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He tried to justify his past conduct in a statement that he read at the meeting, but the committee members - including Peter Costello and state Liberal leader Ted Baillieu - voted unanimously to dump him as the preselected candidate in the seat of Holt.

Liberal Party state director Julian Sheezel confirmed the result last night saying: “The administrative committee considered that he was an unsuitable candidate to receive endorsement.”

John Howard had earlier written to members saying he did not think Mr Aldred - who has been linked to the far-Right US-based LaRouche organisation and its Australian arm, the Citizens Electoral Council - was a suitable person to stand for the Liberal Party.

Prominent Jewish lawyer Mark Leibler, who has led calls for the party to dump Mr Aldred, yesterday described Mr Aldred’s preselection last weekend as an “embarrassment”.

Mr Leibler, who was falsely accused by Mr Aldred in 1995 of being involved in a money-laundering scam run by Israeli spy agency Mossad, said yesterday: “It’s not half the embarrassment it is to me as it is to the Liberal Party.

“This guy is a racist, an anti-Semite, he’s presented fraudulent documents to the parliament. He is not the sort of person who would be supported by the Prime Minister or the Treasurer or any Liberal of standing.”

While the vote at the meeting was unanimous, one committee member, Bev McArthur, effectively abstained by not attending the meeting. The wife of Liberal MP Stewart McArthur, she had earlier refused to join the push to dump Mr Aldred.

Mr Aldred was a federal MP for several years before he was disendorsed in 1995 after his accusations against Mr Leibler.

He has previously admitted meeting delegations of LaRouche and the Citizens Electoral Council, with LaRouche leader Allen Douglas reportedly praising Mr Aldred as a “patriot acting in the best interests of his country”.

Mr Aldred has also falsely claimed former foreign affairs department head Michael Costello had accepted $1 million from Israeli agents with links to South American drug barons and provided documents to a Melbourne newspaper alleging that Mr Howard and former prime ministers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke accepted money from the Indonesian government in return for influencing Australia’s foreign policy. The documents were found to be false.

Mr Aldred did not return calls last night.

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But his political revival looks likely to be quashed before it even gets off the ground, with senior party powerbrokers vowing to reject his candidacy.

Prime Minister John Howard – then Opposition leader – was forced to apologise to Leibler in 1995 after Aldred made a series of bizarre allegations against him in Parliament, claiming Leibler was a Mossad agent and a money-launderer with links to drug-traffickers from Suriname.

Leibler told the AJN today he expected Aldred’s nomination to be short-lived after discussions with senior Liberals.

“Obviously it’s a matter of considerable concern,” Leibler said. “I’ve discussed this at the highest levels of the Liberal Party and I understand there may shortly be action at a state level to disendorse Aldred.

“It is also very clear to me that Aldred is not the sort of person who would be supported by the treasurer or the prime minister or anyone of standing within the Liberal Party.”

Senior Liberals tonight said Aldred had “no chance” of winning the party’s endorsement as a candidate when its central administrative committee considers his nomination in a fortnight.

“Ken would not be a welcome or acceptable member of the Howard team,” a senior party source told the AJN.

With issues of character and integrity at the forefront of national politics in the past fortnight, the Aldred controversy threatens to be a major source of embarrassment for the Howard Government.

In 1995, an Australian Federal Police investigation found Aldred had used forged documents to smear Leibler and the then head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Michael Costello, in Parliament.

The forged documents are believed to have been sourced from the Citizens Electoral Council, the Australian arm of Lyndon LaRouche’s radical conspiracy network.

Parliament’s only Jewish MP, Michael Danby, said the Liberals’ support for Aldred was insulting.

Aldred had used parliamentary privilege to make “scurrilous” attacks on Jewish leaders, accusing them of being involved in tax scams, drug trafficking and pornography.

“The decision to endorse former MP Ken Aldred as the Liberal candidate for Holt at this year’s election is an insult to the Jewish community,” Danby said in a statement.

The AJN was not able to contact Aldred today.

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