The Victorian Liberal Party dumped its Croydon candidate on Monday night, less than seven weeks before the November 28 state election, and the explanation it gave isn't sitting well with people who know the case.
Grant Hutchinson, a senior lawyer endorsed for the marginal Melbourne eastern seat last year, was disendorsed by the party's state executive. Opposition leader Jess Wilson, who sits on that executive, said "new information has come to light" about a civil case in which he's involved. "It's no longer appropriate for him to be a candidate," she said.
The case is a lawsuit Hutchinson brought against his own law firm, which prompted a counterclaim. Wilson said further details of it had recently come to the party's attention. Asked whether she was confident in the party's vetting, she answered with one word: "Yes."
A Case Everyone Already Knew
The lawsuit, though, was hardly a secret. It had been public knowledge since last year, and some media outlets had reported on it. One source familiar with the court case told the reporters that people close to the matter were bewildered by the decision, because the case was well known in political circles and there had been no recent developments.
A Liberal figure offered a different account, saying the party was concerned the case could drag on. That's a worry about timing rather than a revelation about conduct.
The source who was bewildered suspected the real aim was to install Toby Wooldridge, the son of former federal Liberal minister Michael Wooldridge and nephew of former MP Mary Wooldridge. A third source described the change as a "captain's pick." Wooldridge will now stand for Croydon. Hutchinson did not respond to requests for comment.
A Pattern of Endorsement Trouble
The Croydon switch doesn't stand alone. The party has also removed current MP Moira Deeming as a candidate in a separate endorsement dispute, and it declined to endorse Dinesh Gourisetty after his preselection. Three candidate decisions in one election run-up point to a party struggling to manage its own selection process.
Hutchinson, a member of the party's religious right, had been endorsed last year in a decision that astounded some Liberal members, according to the report. Campaign material appeared on his Instagram account, which has since been deleted.
The seat itself is up for grabs. Longstanding Croydon member David Hodgett is retiring after 20 years in parliament. The Liberal Party holds the seat by 1.4 per cent, though it would expect to extend its lead at the November 28 election.
What Voters Are Left With
For Croydon residents, the practical result is a late change of candidate with little explanation they can test. The party points to unspecified new information. Sources inside the political world say nothing new has emerged. Those two accounts can't both be the full story.
The decision was made by a party executive behind closed doors, on a Monday night, with the election weeks away. Voters had no say in it.
Why This Matters:
Candidate selection is where parties decide who gets to represent ordinary people, and it's one of the least transparent parts of the democratic process. In Croydon, the party says one thing while informed sources describe another, and a safe-looking handover to a politically connected name has followed. When parties remove candidates over information that was already public, voters are entitled to ask what actually drove the decision. With three separate endorsement disputes in play, the episode raises questions about vetting, internal accountability, and how much say members and communities really have in choosing who stands for them. Clear, consistent selection rules would give voters more confidence than a last-minute reshuffle explained in a single sentence.