In the Moira Deeming omnishambles, the best Liberal was never in the race

April 9, 2026 — 5:00am

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The best speech during the Liberal Party convention held to select upper house candidates for Melbourne’s western suburbs – an episode variously known as Dinesh’s last supper, Moira’s revenge or, for fans of the BBC comedy, The Thick of It, an omnishambles – was delivered by a candidate who barely rated a mention.

Trung Luu, throughout the long years of intra-Liberal warfare that preceded the omnishambles, has represented with humility and quiet industry a political party which, to a boatperson welcomed here by the Fraser government after escaping communist Vietnam, always stood for freedom and opportunity.

In a concise, five-minute pitch to preselectors, he sketched the outline of a rich Australian story that traversed learning a new language, completing an engineering degree, serving with Victoria Police and the Australian Defence Force, raising a family in Sunshine North, and most recently, working to give the Liberal Party a meaningful presence west of the Maribyrnong River.

In a veiled reference to the party’s troubles – a destructive feud which took Moira Deeming from backbench obscurity to culture war célèbre and the former leader who maligned her, John Pesutto, to the brink of bankruptcy and political oblivion – Trung summarised how he’d spent his time in parliament representing the Western Metropolitan Region in the Legislative Council since........

© The Age