the account has been repeated by party sources concerned about weak local mobilisation in one of Labor’s most marginal western seats.
One Liberal insider, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said the anger among multicultural members was deeper than one preselection contest.
“They took multicultural community leaders’ financial support,” the insider said.
“They love these brown people as manpower at booths and distributing pamphlets, but they will play all games when it comes to giving representation.”
That claim will be strongly rejected by many inside the party, especially those who argue the decision to block Gourisetty was unavoidable once the character reference became public.
But that is precisely why the episode has become so damaging. It was not just a question of one candidate’s judgment. It exposed a breakdown in the process. If the party had concerns, why were they not detected earlier? If Gourisetty was unsuitable, why was he allowed to contest and win?
Instead, Deeming survived, Gourisetty was publicly humiliated, and the party’s relationship with parts of the Indian Australian community was left bruised.
The Liberal Party’s Western Metro turmoil has also unfolded against a wider background of internal instability. It has been reported that former federal Liberal director Brian Loughnane is expected to replace Philip Davis as Victorian Liberal president, with the party still dealing with factional division, candidate vetting problems and legal controversies.
For Jess Wilson, the timing could hardly be worse. The Opposition is trying to present itself as a government-in-waiting, focused on cost of living, crime, roads, hospitals and integrity. But State Council risks reminding voters that the Victorian Liberals are still fighting themselves.
The deeper challenge is that Melbourne’s west is not a side issue. It is where the election could be won or lost.
The Liberal Party has spent years arguing that Labor has taken western suburbs voters for granted. Yet the party’s own multicultural base now appears to be asking the same question of the Liberals: are they being taken seriously, or merely used?
If the State Council becomes only a contest over executive positions, the party may miss the bigger warning. Multicultural communities in the West are not looking for tokenism. They are looking for representation, respect and local campaigning that understands their suburbs.
For the Victorian Liberals, Saturday’s State Council is therefore not just about who controls the party executive. It is about whether the party can stop Newton’s cradle of internal retaliation before the next ball swings back into its own campaign.
The immediate winner of the Western Metro preselection battle may have been Moira Deeming. But unless the Liberals repair the damage in the west, the lasting winner could be Labor, One Nation or a new generation of independents waiting to harvest disillusioned voters and disillusioned volunteers.
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