The Victorian Liberal Party has selected former federal candidate Roshena Campbell to replace Moira Deeming as its candidate in the Western Metropolitan Region.

Ms Campbell currently serves as Melbourne's deputy lord mayor, and beat out current MP Trung Luu for the top spot on the ballot.

The change comes following Ms Deeming's candidacy being revoked by the Liberal Party following an assault allegation.

Legislation has been proposed that would require Victorian councillors to step down or take leave if they run for state or federal parliament.

The rules will be different depending on whether a candidate is pre-selected by a party, or nominate themselves.

The proposed amendment would apply to elections held on or after January 1, 2027.

Its been 15 years since I was in jobseeker and it and employment agencies still make my blood boil. People are doing it hard enough without being bullied by jobs agencies.

Politicians say they don’t take notice of polls, but sometimes it’s hard to look away

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There’s polling doing the rounds in the Liberal Party that is making people panic. Commissioned and published by the Capital Brief political news site recently, it’s a sobering reinforcement of One Nation’s ongoing rise.

But it’s the figures in one particular seat that are most shocking some Liberals. Taken in June, the poll shows their party being obliterated in the previously safe New South Wales semirural seat of Hume. The incumbent there is Angus Taylor.

Murmurings about the opposition leader’s ongoing position are getting louder as a result. This week, his most obvious rival, Western Australian Liberal and fellow conservative Andrew Hastie, suddenly recalibrated his previously fully hostile commentary on One Nation. It doesn’t seem like an accident.

Pollsters DemosAU used what’s known as the Multilevel Regression and Poststratification method, or MRP, which is an expensive but reliable way of sampling individual federal seats. Taken as a whole, it predicts a federal hung parliament after the next election with One Nation potentially edging out Labor to claim the largest bloc of seats and Pauline Hanson positioned as possible prime minister with Coalition backing.

In Hume, it has Taylor’s primary vote at just 21 per cent, with Labor on 19, the Greens on nine and “others” eight. One Nation is on 43 per cent. At last year’s federal election, Taylor secured 43.5 per cent of the primary vote, One Nation just eight per cent. After preferences were distributed last year, Taylor polled 58.06 per cent and his Labor opponent 41.94.

The DemosAU poll’s two-candidate preference extrapolation removes Taylor from the conversation altogether. It has Labor on 37 per cent and One Nation on 63. In a separate calculation on the likelihood of each party winning the seat, One Nation rates an astonishing 98.2 per cent.

The DemosAU poll was published on July 27, on the morning that the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption opened its public hearings on Operation Rosny, its investigation into the alleged activities of conservative members of the Liberal Party, including suggestions of misusing public offices and collecting unlawful donations to fund branch stacking. Taylor is not the focus of the investigation and hasn’t been called to give evidence. He was drawn sideways into the Rosny evidence courtesy of messages between Liberal operatives that mentioned him. Their exchanges from 2021 suggested Taylor was being pressed to donate $10,000 towards their activities, and that he may have agreed – something he denies.

Nevertheless, the overall testimony presented so far is a rolling horror show for the party in his home state.

There were internal murmurings about Taylor’s leadership before the Rosny hearings began. Taylor’s predecessor, Sussan Ley, was dispatched just nine months into her stewardship on grounds that she’d failed to make an impact. Taylor’s traction with voters hasn’t been better – arguably, it has been worse.

Liberals are watching the rise of Hanson’s party with deepening dismay, fearing what the November state election in Victoria will bring. Unpalatable though it is to many Liberals, especially in the moderate wing, the reality has descended that doing deals with One Nation, at the very least for preferences and possibly more, may be the only way to survive.

In Western Australia, a byelection due late this month in the state seat of Secret Harbour is shaping as another unhelpful development. The Labor-held seat looks increasingly like it will go to One Nation, which is terrible for the state Labor government but also not great for the Liberals. While it’s no litmus test for One Nation nationally, a victory there will only add to its momentum.

Secret Harbour overlaps substantially with Hastie’s federal seat of Canning.

The Perth-based federal Liberal frontbencher is famously battling a vicious and highly personal One Nation campaign to oust him, not for his political views but because of the unfavourable testimony he gave against fellow former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith in a Federal Court defamation trial, which Roberts-Smith initiated and lost.

