Liberals under fire for enlisting ‘intelligence’ firm to dig dirt on Noel McCoy

A lawyer who was ruled out as a Liberal candidate despite being the frontrunner has lashed out at the party for hiring an “intelligence” firm to undertake “background research” on him.

A lawyer who was ruled out as a Liberal candidate despite being the frontrunner has lashed out at the party for hiring an “intelligence” firm to undertake “background research” on him.

In a sign the recriminations from this year’s messy preselection process may not yet be over, long-serving, right-wing party member Noel McCoy is demanding Liberal Party bosses resign for what he claims have been breaches of “procedural fairness”.

Mr McCoy had been the favourite to win preselection for the blue-ribbon seat of Castle Hill until he failed to pass the party’s vetting process, which had included a panel interview by the internal Nomination Review Committee (NRC).

It can now be revealed the NSW Liberal Party hired a firm called Aletheia Intelligence Pty Ltd to undertake research on Mr McCoy, with the report used in questions by the NRC.

The firm was founded by Luke Bennett, a former military officer who most recently held the role of senior adviser in the office of ex-prime minister Scott Morrison until the May federal election.

Noel McCoy pictured with his family. Picture: Supplied

Mr Bennett is the sole director of the firm and is also a shareholder, along with David Hughes, who was a director of strategy and research in Mr Morrison’s office.

Mr McCoy believes factional operatives unhappy at having an outspoken right-wing candidate led to the hiring of Aletheia to give justification to his elimination.

In a scathing letter to NSW Liberal Party president Maria Kovacic and NSW Liberal state director party Chris Stone, Mr McCoy said allowing party officials to question him about items in the Aletheia dossier without him having a copy was a “breach of procedural fairness”.

Having since obtained the dossier, he declared its contents, which included public statements he had also made on issues ranging from euthanasia to national service over the past 20 years, were “amateur” and “misleading”.

Mr McCoy, who previously obtained a reference from Premier Dominic Perrottet when running for the Senate, said his policy positions, “particularly those expressed in good faith and in defence of core Liberal values”, were for the preselectors to judge, not party officials.

A NSW Liberal Party spokesman said it “strongly refuted” Mr McCoy’s claims.

Aletheia Intelligence said the firm brought “decades of combined experience” from across government, the military, professional services, and law enforcement “to inform our clients with factual reports based on publicly available information which could be relevant in a future role”.

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