Academics get Andrew Peacock wrong

Williams inaccurately says the Peacock ‘would find it difficult to secure preselection in today’s conservative Liberal Party’. To call the current Victorian Liberal Party conservative you must be kidding. Andy would have had no trouble in being pre-selected in the present Victorian or for that matter, the NSW, Liberal parties. Indeed, the current Liberal member for Kooyong, Peacock’s old seat, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, is so soft and moderate that it beggars belief.

Williams further suggests that the Liberal Party under Menzies was a Victorian party and that it has somehow ‘moved from its roots’ in not having leaders from that state.

What nonsense. The Liberal Party founded by Menzies was not just a Victorian based party but a national one.

Howard from NSW won four elections – 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2004. Abbott from NSW brought them back to office in a landslide election in 2013 after only six years in opposition.

Peacock never won an election, despite two goes.  He was never a threat to the Labor Party.