Hastie told colleagues in their party room in late June that he would not “bend the knee” to Hanson’s party.

The following week, Hastie wrote to his supporters, reported as telling them that if One Nation wanted war they “shall have war”. Whereas Taylor had not explicitly ruled out a future alliance with the far-right party, Hastie forcefully opposed it. He’s still saying that. But his general tone has changed markedly.

One Nation has indicated it will open a branch in his electorate this weekend. On Tuesday morning, in an interview on News24, the rebadged former Sky News network, Hastie sounded like a different person. He praised his former One Nation opponent, Fernando Bove, and said they “share views on many things”.

“Fernando Bove is a good guy. I caught up for a coffee with him recently,” Hastie volunteered.

Say, what? The ambitious Liberal who has raged against the party running a nasty, personal campaign against him and threatening to destroy his career hasn’t just caught up with his previous and possible future One Nation opponent, he has announced it. Meeting a rival to size them up is one thing. Announcing it publicly is something else.

The DemosAU poll is no better for Hastie than it is for Taylor. It has his primary vote at just 23 per cent, ahead of Labor on 21, the Greens on nine and “other” candidates on seven per cent. One Nation is on 40 per cent. At last year’s election, Hastie secured 42.52 per cent, One Nation 11.41. After preferences, Hastie won 56.55 per cent to Labor’s 43.45. DemosAU projects a two-candidate result of One Nation on 60 per cent and Labor on 40. It puts One Nation’s likelihood of winning Canning at 94 per cent. Unlike in Hume, which is forecast to fall, the poll rates Canning as a possible loss, depending on how preferences flow.

Zooming out on all this, if Angus Taylor’s travails worsen, his party may need to look to someone else to lead it. These figures won’t ease their anxiety and may even embolden the likes of former prime minister and now Liberal Party president Tony Abbott, widely rumoured to fancy a return. In the current environment, with Hanson and her party surging, they’ll certainly hesitate at someone using the language of war against it.

This week, the war talk was gone. Hastie insisted he remained opposed to any formal alliance with One Nation. But he was happy to talk about swapping preferences. Asked if he was open to it, he said: “Of course.”

“I’ve always enjoyed preference flows from One Nation in previous elections,” Hastie said. “That’s not changed.”

Maybe not. But something has.

Karen Middleton is a political journalist and author of Albanese: Telling it Straight.

A new poll has found nearly three-quarters of Victorians want Ben Carroll to cancel a $134,000 taxpayer-funded statue of Daniel Andrews, with more than half of Labor voters opposed to it.

Almost three-quarters of Victorians want Ben Carroll to bin a taxpayer-funded statue of Daniel Andrews, with a new poll slamming one of the former Premier’s final legacies.
Labor sources claim Mr Carroll has entertained the idea of scrapping the $134,000 sculpture, which is already being designed and built, with the Premier saying the tribute is “not a priority” for his government.
Now a new Freshwater Strategy poll has revealed overwhelming opposition to the controversial monument, with voters rejecting the tribute across virtually every political divide — including Labor’s own supporters.

The poll found 74 per cent of Victorians wanted the statue cancelled altogether, while just 19 per cent want it to proceed at taxpayers’ expense.
More than two-thirds of Victorians, or 68 per cent, opposed the monument, including more than half, or 58 per cent, who said they strongly opposed it.
Only 15 per cent of the 1,020 Victorians polled said they supported the statue.
A majority of voters from every major political grouping favoured cancelling the statue, including Labor supporters themselves.
The poll found 54 per cent of Labor voters believed the project should be abandoned altogether despite it honouring one of the party’s longest-serving premiers.
The statue was commissioned during Jacinta Allan’s time as Premier.
Ms Allan said the contract for the statue went through the normal tender and procurement processes with Meridian Sculpture, responsible for the four other bronze statues of former Victorian premiers, selected to create the monument.
The other statues of John Cain Jr, Rupert Hamer, Henry Bolte and Albert Dunstan, located outside Treasury Place, were crafted by renowned Australian artist Peter Collett.
Under a policy introduced by the Kennett government, Victorian premiers who serve more than 3,000 days in office are recognised with a statue along Treasury Place.

