The bitter fight between the Victorian Liberal Party and its main fundraising arm the Cormack Foundation is not over with party president Michael Kroger vowing to keep fighting for control the $70 million fund.
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Mr Kroger says "further action" will be considered if the action against the foundation which in turn says the Liberal Party will be the loser if the dispute drags on.
In the wake of a Federal Court decision last week to leave the Cormack directors in control of its millions, the foundation has offered to fund the election campaign of Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy directly, bypassing the Liberals’ administrative set-up which is led by Mr Kroger.
The former treasurer of the party’s federal branch on Tuesday lashed out at that idea of direct funding of candidates, branding it "unwise, unwarranted, incomprehensible" and accusing the Cormack directors of "playing games" with Liberal money.
Mr Kroger's long-time ally Michael Yabsley, who is also a former NSW Government minister, said the idea of Cormack funnelling money directly to politicians was “a threat to standards of probity and accountability".
“The Cormack Foundation manoeuvre to effectively circumvent the Victorian Division of the Liberal Party in the allocation of funds ... is as unwise as it is unwarranted,” Mr Yabsley said.
“This is no time to be playing games with what are essentially Liberal Party funds.
“It is time for the Cormack Foundation to unambiguously support the Liberal Party.”
But Mr Guy appeared more open to taking Cormack money to fund his tilt at government in November’s state election.
Asked on Tuesday if he would accept funding directly from the Cormack Foundation, Mr Guy said it had been done in the past.
“It all goes to the same place,” he said. “It all goes to help [elect a] Liberal National government in 2018.”
Mr Guy said he was pleased the matter was “concluded”.
“I expect to have a sensible productive relationship with those in the Cormack Foundation,” he said.
But Mr Kroger does not believe the matter is concluded, and is still demanding the resignation of Cormack’s six directors and the return of the two of the eight Cormack shares that the court ruled belong to the party.
He says the two shares are worth $19 million while the foundation says they are worth just $66.
“In the event that the Cormack directors and shareholders do not acknowledge that as a result of [the Federal Court] judgment the Liberal Party is the rightful owner of Cormack and do not transfer their shares to the Liberal Party, further action will need to be considered,” Mr Kroger told party members on Thursday.
The Cormack directors have made it clear they have no intention of handing control to Mr Kroger or resigning, despite calls for them to go late last week from Liberal Party trustees Alan Stockdale, Richard Alston and Russell Hannan.
A foundation spokesman told The Age on Tuesday that continuing the dispute would hurt the party more than Cormack.
"The Liberal Party seems determined to continue this dispute that was clearly settled in Justice Beach's judgement," the spokesman said.
"But the party itself will continue to be the loser."
