‘Slap in the face’: Anger over Deeming replacement for Melbourne’s west

Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell has replaced ex-Liberal MP Moira Deeming for the top billing on the party’s upper house ticket in Melbourne’s west, all but gaining a place in Victoria’s next parliament.

Campbell secured the No.1 position for the Western Metropolitan Region electorate against incumbent MP Trung Luu through a vote of 12-7 among the Liberals’ state executive on Thursday evening.

Luu, who has nominated for the No.2 position, is now at risk of losing his seat at the November state election due to One Nation’s growing appeal on Melbourne’s western fringe.

But Campbell’s appointment has been criticised as lacking a legitimate connection to the region because she lives in the inner-north suburb of Brunswick, outside the electorate.

She was also the Liberal candidate for the seat of Aston, in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs, during the Liberals’ 2023 federal byelection loss to Labor, and in 2021 unsuccessfully sought preselection for the federal seat of Casey, another outer-east electorate.

Campbell moved from Sydney to Melbourne after graduating from the exclusive all-girls school Pymble Ladies’ College. Her family at one stage lived in Point Cook, in Melbourne’s south-west.

St Albans resident Maria Kerr, who three months ago defected to One Nation after 10 years as a Liberal member, said Campbell’s preselection was “slap in the face to residents of the west”.

“This latest appointment … is extremely disappointing, and I’ve had an overwhelming reaction from my local community,” Kerr said. “People are not happy, they want people that are authentically from the west.”

Kerr is the deputy mayor of Brimbank City Council but spoke to The Age as a resident and former Liberal who in 2022 contested the then-safe Labor state seat of St Albans, and said the Liberal Party was too focused on winning inner-city seats.

“They [the party’s state executive] have lost sight of the forgotten people in the western suburbs, the forgotten people in the outer south-east, and the outer north, and that is evident after this appointment,” Kerr said.

Kos Samaras, the director at polling and social research group Redbridge, said Campbell, as the No.1 on the Liberals’ ticket, should easily secure a seat in the upper house at the state election.

But the party’s chance of winning two upper house seats in the region – and Luu’s political future – were less certain, Samaras said. That would depend on One Nation’s primary vote and whether the collapse of Labor’s primary vote would assist the Liberals.

“It’s really a bit of a toss of the coin,” Samaras said.

Luu, who as a child lived in Sydney and Adelaide, grew up in Melbourne’s east. He eventually moved to Sunshine North, where he has lived for two decades. He was elected to Brimbank Council in 2020 and into the Victorian upper house in 2022.

Deeming was dumped as a Liberal candidate in a unanimous decision by the party’s state executive last month after she made unsubstantiated allegations that she was held in a headlock by then-colleague Matthew Guy. Less than two weeks later, Deeming resigned from the Liberal Party.

Campbell and the state executive were contacted for comment.

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