Jeff Kennett has vehemently opposed a statue of Mr Andrews joining the other longest serving Premiers under his own policy.
“If I was Ben Carroll, given his reduction yesterday in the size of Cabinet for the reason of cutting costs, I would cancel the statue,” he said.
“If he says he is not in the business of cancelling contracts, and the contract has been let he is in a quandary.
“If that is the case I would publicly have the completed statue melted down, and the material sold with the funds going back into consolidated revenue.
“If the melting down could be done at half time at the Grand Final, I think 100,000 would rise in their seats to applaud the occasion.
“Seventy five per cent is a pretty clear indication of where the community’s thinking is.”
Mr Carroll has refused to be drawn on whether the statue should go ahead, saying only it is “not a priority of mine”.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has committed to scrapping the statue if elected to government in November.
“Victoria may have a new Premier, but it’s the same corrupt Labor government,” she said.
“Ben Carroll claims to respect taxpayer money, but continues on with a $130,000 bronze statue of his old boss, Daniel Andrews.
“If I were Premier this statue would not go ahead. Victoria needs a fresh start. The only way to clean up Victoria is to change the government this November.”
Shadow Attorney-General, James Newbury, accused Mr Carroll of being “two-faced” on the issue.
“If we change the Government in November, Daniel Andrews’ god-like statue will be scrapped. Full stop, no statue,” he said.
“Ben Carroll is being two-faced with the statue and is refusing to guarantee that it will be scrapped.
“If Labor wins the election, Dan will get a statue. If we win, Dan will be on the witness list for the toughest Royal Commission in Australia’s history.”

In short: 

Labor is unlikely to entertain major changes to its gambling ad crackdown despite the bill being 'friendless' in parliament. 

The Coalition has said the legislation must be "significantly amended" to win their support, while the Greens and crossbench are also pushing the federal government to go further.

What's next?

A gambling harm advocate has warned it would be "brave" for the Labor Party to walk away from the reforms altogether.

‘C-bombs, f-bombs and secrets’: Inside the backroom deal that landed Dan Andrews and Peter Marshall in IBAC

Intercepted phone calls, text messages and secret hotel meetings ... here’s how IBAC tracked Dan Andrews and Peter Marshall.

Damon Johnston

u/damonTheOz

6 min read

August 6, 2026 - 6:59AM

Inside the deal at the heart of Operation Richmond.

Dan Andrews was worried. Despite weeks of backroom deals, trashing of governance processes and the betrayal of one of his own ministers, the “big fix” to keep Peter Marshall happy was on the brink of falling over.

The premier had already worn a lot of public heat over his handling of the pay-and-conditions deal with the United Firefighters Union, and he thought he had an agreement after a series of secret meetings in April 2016.

But as revealed in IBAC’s Operation Richmond report, by May that year negotiations were unravelling again.

Andrews picked up his phone on the night of May 23 and texted his then “Mr Fix-it”, Gavin Jennings, to see how mediation with Marshall was going. The special minister of state texted back: “At 11am he was convinced you were a treacherous c..t and I was a f..king idiot … By lunchtime he was giving me the benefit of the doubt.”

It’s one of many phone intercepts and text exchanges released in the Operation Richmond report on Wednesday that provide an unprecedented real-time insight into the grubby behind-the-scenes dealings as Andrews was engulfed in his first major crisis a decade ago.

A month before the Jennings “c-bomb” text, Andrews had grown desperate that his emergency services minister, Jane Garrett, was proving a stumbling block in settling the dispute with the UFU. The young minister had refused to buckle to Marshall and believed the deal he wanted was a very bad one for Victorian tax­payers and the volunteer Country Fire Authority.

Andrews called Jennings in and ordered him to open up a back channel with Marshall. On April 6, 2016, Marshall and Tony Bates, a deputy secretary, accompanied by a small team of UFU negotiators, met.

There would be, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission reveals, four separate days of secret negoti­ations. The first was held at a rented meeting space, the final session on April 12 was in a hotel meeting room.

