The trouble is not that Doyle and his supporters are ineptly defending our liberties: it’s that they adamantly refuse to do so. To a certain degree incompetence can be forgiven — cowardice, Mr Doyle, is another matter.

The basic problem is that Doyle is Michael Kroger’s puppet. The Kroger-Costello faction, as it is usually known as, foisted Doyle, Julian Sheezel and Helen Kroger (Michael Kroger’s ex) on the Party membership. The result has been a slowly developing disaster that, if not stopped, could see the Party annihilated at the next election.

As one angry observer of these events, and a long-time Party member, said to me: “Kroger couldn’t pick a winner in a one-horse race. The bloke is only out for himself.” Julian Sheezel certainly lends support to this bitter accusation. Due to Kroger’s manoeuvring Sheezel, a factional player for the Kroger team, was appointed state director of the Liberal Party of Victoria.

Sheezel’s ineptitude in dealing with the greens and critics of labour market reform amply confirms the accusation about Kroger and one-horse races. But what is really disturbing is that Sheezel has also refused to come out in defence of those Christian pastors who are being persecuted by agents of the Brack’s Government.

My exchanges with Sheezel persuaded me that he shares Kroger’s contempt for ordinary Party members. For instance, I politely suggested to him that it would be in the Party’s interest if the LSG (Liberal Speakers’ Group) allowed ordinary Party members to address it. His response was far more illuminating than he evidently intended it to be.

According to Sheezel, meaning Mr Kroger and pals, one has to be an “important and influential figure” to address the LSG, which tells us what Kroger and his crew really think about ordinary Party members.

But it was Sheezel who authorised a public statement declaring that the LSG “was founded in the late 1950s by a group of Liberals to increase the level of discussion and debate within Party forums”. There is no mention of anyone having to be an “important and influential figure” in order to address the forum. In other words, Kroger and pals turned the forum into their own personal plaything.

It’s becoming increasing clear that when it comes to Kroger and his friends and appointees we are dealing with unprincipled opportunism on a sufficiently large scale to keep the Party out of power for years. It is their cynical opportunism and infantile craving to be the power behind the scenes that allows Bracks to attack with impunity freedom of speech and property rights.

And yet Sheezel, the same character who denies Party members the opportunity to debate issues or address the LSG, made a grovelling apology to Steve Mayne of Crikey. Mayne then humiliated him further by bragging about the apology on the net. (No wonder some Party members call Sheezel “iron man Julie”).

But what can we expect from Sheezel when Kroger’s reaction to the last electoral debacle was to say that everything would eventually be OK because the Labor Party always screws up the economy and when that happens again the electorate will come crawling back to the Liberals. What a brilliant strategy: let’s just hang around until Bracks buggers up the economy and then we’ll be back in clover. And to think some people still think this joker is clever.

The likes of Kroger and the snooty-nosed Hugh Morgan have a born-to-rule mentality that has virtually turned Victoria into a one-party Labor state. This lot are morally neutered, arrogant, conceited, contemptuous of the membership and consumed by their own sense of self-importance.

It is now apparent that where our liberties are threatened, not to mention our prosperity, the Party membership cannot rely on this self-serving coterie of blue bloods to do what is right — and that is stand up and be counted. They are disgracing the Party and dishonouring themselves. These are people who believe their money and influence will protect them against Bracks’ depredations — and to hell with the grassroots that they treat as mere electoral fodder.

Fortunately the little people, the ones treated with such disdain, are beginning to show their mettle. Acting because they believe in the principles that make the Liberal Party what it is some of them have formed Liberals for Free speech. They are people who have no illusions about those who have abandoned principles for the influence that money buys and who will never, even figuratively, man the barricades to defend free speech.

These are not powerful or influential figures: they are the grassroots folks, the true backbone of the Party who stand on principle. They are not millionaires and they do not belong to the Melbourne Club — but by God they are Australians who know what is right and what is wrong. And they know that no number of fancy dinner parties or sleazy backroom deals will ever be a substitute for principled action.

And they also know that the two courageous pastors who refused to kowtow before Bracks’ abominable blasphemy law are standing up for all of us — even Kroger and Co.

Muslim goons silence Danish journos while in Australia Premier Bracks helps Muslim bigots persecute Christians

Bracks’ Star Chamber commission applies the law selectively against Christians in favour of Muslim bigots

Muslim bigots impose blasphemy laws on Victoria

Bracks’ religious tolerance laws

Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor