Grant Hutchinson has sent the Victorian Liberals a formal legal challenge, eight days after the party dumped him as its candidate for Croydon. It argues the late-night vote that removed him was unconstitutional from start to finish.

A leaked six-page letter, sent on 21 October by Mr Hutchinson's solicitor Rod Veith of RV Lawyers to the party's State President and State Executive, says both resolutions passed at an urgent meeting on the evening of Monday 12 October were "ultra vires, unconstitutional, and legally invalid". One cancelled his endorsement and the other picked a replacement on the spot.

Mr Hutchinson wants his endorsement restored and his replacement frozen while the dispute plays out.

That replacement is Toby Wooldridge, son of former federal Liberal health minister Michael Wooldridge and nephew of former state MP Mary Wooldridge. At the time, one party source described the switch as a "captain's pick".

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who sits on the State Executive that voted him out, said the day after the meeting that "new information has come to light" about a civil case Mr Hutchinson brought against his own law firm, and that "it's no longer appropriate for him to be a candidate". That lawsuit, and the counterclaim it prompted, had been public since last year.

The letter rejects her explanation outright. According to the lawyers, the committee was told Mr Hutchinson had failed to disclose historical legal proceedings, and they call that claim "factually false". They say he "transparently and fully disclosed those very proceedings during his vetting and preselection process", so the party already had the information.

Mr Hutchinson was not allowed into the meeting to answer the allegation. The letter says the committee acted on "an incomplete, selective, and misleading representation of the facts" without letting him show the matters had already been vetted. It argues that if the party relied on its complaints clause, he had an express right to be heard before any decision was made.

His lawyers also say the meeting was never properly called. They say the written notice convening it didn't mention that members would be asked to disendorse him or choose a replacement, although the party constitution requires a notice to set out the business to be transacted. Invoking urgency can shorten the notice period, they argue, but it doesn't remove that requirement.

They question whether there was any urgency at all. Nominations don't close until noon on 9 November, so four weeks remained when the executive acted. The letter argues that was enough time for the local preselection convention the constitution prefers, because the executive can only hand-pick a replacement if it considers there isn't time for one.

The party has been asked to prove its numbers too. Under urgent procedure the quorum rises from 10 to 12, and cancelling an endorsement needs three-quarters of the members present. The lawyers say abstentions count against that threshold.

The party has until 5pm on Friday 23 October to hand over the meeting notice, attendance records, minutes, the exact voting figures and every document tabled about Mr Hutchinson, along with all records on how Mr Wooldridge was approached and selected. It has also been served a preservation notice covering emails, texts, WhatsApp and Signal messages.

The most pressing demand falls due at noon on Friday. By then the lawyers want a written undertaking that the party will not lodge a replacement nomination for Croydon before 5pm on Tuesday 27 October. If the party refuses or presses ahead with Mr Wooldridge, the letter says Mr Hutchinson "reserves all his rights".

A leaked covering email from Mr Veith drew the executive's attention to the response deadlines and asked for its "urgent consideration and action".

 

Covering email from RV Lawyers to the Victorian Liberal State Executive.

Croydon, in Melbourne's outer east, is held by the Liberals on a margin of just 1.4 per cent. Long-serving MP David Hodgett is retiring after 20 years.

The Hutchinson fight adds to a growing list of candidate problems for the Wilson opposition. The party has already removed sitting MP Moira Deeming as a candidate and refused to endorse Dinesh Gourisetty after his preselection.

The election is on 28 November.

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