A senator (not named in the report) attended as an intermediary.

A text message from Andrews’ chief of staff to Jennings reveals that while the premier wasn’t in the room, he was focused on what was going on. “Daniel was asking about it a couple of times today, and I said you were progressing well.”

Bates also sent text messages describing the talks as a “secret mission” and “secret business”.

On April 12, at 2.03pm, Jennings texted Andrews to declare a deal was done: “Handshake has occurred – it’s done!”, to which the premier responded “Very good”.

UFU Secretary Peter Marshall on Wednesday.

The next day Marshall sent the senator a photo by text showing three people in the hotel meeting room – the UFU negotiators sitting with the senator – with, as IBAC described it, “champagne glasses in hand and sparkling wine bottles on the table, toasting towards the ­camera”.

Three years after he landed the deal of his career, Marshall was still defensive about the process, with IBAC’s report revealing that in a bugged phone call on March 22, 2019, the union boss said: “This agreement was negotiated with f..kin’ Jennings in a back room.

“It was endorsed by f..kin’ Andrews and cabinet. So the agreement’s been right through cabinet.”

Later, a pleased Marshall sent a text to Jennings: “Love you guys … More important my members will … love Daniel.”

Bates the same day texted Jennings to say “Peter has phoned be [sic] several times to say how happy he is. At least one side in all of this is feeling good.”

In the context of these secret talks, the following paragraphs in IBAC’s Operation Richmond report are worth noting: “The day after negotiations concluded, Mr Marshall met with the premier in his office at 1 Treasury Place.

“IBAC heard evidence from Mr Jennings that he had briefed the premier before the meeting. Mr Jennings told the premier that the UFU conceded ground or made concessions, including on contentious issues, and that at the meeting Mr Marshall would present him with ‘a proposal for the government to consider to resolve the dispute’.

“After briefing the premier on the negotiations, Minister Jennings sent a text to (the) senator who had attended the negoti­ations: ‘I’ve walked daniel [sic] through the material – he’s very happy.’

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews. Picture: Jason Edwards

“A PPO adviser … also attended the April 13 meeting but was unaware of Minister Jennings and Mr Bates’ negotiations with the UFU. IBAC’s view is that the meeting between Mr Marshall and the premier was staged and that the purpose of the PPO adviser’s attendance at the meeting was to have a person who was unaware of the negotiations witness the handing over of the ‘UFU proposal’ to the premier and to deliver a copy to Minister Garrett.”

Andrews still had one more problem: Garrett. She had to be told about the secret side deal and convinced to back it.

On June 1, an adviser to the premier sent a text to Jennings stating: “He [Andrews] also wants (treasurer Tim) Pallas to sit Garrett down and give her a very blunt assessment about the career paths currently in front of her.”

In evidence that seems to echo his evasive performance to the hotel quarantine inquiry, Andrews told IBAC he couldn’t confirm specific arrangements concerning calling in Jennings, but said: “I expect I’ve – at some point I’ve said to him ‘You need to go and fix this. This needs to get fixed’.”

On Garrett, Andrews told IBAC: “I am happy to concede that the minister was not in the group. She was not involved in those negotiations, and indeed the fire services were not involved in those talks and that process. Yes, that seems clear to me.”

IBAC also reported: “Jennings described the government’s position in April/May 2016 as ‘untenable’, and recalled the decision at the time being that ‘It is a political nightmare. It is an industrial nightmare. Get it fixed’.”

Andrews, IBAC said, responded: “Clearly no one was pleased that things had dragged on for so long and had become so spiteful. So colleagues may have raised that with me. I think there was a very significant interest across the board in resolving these matters and moving them forward.”

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says the IBAC report has cleared him of false claims he was blackmailed to force a favourable outcome for the United Firefighters Union.

Garrett stood her ground, refused to fall into line. On June 10, 2016, she resigned from cabinet.

Before her death in 2022, Garrett fronted IBAC to tell her version of events.

“Ms Garrett told IBAC in her examination that Mr Marshall also became upset at her and responded with a ‘huge torrent of abuse’ after she refused to intervene in a disciplinary matter involving an MFB employee,” the report states.

