‘Go home to Melbourne’: Liberal moderates turn on party after historic election defeat

Moderate Liberal Chris Rath has sprayed the committee appointed to oversee the party in NSW, calling for two of them to “go home to Melbourne” as a factional conflict over reform threatens to reignite.

Brought in by then-leader Peter Dutton after the NSW Liberals’ calamitous failure to nominate 140 candidates in local government elections last September, the administration committee has been canvassing federal Liberals to seek an extension to implement their reform agenda.

The three-person committee of veteran Victorians Alan Stockdale and Richard Alston and former NSW MP Peta Seaton was appointed as temporary replacements for the division’s dysfunctional state executive. The trio was responsible for greenlighting decisions made by state director Chris Stone throughout the campaign while searching for solutions to remedy the party’s tribalism.

Alan Stockdale (left) and Richard Alston sit on the administration committee, as well as and former NSW MP Peta Seaton.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

The troika’s 10-month tenure is set to expire on June 30. Moderates’ attempts to see off an extension were boosted by Sussan Ley’s win over conservative Angus Taylor in Tuesday morning’s Liberal leadership ballot.

With Ley backed by moderate and centre-right members, Liberal insiders believed the powerbrokers would push for a swift end to the committee’s work when its term expired and the usual state executive structure would return.

But the Coalition’s election bloodbath has reignited factional grievances over the decision to take over the NSW division last year. Moderates say the troika must take responsibility for Liberals losing three seats in NSW as part of a 3.9 per cent swing against the party – worse than the national average.

Rath said: “The admin committee has presided over our worst defeat in history. Maybe if they were more focused on the election rather than obsessing over constitutional reform we would’ve had a better result.

“It’s time they go home to Melbourne and give the party back to the party members.”

NSW Liberal MP Chris Rath has sprayed the administration committee appointed to oversee the state’s division. Credit: Oscar Colman

The comments come after The Australian Financial Review reported messages sent by Jason Falinski, the former Liberal MP for Mackellar who briefly served as division president, saying he was baffled by federal Liberal president John Olsen’s proposal to extend the committee’s term by nine months.

Responding through an opinion column in the same paper, Stockdale said Falinski’s comments could not be “further from the truth”. He argued the committee identified the division was “ill prepared” for three state byelections and the federal elections and wrote of a “party riven with faction abuse of power”.

“We had to set about repairing that political incompetence,” Stockdale said. “We and the state director gave priority to the immediate task of preparing for elections. It would have been impossible to discuss reforms – including constitutional reform – at the same time.”

Underscoring membership data normally kept confidential, the trio said the party’s fee-paying members had declined by more than 1000 members in just a year, while branches refused to support MPs outside their faction.

“The root cause of the problems in NSW is the abuse of factional power,” Stockdale said. “Factions control the NSW party and routinely abuse their power to deny members their right to participation, and to even join the party.”

Seaton declined to comment when approached by the Herald.

While there was no formalised proposal, Liberal sources said the reforms being floated include ending the ability of branches to reject new members while making electorate conferences more powerful and turning branches into more of a social club.

“The administrative committee was brought on to undertake constitutional reform. But that was predicated on Dutton. I’m not sure what that looks like now he’s gone,” one moderate source said.

As the measures were announced, Liberal federal secretary Andrew Hirst said the intervention was imperative to address “challenges within the organisational wing of the NSW division” and help the party return to government.

“More importantly, we owe it to the millions of Australians who are relying on the Liberal Party to return Australia to good government after the next election to get our house in order,” Hirst said.

“The admin committee killed the campaign. There was a distinct lack of voices around the table. All direction just flowed from CCHQ (Coalition campaign headquarters) and missed the dynamic environment created by the state executive,” one Liberal source said.

Quarters within the Liberal Party, however, believe the division’s administration has been positively tranquil compared to the dysfunctional state executive. One noted the chaos that preceded the 2023 state election, where an internal hit on Dominic Perrottet forced the then-premier to publicly admit he dressed up as a Nazi for his 21st birthday.

“It’s been a hell of a lot of a cleaner ride having these three people than the rowdy and dysfunctional state executive,” one Liberal source said.

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