Damien Mantach - State Director, Victorian Liberal Party
Damien Mantach was the State Director of the Tasmanian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia. He commenced in the position on October 2005 and worked into the position until March 2008 when he resigned and returned to Melbourne to take up a position as the Deputy Campaign Director at the Victorian Division of the Liberal zithromax price Party.
In March 2011 he was appointed as a State Director zithromax price of the
Victorian Liberal Party.
NEWS
State Lib director quits Eased out in poll run-up
Authors:SUE NEALES.
Source:Mercury, The (Hobart), 04/08/2005.
Accession Number:200508041020164612.
Database: Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre.
The director of the state Liberal Party has resigned in a backroom push to rejuvenate the Liberal engineroom in readiness for next year's Tasmanian election.
Peter Skillern, state Liberal director for the past five years, announced yesterday morning he was resigning to pursue "other interests".
However, a senior Liberal Party source said Mr Skillern's resignation was part of a program to revitalise the party's organizational structure before the 2006 poll.
The likely new state director of the Liberal Party in Tasmania is Damien Mantach.
A former press secretary for Tasmanian senator Jocelyn Newman and Liberal minister Warwick Smith, Mr Mantach comes from Launceston but has lived in Canberra for the past four years.
He is expected to return to Tasmania direct from working in the heart of the Howard Government's strategic policy area, within the shadowy Government members secretariat.
As an insider in the Government's unit in charge of public relations, public information and spin, Mr Mantach has become an expert in the art of winning zithromax price marginal electorates.
"Following Mr Skillern's decision to resign, we now have an opportunity to bring in a dynamic person who can ensure the secretariat is operating at peak capacity before the next state election," the senior Liberal source said.
The Tasmanian Liberals are hoping to win an extra two to three Lower House seats at the next state poll.
Internally, many Liberal powerbrokers blame Mr Skillern for the Liberals devastatingly poor performance in the 2002 state election.
"We got a better result in 2004, but the view of many in the party was that this was more in spite of Mr Skillern than because of him," the Liberal source said.
Mr Skillern's resignation is understood to have come after pressure from senior
Tasmanian Liberal Party figures such as Senator Eric Abetz and state Opposition Leader Rene Hidding.
Senator Abetz has long opposed Mr Skillern and attempts were made to oust him from the top of the Liberal Senate ticket at the 2003 federal election.
Mr Hidding yesterday praised Mr Skillern, a former bank manager, for his effective running of the Liberal Party office in Hobart.
