By Cam Lucadou-Wells
South-Eastern Metropolitan Region MP Inga Peulich is in a fight for her political life, with a four-way contest to keep her prized number two spot on the Liberal Party ticket for the 2018 state election.
The shadow cabinet member is being challenged by Casey councillor Damien Rosario, former Casey mayor and Mordialloc MP Lorraine Wreford as well as Mark Barrow in the pre-selection battle.
Sitting Liberal MP Gordon Rich-Phillips is unopposed on the number one spot on the ticket.
In the 2014 state election, two Liberal candidates (Mr Rich-Phillips and Ms Peulich), two ALP candidates Gavin Jennings and Adem Somyurek and Greens candidate Nina Springle were elected for the upper-house region.
It means that spots lower than number two on the Liberal ticket would be battling to be voted into State Parliament.
Ms Peulich has held the seat since 2006 after serving three terms as a state MP for the lower house seat of Bentleigh.
She is the opposition’s spokeswoman for multicultural affairs and scrutiny-of-government.
She and the other pre-selection candidates are unable to comment ahead of the 7 May pre-selection vote due to Liberal Party rules.
Voters in the secret ballot include Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, Liberal Party executive members, state council members and electoral-conference delegates.
On 22 April, Ms Peulich faced a mini-protest outside a Cranbourne branch meeting to select electoral-conference delegates for the pre-selection.
Three protesters held placards against “bullying by MPs” and shared an exchange with Ms Peulich as she arrived to the meeting.
One of them was Judy Davis, a long-time Liberal member who says she quit the party because of “Inga”.
Ms Davis said she was troubled by Ms Peulich’s lack of support for fellow Liberal candidates Geoff Ablett and Amanda Stapledon during the 2014 state election.
In 2015, Cranbourne branch member Prasad Phillip made public allegations against Ms Peulich, which spilled into protests by Liberal members and legal action by Ms Peulich as well as into local, state and national newspapers.
Last year, Mr Phillip withdrew his allegations in an out-of-court settlement.
