By Phillip Coorey
THE Liberal Party has overshadowed the first anniversary of Kevin Rudd's ousting with a brawl between former cabinet ministers over the party's federal presidency.
Peter Reith was tipped late yesterday to have the numbers to beat the incumbent president, Alan Stockdale, in a ballot scheduled for this morning at the party's federal council meeting in Canberra.
Alan Stockdale.Credit: Nicolas Walker
The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, will address the council today accompanied by the release of an campaign-style manifesto of his beliefs and Menzies-like pledge to stand up for the ''forgotten people'' and get the country back on track.
Tomorrow Mr Abbott will visit a cattle station in the Northern Territory to exploit the government's inability so far to resume live exports to Indonesia because appropriate safeguards are not in place. Yesterday Mr Abbott said cattle growers were at risk of suicide.
The battle for the presidency boiled over publicly yesterday when the outgoing senator and party powerbroker Nick Minchin accused his former cabinet colleague Alexander Downer, and the party's three other national vice-presidents, of treachery.
On Thursday night the four, Mr Downer, Tom Harley, David Russell and Danielle Blain, co-signed a letter to Mr Stockdale criticising his administration of the party on a number of fronts and saying they were backing Mr Reith.
''Our decision to support Peter is solely motivated by the obligation we have to the party. We are sorry you declined the opportunity of a less public and more gradual transition,'' the letter reads.
Given that three of the vice-presidents are set to be re-elected today - along with the Queensland powerbroker and former minister Santo Santoro - the letter means Mr Stockdale, if re-elected, would not have the support of his deputies.
In a rare move, Senator Minchin, who is doing the numbers for Mr Stockdale, made his outrage public.
''All four of them have acted with treachery and disloyalty to the incumbent federal president in a way that brings disrespect upon the Liberal Party and the office of federal president,'' he told ABC Radio.
''I've never seen anything like it and it saddens me that at the end of my 32 years of full-time service to the Liberal Party we have individuals behaving in this fashion.''
A day before, Senator Minchin angered the Reith camp with a letter to federal council delegates stating Mr Reith's reputation as an industrial relations reformer would enable Labor to mount a Work Choices-style scare campaign against Mr Abbott.
This prompted a rebuke yesterday from the shadow treasurer Joe Hockey, who is backing Mr Reith: ''Look, I don't think there was a stronger advocate for Work Choices than Nick Minchin, and he wanted it to go further.''
Senator Minchin was again forced to repudiate a whispering campaign that he was backing Mr Stockdale as part of a deal that would enable him to succeed him.