Colleen Harkin was facing potential expulsion from the Liberal Party for attending a One Nation fundraiser before the perennial candidate announced her resignation at the weekend.
Liberal state president Brian Loughnane demanded Harkin explain her actions, and a motion condemning her support for a rival political organisation had been drafted before last Monday’s meeting of the administrative committee, the governing board of the Victorian division.
However, Harkin, who was a member of the administrative committee, sent a note to her fellow committee members shortly before the meeting was scheduled to start declaring herself a no-show.
“Apologies – something unexpected has come up and I am unable to attend tonight’s meeting.”
Harkin’s only explanation for attending the June 12 fundraiser alongside One Nation president Pauline Hanson and NSW MP Barnaby Joyce was a short postscript attached to her note.
“For those interested/may have read – I attended the ON event on Friday (as did a number of other card-carrying Liberals I came across, which was interesting).
“I have previously attended teal events, too. It was very interesting – the ON movement is real.”
Harkin formally quit the party on Sunday. During an interview with ABC Radio’s Raf Epstein on Monday, she confirmed she would join One Nation and consider standing as a candidate at the Victorian election.
Harkin, an education policy expert with the Institute of Public Affairs and a regular pundit on Sky News and ABC Radio, was a staunch supporter of Moira Deeming in her dispute with former leader John Pesutto.
She was the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court challenge brought by administrative committee members who opposed a decision to use party funds to help Pesutto pay his legal bills and avoid bankruptcy.
She is also a failed candidate who has long held ambitions for elected office.
Harkin stood as the Liberal Party candidate for the federal seat of McNamara in the 2022 election, unsuccessfully challenged Tim Wilson for preselection in Goldstein in 2024, and has twice run and lost elections for her local Bayside Council.
“She wants a seat,” one senior party figure said on the condition of anonymity but not authorised to speak publicly. “I think she feels very aggrieved that her talents haven’t been sufficiently recognised in the past.”
Hanson has privately made clear her opposition to One Nation becoming a home for Liberal Party rejects.
Harkin, during her interview with ABC Radio, presented her decision to quit the Liberals as a principled stance. “Over the last couple of weeks, I have just thought it doesn’t align with me and my values any more,” she said. “I feel like it doesn’t know what it stands for. That hasn’t happened overnight.”
She did not mention the “please explain” that Loughnane issued to her or the likelihood that she was facing formal censure for providing support to a rival political party.
Harkin earlier this year supported the expulsion of a former Liberal Party member who had attended the campaign launch of One Nation’s candidate for Nepean, Darren Hercus, and handed out how-to-vote cards for him ahead of last month’s byelection.
“I think it is highly likely that someone would have moved to at least suspend her, if not expel her,” the senior party source said. “We were waiting for her to front up and provide her explanation. She has obviously quit before she was pushed.”
In her resignation letter sent to administrative committee members, Harkin expanded on her reasons.
“I have not changed. The party has,” she wrote.
“I cannot continue to support an organisation that has lost sight of its principles, its purpose and its responsibilities to its own members. I hereby resign my membership of the Liberal Party.
“I have the greatest respect for presidents Tony Abbott and Brian Loughnane. However, their executive leadership cannot compensate for a party shaped by the Machiavellian factionalism, expediency and a lack of policy conviction that has seen the party brought to its insipid state.”
Harkin’s departure has increased hopes within her former party that the Supreme Court action – the last, unresolved matter arising from Pesutto’s ill-fated decision in 2023 to suspend Deeming from the party for speaking at a women’s rights rally gate-crashed by Nazis – can be settled before the November state election.
It is unclear whether Harkin, as a former Liberal Party member, would have had standing to continue the case. Two of the named respondents, former president Phil Davies and vice president Holly Byrnes, resigned from the administrative committee earlier this year.
In her resignation letter, Harkin said that another member of the administrative committee, Tony Schneider, would become lead plaintiff and the case would continue.
The dispute centres on a majority decision of the committee to approve a $1.55 million loan from a party entity, Vapold, to Pesutto to cover the legal costs he was ordered to pay Deeming after she successfully sued him for defamation.
Harkin and Loughnane did not respond to questions from this masthead.
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Chip Le Grand leads our state politics reporting team. He previously served as the paper’s chief reporter and is a journalist of 30 years’ experience.Connect via email.