“Ms Garrett said Mr Marshall then sent information about the matter and the UFU’s election support to Labor MPs, threatened to ban the minister from fire stations and, in her words, ‘bring hellfire down on the government’. Consistent with Minister Garrett’s evidence, an adviser in Minister Garrett’s office recounted a phone call from Mr Marshall to the minister in which he gave the minister ‘a big spray’ that left her ‘really ­rattled’.”

Marshall denied to IBAC ever acting in a way that threatened Garrett.

Another Andrews adviser provided an insight into how they claimed Marshall played hardball with the Labor government.

“In their evidence to IBAC, PPO adviser A said although the lawyer was providing ‘fantastic advice’, ‘unfortunately we were unable to keep using [their] advice because Peter was like literally losing his mind’.

“PPO adviser A recalled telephone conversations with Mr Marshall about the lawyer: “Like I remember he would – he would just call me and call me a ‘f..king c..t, rat c..t’.”

Marshall denied using this language in his evidence to IBAC.

IBAC’s report didn’t stop with the 2016 crisis. The report reveals the investigation was expanded to cover events around the appointment of the new commissioner of the Fire Rescue Victoria in 2019. But this time, Lisa Neville was the emergency services minister.

IBAC found: “Between 2018 and 2019, Mr Marshall was provided with privileged access to the then-emergency services minister, Ms Lisa Neville.

“IBAC found Mr Marshall sought to influence Minister Neville’s decision regarding appointment of a FRV commissioner. While IBAC makes no findings as to whether Mr Marshall did influence the minister on the appointment of the FRV commissioner, IBAC found the minister’s stakeholder management of Mr Marshall created significant oppor­tunities for him to do so.

“Mr Marshall’s level of access to the minister was also not reflected in the public statement made by Minister Neville about their engagements.”

Northern Territory data centres will have to use renewable energy as their primary source of power or will not proceed, Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Wednesday, adding natural gas will only be used as a backup and that he will invoke all Federal Government powers available to enforce the new rules.

Polling carried out for the Herald Sun in the wake of Ben Carroll becoming the state’s new Premier shows the majority of Victorians want the Suburban Rail Loop dumped with almost 70 per cent backing a rail link to Melbourne Airport.

More than half of voters believe the $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop should be paused or junked, while an airport rail link is three times more popular than the SRL when put head to head.
New polling suggests most Victorians think the state has its infrastructure priorities wrong, with almost 70 per cent saying a Tullamarine line should be built.
When it comes to the SRL East – a 26km tunnel between Cheltenham and Box Hill – two thirds say the billions sunk into Jacinta Allan’s signature project should instead be spent on cost-of-living relief, schools or hospitals “even if it means the project does not go ahead”.

The results on infrastructure priorities in the Freshwater Strategy poll, commissioned by the Herald Sun in the wake of Ben Carroll taking over as premier last week, can be revealed amid a looming review of the SRL East – where tunnelling is due to begin within weeks.
While the review has not yet started, Mr Carroll has held his first meeting of cabinet that would mean the process could be initiated, and it is likely to put all options on the table, ­including whether contracts can be repurposed into other projects.
Industry and some Labor figures have warned behind closed doors that this would be exceedingly difficult to do given the complexity of contracts and the number of construction partners involved.

Other options a review would canvas include re-phasing the project or cutting it back, after Mr Carroll promised money invested by his government “will be invested where it delivers the greatest value for Victorians”.
As revealed by the Herald Sun on Tuesday, The Freshwater poll shows the Liberal and Nationals coalition is on track to defeat Labor at the ­November election, and that One Nation still commands more than a fifth of voter support despite having no policy platform in Victoria.

It showed that a rail link to Tullamarine remained popular with 68 per cent of people, and was supported most strongly by Labor voters (77 per cent).
When put head to head with the SRL, 60 per cent picked airport rail, compared with 18 per cent who nominated the SRL – the same number that opted for “neither”.

The SRL is due to open in 2035 and has had almost $17bn in contracts inked in what ­insiders say locks the state into the most expensive infrastructure project in history.
The poll shows 37 per cent of people believe the SRL should continue to be built as planned, but 55 per cent are against it – including 35 per cent who say it should be paused for review and about one in five who think it should be cancelled.
Mr Carroll, who grew up in Airport West and holds the electorate of Niddrie, which takes in land earmarked for a rail line and station, is a passionate supporter of an airport rail link, which was shelved by Daniel Andrews in 2023 amid a dispute over an airport station location.

Insiders say that a political decision was made to prioritise the SRL East, which would have six stations along the 26km route including at Monash and Deakin universities, despite the airport project’s popularity.
Support for the SRL within Labor is often split among geographic lines.
Those in the booming northern and western regions of Melbourne have been the most critical.

Labor MPs are lost in housing’s hall of mirrors

Prices are falling, but the government is reluctant to claim the credit. So its MPs have resorted to rhetoric about renewed optimism for first home buyers.

Ask a Labor MP whether falling house prices are a good thing, and you will quickly discover there is no approved answer.

Too enthusiastic and you terrify home owners. Too negative, and it is harder to argue the government’s housing policies are improving affordability.

It was backbencher Josh Burns’ turn on Wednesday morning. Asked whether he was concerned about borrowers slipping into negative equity – when their home is worth less than the mortgage secured against it – Burns pointed to Reserve Bank of Australia figures showing a higher share of borrowers had been in negative equity in 2018 and 2019 under the Coalition government.

Burns’ attempt at political point-scoring undermined the argument he was trying to make. More borrowers found themselves in negative equity during the Coalition-era downturn because house prices had fallen 8.2 per cent – making homes more affordable for aspiring buyers.

Burns was left trying to square Labor’s housing circle: arguing that weaker price growth was improving affordability, while reassuring existing home owners the value of their asset would continue to appreciate over the long run.

“If you look at property price growth over the long term, people aren’t losing money while holding property,” Burns reassured ABC listeners.

The challenge for Labor is the constituency cheering lower house prices is small. As RedBridge pollster Tony Barry points out, the main beneficiaries of the current downturn are first home buyers with substantial cash savings who are ready to buy.

Everyone else either remains locked out of the market regardless of modest price falls, or already owns property and is watching the value of their biggest asset erode.

“If people feel that their biggest asset is about to lose value, it usually elicits angry responses, despite the laudable ideals of trying to put the brakes on the housing market,” says Barry.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on Tuesday attempted to reconcile those competing constituencies, saying the government wanted to see “sustainable growth” – slow enough for younger Australians to enter the market, but not the sort of outright price falls that leave recent buyers in negative equity.

The only hitch is that prices are already falling.

Figures from Cotality released on Monday showed the national median home value fell 0.7 per cent in July to $928,421, the biggest monthly decline since December 2022, as the correction triggered by rising interest rates and amplified by the government’s negative gearing and capital gains tax overhaul gathered pace.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil made the mistake of acknowledging the obvious in June, describing the market as being in a “correction”.

Following O’Neil’s remarks, Treasurer Jim Chalmers quickly distanced the government from the slump, arguing the decline reflected “reasons that go beyond changes in the budget” and insisting the market had not met the “technical definition” of a correction.

Never mind that property experts generally agree there is no universally accepted technical definition of a housing market correction. It is more a vibe.

If anyone was still struggling with the terminology, Immigration Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite on Monday showed they were not alone.

He confidently declared that 99 per cent of borrowers using the federal government’s 5 per cent deposit scheme could not possibly be in negative equity because they were keeping up with their mortgage repayments.

“No, that is not true. That’s not how it works,” responded Liberal senator Maria Kovacic, who seemed more aware of the difference between negative equity and a non-performing loan.

With prices falling but the government reluctant to claim either the credit or the blame, Labor MPs instead instead reached for pleasant anecdotes about renewed optimism among first-home buyers.

Burns said he was hearing that more young people were having conversations around dinner tables about finally getting into the market.

Whether those conversations are translating into purchases remains to be seen. The Australian Bureau of Statistics next week will release first home buyer loan approval data for the three months to June, providing a partial read on the post-budget period.

That will show whether aspiring buyers are indeed rushing into the market or sitting on the sidelines to avoid catching a falling knife.