TREVOR Dance is a successful businessman and big believer in small government, which would seem to make him an ideal rank-and-file member of the modern Liberal Party.
But for a decade, Mr Dance has also been a belligerent campaigner to keep the gullies and hills around his Sunbury home part of Melbourne's ''green wedges'' - land put aside in 1971 by premier Rupert Hamer for farming and open space.
Mr Dance's views on green wedges appear to be the key to his expulsion from the Liberal Party as soon as he got his foot in the door last year.
The Baillieu government is poised to rezone areas of the city's 12 green wedge areas as residential, so they can be carved up for subdivision as the city sprawls outwards. Planning Minister Matthew Guy is reviewing the release of thousands more hectares for development in green wedges, on top of several chunks released by the Brumby government.
Mr Dance, a strident critic of the former Labor state government's planning decisions, decided last year to join the Liberal Party to try to lobby from the inside.
''I'm not a greenie who climbs trees, I'm a businessman who believes in the green wedges,'' he said.
Last July, he paid to join the party's Sunbury branch and immediately received letters welcoming him to the party from upper house MPs Donna Petrovich and Wendy Lovell.
Six weeks later his payment was returned, with a letter telling him the party had not approved his application.
An email from barrister Serge Petrovich, the MP's husband and chairman of the local Liberal electoral area, also told Mr Dance his application was being rejected.
''It seemed to happen at the same time I upped the ante with campaigning over the green wedge review,'' Mr Dance said. ''I wanted to get in and make changes to their views on green wedges because they are going against all the Liberals have said about them in the past.''
Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach said it would be inappropriate to discuss the reasons for the rejection of Mr Dance's membership. But he said that all processes had been followed in accordance with the party's constitution.
Warwick Leeson, a member of the group Liberals for Green Wedges and of the Liberal Party for five decades, said it was clear Mr Dance was not allowed to join because of his views on stopping development.
''I could not see any other spin on it other than the fact that he would be a pain in the arse and they do not want him - but both Labor and the Liberals are meant to be broad churches, and welcoming diverse views,'' Mr Leeson said.
Opposition's planning spokesman Brian Tee said the Liberal Party appeared to be only accepting those who would toe the party line, particularly on contentious planning issues.
Mr Guy's spokesman declined to comment.
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