Federal Government

FEUDING: Baillieu faction launches attack on rivals as Cossie finds online love

Faction feuding seems set to resume in the Victorian division of the Liberal Party with The Age newspaper reportedly sniffing around a story sourced from Ted Baillieu’s office about a harmless Facebook group that supports the “drafting” of Peter Costello as Liberal leader.

The group describes itself as:

This group supports the drafting of Peter Costello.
KevinRecession is the sequel to Kevin07 and Australia needs strong economic leadership.
When it comes to economic management Peter Costello has the runs on the board.
Peter Costello is the right man to make Kevin Rudd and the kids in his office a one term wonder.

Liberal insiders understand that The Age’s Paul Austin and David Rood have been working up a story on the presence of the Facebook page.

Austin in particular is seen as particularly close to Ted Baillieu and Simon Troeth. A Liberal insider noted that Baillieu’s recent poll “bounce” took him back from the depths of earlier this year to a level comparable with his landslide election defeat in 2006. He wondered whether they have their priorities right. “Baillieu and his team can’t land a glove on Brumby and yet they have time for these stupid games. They all need to stand in front of Ted’s body-length mirror and have a good hard look at themselves.”

Some question whether this is really much of a story at all. One Liberal remarked to VEXNEWS that “They must be running on empty with the Olympics on.”

VEXNEWS has learned that a number of Peter Costello sites exist on Facebook.

The most popular – believed to be the one complained about by Baillieu faction members – is I support Drafting Peter Costello which has sixty one members including some enthusiastic young Kroger faction members and other faction notables like Ross Fox.

Less popular is the “If Peter Costello becomes Prime Minister then i’m moving to Mexico” group with twenty-eight members, the “If Peter Costello Becomes Prime Minister I’ll Ritualistically Behead Myself” group with nineteen members and the crude I love Peter Costello. With my mouth group that has ten members.

We have included some of the friendly young ladies who are members of the group.

More ambitious was the I bet I can find 10 000 people who think Peter Costello is a Slimeball group that has only attracted 13 members to date.

© 2008 VEXNEWS 2010©.