New Victorian Liberal leader Brad Battin has challenge to unify ...

Unified. United. A team.

These are the words newly minted Opposition Leader Brad Battin uttered dozens of times in his first press conference as the top Victorian Liberal.

"What we need to do is be united. So, we've got a message out there that is moving in the right direction,'' Battin said on Friday.

Pulling together this deeply riven party is the biggest challenge facing the former police officer.

For years the Victorian Liberals have been a divided bunch, too often sidetracked by personal battles and internecine internal disputes.

John Pesutto's ham-fisted expulsion of Moira Deeming was just the latest front in long-running struggles.

When Pesutto won the top job in December 2022, he did so by defeating Battin by one vote.

Pesutto, the member for Hawthorn, was more of an old school small "l" liberal. 

Battin a 14-year veteran of state parliament pitched himself as a more suburban leader. His backers firmly believe winning over the suburbs is the key to electoral success.

Conservatives back Battin but he's far from a hard conservative. In the past he has advocated strongly for smart justice for criminals and has supported raising the age of criminal responsibility.

But he has been the rallying point for conservatives and those in the party angry with the Liberals' direction.

Pesutto's treatment of Deeming ultimately cost him his job. His position as leader was under constant scrutiny, no opposition leader in Victoria has been the subject of such constant job security speculation.

When he made the ill-fated decision to try and expel Deeming for attending a Let Women Speak anti-trans rights rally — which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis — he was attempting to show the Liberals under his watch would be focused on middle Victoria.

He was egged on by moderate MPs.

Pesutto did not want his MPs focused on what he perceived as fringe social issues. His attacks on Deeming for attending the March 2023 rally were criminal to many MPs and Liberals.

The party of free speech was being silenced. 

This exacerbated old rivalries, created new ones and became a rallying point for division.

Members and donors were apoplectic.

MPs either backed Pesutto or they didn't. The issue was a cancer that he couldn't cure. 

Deeming, who maintains she is not anti-trans, successfully sued Pesutto for comments which the court found falsely suggested she sympathised with neo-Nazis. She was awarded $300,000.

In the end, Pesutto was removed and Deeming was reinstated to the party room.

Pesutto was magnanimous as he left the party room saying he was focused on helping the coalition win the 2026 election.

If Battin is to be a successful leader, he'll need to show the same magnanimity in coming weeks as he pulls together his shadow cabinet.

The Liberals under Pesutto were doing well on the only metric available — polling shows he was preferred premier and the coalition was in an election-winning lead over Labor for the first time in years.

Labor has its own problems, but the coalition under Pesutto was showing enough to voters that they could be a viable option worth considering.

But infighting has so often distracted this Victorian branch and being in a winning position in the polls wasn't going to stop that. Pesutto's management of Deeming has been an own goal, providing fuel for his detractors.

To arrest the infighting, Battin needs to win over representatives from the defeated faction, particularly moderates around Kew MP Jess Wilson, a leadership challenger who won about a third of the votes in the ballot.

Only rewarding those who backed him will perpetuate problems.

Along with Brad Battin, Chris Crewther and Jess Wilson threw their names into the ring to become the new Victorian Liberal leader. (ABC News: Barbara Miller/Facebook/AAP: Joel Carrett)

In his opening gambit, Battin focused on the big issues that will define his tenure: cost of living, the dire state of the Victorian budget, taxes and the rising crime rate.

He was at pains to say he would consult his colleagues on any policy changes.

"I want the best team going forward, not one based on factional alliances," he said.

Nothing in his platform is revolutionary.

In fact, they're the same issues Pesutto raised as leader for the best part of two years. At the moment Battin represents a new package but there's no policy difference, yet.

Already he has the same old challenges. His party room has elected no women to the leadership team.

"One of the voter concerns about the Victorian Liberal Party is it has always had a bit of a no ovaries policy and all the evidence is that's still the case," pollster and former Liberal Party official Tony Barry said.

Labor has been quick to highlight the inequity, with MPs and Labor officials gleeful at Pesutto's demise and Battin's ascension.

They were wary of Pesutto but believe the division and Battin's leadership give it a better shot at an historic fourth term.

State Liberal MP for Nepean, Sam Groth, is now deputy opposition leader.  (ABC News)

A constant criticism of Pesutto was that he didn't consult his colleagues enough. Backbencher Bill Tilley said, as a senior liberal, he wasn't respected enough by Pesutto's office.

Many MPs were just fed up. 

Disunity is death in politics and John Pesutto has learnt the hard way. Brad Battin will need to do everything in his power to avoid doing that.

And that challenge begins straight away.