Scott Morrison has a NSW problem. Less than a year ago, the ”premier state” was being billed as central to the Coalition’s reelection chances, with the government targeting 10 Labor seats it felt confident of winning.
Now, just months out from an election, the NSW division of the Liberal Party is a shambles. Factional shitfights have meant candidates still haven’t been preselected for key marginal seats and senior ministers face preselection challenges.
Yesterday the prime minister slammed the “childish games” being played between warring factions. But even if Morrison gets his way and the preselection issues are finally resolved, the damage might already be done.
Potential challenges galore
To understand what’s going on we’ve got to start with the factions. Broadly speaking, the NSW Liberals fall into three main groupings: the moderates, which includes former premier Gladys Berejiklian, Treasurer Matt Kean and Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne; the right, led by Premier Dominic Perrottet, and; the centre-right/soft-right, led by Immigration Minister and key Morrison ally Alex Hawke.
At a state level, a tenuous agreement between the moderates and the hard-right, reflected in Perrottet’s relationship with Keane and Berejiklian, helped marginalise the centre-right’s influence. At a federal level, Hawke’s closeness to Morrison gives the faction influence in Canberra. But proximity to an election and the demise of Berejiklian helped erode the factional peace.
Since last year tensions have simmered over potential challenges to a few sitting MPs, and also over allegations Hawke was leveraging power to filibuster preselections to get preferred centre-right candidates installed.
Meanwhile, the right has been trying to claw its way back.
Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and moderate North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman all face preselection challenges from conservatives. Ley, who is being challenged by conservative Christian Ellis in her rural seat of Farrer, is particularly vulnerable.
More tension emerged this year over the push to install Alex Dore, a management consultant and former Young Liberal president in Craig Kelly’s southern Sydney seat of Hughes. Morrison wanted state MP Melanie Gibbons; Perrottet didn’t want another potentially damaging byelection, and local electors didn’t want a blow-in from the other end of town (Dore lives in Manly).
Last week The Australian reported on a contentious backroom deal which would have saved Ley, Hawke and Zimmerman, installed Dore in Hughes, and given the green light for Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleeson, Morrison’s preferred pick. to run in the marginal seat of Dobell.
That deal was rejected by the state executive 16 votes to seven, and Morrison is threatening federal intervention to save his MPs, much to the anger of many in the NSW party machinery. Any federal intervention could end up in court, adding to the party’s woes.
The undecided seats
The NSW Liberals’ obsession with fighting arcane factional disputes means preselections for key marginal seats are still unresolved. When the most recent deal fell apart, Gleeson pulled out. The Central Coast electorate, held by Labor’s Emma McBride on a 1.5% margin, was a big target for the Liberals.
In Warringah, where the government failed to get former NSW premiers Berejiklian and Mike Baird interested, moderate barrister Jane Buncle pulled out, leaving right-backed Lincoln Parker the only candidate. The Liberals always hoped to recapture the seat after independent Zali Steggall sensationally toppled former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2019. Now an Abbott-lite candidate makes that task more difficult.
It’s not clear who the party will run in Labor-held Eden-Monaro (0.8%); there’s still no candidate in Parramatta, held by Labor on a 3.5% margin and where MP Julie Owens is retiring; and there’s no replacement for Liberal MP John Alexander in Bennelong (6.9%), or in Greenway, held by Labor on 3.5%.
Since last year, Morrison’s political enemies have dubbed him “the prime minister for NSW”, so great was his perceived favouritism for the state most crucial to his reelection. But the Liberals’ factional debacles and internal politicking might end up sealing his fate.
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Morrison could not run a chook raffle. To quote the Betoota Advocate headline from over a year ago: “Everyone now understanding why Scotty got the ar*e from all this marketing jobs”.
Love the BA. Unbelievably – a news dot com journo (Alexis Carey I think) very recently cited the BA as a corroborating source for an article on the Grace Tame frown, complete with “quotes” from Grace swearing away. I would really have hoped someone, somewhere in that organization may have recognized the source for what it is.
What does ‘moderate’ even mean in the context where the Liberal party starts at (non-centre) Right and just gets even further right from there??
I shudder to think what the ‘Right’ believes in if Scummo and his ilk are considered ‘centre right’!
Happily, the voters in NSW can vote for a party or group that doesn’t include members from the Religious Right and the Nutjob Right. They can vote to keep this clown show away from the levers of power by putting the Liberal or National candidate last.
The 12 Feb by-election for the NSW State seat of Bega may well be why there is no candidate yet for Eden-Monaro. Fiona Kotvjos lost to Kristy McBain for Eden-Monaro in 2019.
Since then she has been concentrating on her home heating business “Heavenly Heating”. So much so that at the Bombala Market in March last year, she had a stall for her business while the Liberal Party stall was run by others.
She is now standing for Bega in the by-election against Dr Michael Holland for Labor. Unfortunately for her, she will not pick up the donkey vote as she is 7th and last on the ballot paper. If she does not win Bega, there has to be a possibility she will try again for Eden-Monaro in May. Seems she’s determined to get into a Parliament, Sydney or Canberra.
Kotvjos is obviously persistent but is she a quality candidate?? At the Monaro by-election she seemed wooden and ill at ease. Given the turmoil in the NSW Liberal parry and Scamo’s falling popularity, finding any candidates will be even more difficult as the situation drags on. Andrew Constance running in Gilmore has been around for a while and last year was rated a good chance of winning. What is the mood/ consensus now after Omicron and various stuff ups??? Labor really cant afford to lose any seats, anywhere- they do need to pick up a couple in NSW, Qld, WA, Vic and perhaps one in SA, Tas. That would give a modest but workable majority. It would be ironic justice if Morrison himself was the cause of a liberal failure in NSW.
My mistake, She’s Kotvojs, not Kotvjos.
Maybe she’ll get the “reverse donkey” vote if that’s a thing.
Yes I think that does work… in the recent NSW Local Government elections in Tamworth the local ALP ran as a group ticket with 5 candidates. Stephen Mears #1 got 1660 votes and elected and Laura Hughes #5 got 1200 votes and just missed out. While the other three Labor candidates in the group #2 got 786 – #3 got 672 – #4 got 490. So people could have voted reverse donkey in the group or they may have really preferred to vote for the female candidate…. Bye the bye it was a smart move by Labor to present themselves as a group as they did get a Councillor elected… the first time in many years. The others are mostly all Nationals or ex Nationals who hide their party affiliations.
Could it be some liberals have developed a spine?The last things the establishment Liberals would tolerate are members with conscience and integrity.