Coalition infighting continues over Port Macquarie by-election result
As the dust began to settle after Saturday’s Port Macquarie by-election scrap between the NSW Coalition, blame had already begun to fly over how it had all gone wrong for the Nationals.
NSW
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As the dust began to settle after Saturday’s Port Macquarie by-election, with the Liberal Party tipped to win the seat in a tight lead against the Nationals, blame was already being cast over how it had all gone wrong.
The Coalition infighting over the seat, for which both parties ran candidates, has frayed the already shaky relationship between Liberal leader Mark Speakman and Nationals leader Dugald Saunders.
On Sunday multiple Nationals MPs conceded they could not see a path to victory despite hundreds of postal votes yet to be counted.
When counting concluded over the weekend the Liberals held 52.2 per cent of the two party preferred vote, with the Nationals trailing on 47.8 per cent.
Some Nationals MPs pointed to a bungled preselection process, which saw their chosen candidate Warwick Yonge, dumped only four days after he was preselected.
Mr Yonge went on to run as an independent and claim more than 12 per cent of the first preference votes.
Others cast blame for the poor result on Nationals leader Dugald Saunders.
“There’s a lot of anger towards the leadership of the party because if they didn’t stuff up the endorsement of the first candidate, we likely would have won,” a Nationals source said.
“The whole thing was poorly handled – we had one chance to win it back and lock it in for years and now we’ve thrown it away.”
Other Nationals MPs directed their anger at their coalition partners for the result, saying Mr Speakman refused to work with them and had rejected any notion of a deal in which the Coalition ran one candidate.
“Mark wouldn’t even discuss it,” another Nationals source said.
“He knew if he gave up Port Macquarie it would be the end of his leadership … this was nothing more than him trying to sandbag a few more months.”
Mr Saunders said on Sunday he was pleased with the election result despite the fallout and indicated this would not be the last time the Nationals attempt to win back the seat.
“I’m stoked by the result – it’s really close but a win is still a possibility,” he said.
“A swing of 18 per cent is such a show of support for the Nationals and we will still be there to represent the people of Port Macquarie in the future.”
Mr Speakman said: “We’re a team for all of NSW and the best team to fight for the Port Macquarie community”.
The by-election came after former Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams announced she would retire from politics in late February. Ms Williams was elected as a National but defected to the Liberals in 2020 over the coalitions’ koala wars.
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