Liberals say lack of polling, ignoring teachers and scandals led to state election loss

As the bloodletting from the Coalition’s election loss continues, scores of angry Liberal MPs and staff say there were multiple failures in the lead-up to polling day.

Furious Liberal MPs — some of whom lost their seats — claim they were set up to fail, with one told by a senior campaign staffer his seat “was fine” two days before last week’s election — even though it had not been polled.

As the bloodletting from the Coalition loss continues, The Sunday Telegraph has heard from scores of angry Liberal MPs and staff who say there were failures even in field support.

In the case of defeated Wollondilly MP Nathaniel Smith, a source close to the former government whip said he spent the night before the pre-poll booths opened at Officeworks, printing out 1500 how-to-vote cards.

The cards should have been delivered by the party to his office, ready to be handed out, but despite repeated phone calls, none arrived.

It is understood even former premier Dominic Perrottet was shocked after later hearing about the debacle.

Nathaniel Smith was forced to print his own how-to-vote cards at the last minute …

… but it wasn’t enough to thwart Independent Judy Hannan, who won the seat of Wollondilly.

“The (Officeworks) printer nearly broke down,” the source said.

The source said Mr Smith also sought information on polling – the party “track poll” – but was ignored, suggesting none was undertaken in his seat. Mr Smith had held the seat with a 14.2 per cent margin.

Another Liberal source claimed the track polling — where a select group of voters is polled daily over a period of time — did not include seats with margins of more than 10 per cent, unless an incumbent was retiring.

This means seats such as Terrigal and Miranda — both of which came down the wire — would also have not been part of the track polling.

Mr Smith had been concerned about the lack of Stage 1 funding for the long-promised Picton bypass — a road link his opponent had been ­campaigning on.

There had been some funding for investigation work on where it should go, plus some for land acquisitions. In the final weeks of the campaign, there was a commitment of $50m, but not the $300m needed for a commitment to Stage 1 to overcome community cynicism that the project would ever come to fruition.

Teachers Federation members were out in force at polling stations. Picture: Alexi Demetriadi

Mr Smith’s opponent, independent Judith Hannan, accused the government of putting lives at risk, pointing to the traffic chaos during the floods when the Picton main street was closed and a similar safety disaster during the 2019 bushfires.

It is understood Mr Smith was angered at the project missing out on some of the $5bn WestInvest funding, of which a considerable chunk went to unsuccessfully sandbagging the seat of Penrith held by former minister Stuart Ayres.

The source said Mr Smith was told the bypass would cost $500m-$600m.

“It wasn’t just the Picton bypass – the sewage plant is also at its limits. Kids had just died in a car crash. He had everything go wrong,” the source said.

“Two days before the election, he was told ‘you’ll be fine’ … Instead, he was thrown under a bus.”

Dominic Perrottet and his wife Helen placing their votes last week. Picture: Julian Andrews

Another suburban Liberal MP, who managed to hold on, said both policy and strategy were to blame for the poor election result.

In the case of policies, it was the failure to address the needs of teachers and nurses when the vast majority lived in outer-ring Liberal seats.

“At every pre-poll booth out here there were representatives from the NSW Teachers Federation giving out information on why the government wasn’t supporting teachers,” the MP said. “The Liberal Party focused on sandbagging and the north and the east and beating the Teals.

“They spent more time sandbagging seats with smaller margins and so kind of forgot the rest of us.

“In some of the seats, the difference between winning and losing was nurses’ pay and staff ratios.”

In Heathcote, a seat that was all but written off by the Liberals after a boundary change made it notionally Labor, teacher representatives were also joined by firefighters.

Whenever the Coalition talked about cost of living, Labor would pivot the conversation to essential worker wages and tolls.

Over in Parramatta and up in Wakehurst, late preselections were blamed, with the fresh-faced candidates having barely any time to make themselves known to voters in the fight against their high-profile mayoral opponents.

In the case of lawyer Katie Mullins, a push for a “star candidate” in Parramatta together with factional feuding resulted in alternative candidates being put forward before she was eventually selected.

The appointment of John Barilaro to the US trade commissioner role was politically damaging for the Libs.

One of the most frustrating issues for the Coalition was the lack of engagement by voters until late in the campaign.

“There were about 20 per cent of people who didn’t know what they were doing and then pre-poll opened and they broke, but they all broke against us,” one MP said.

“At the end of the day, we can always try and nitpick at things, but I think we’ve done well to keep (Labor) at minority (government).

“Four terms would have been history. It just didn’t happen.”

A senior campaign strategist blamed ministerial retirements and the “it’s time” factor for part of the result — with the other reason being a ­litany of scandals.

Internal party research conducted last year after the politically damaging inquiry into the appointment of John Barilaro to the US trade commissioner role had the party polling “well into the 30s”.

“The research followed Covid, the resignation of Gladys Berejiklian and then Bara,” one source said.

“We were hit by a massive torpedo and our vote was well down into the 30s.

“We were also self-focused with all the bickering.

“NSW state Liberal director Chris Stone and Dom had a number of conversations in the third and fourth quarters of last year on what needed to happen.

“We found the biggest issue by far and away to be cost of living and that whenever we spoke about the economy or economic management, the vote went to us.

“Anything else, it did nothing or drove the vote away.

“You can point to one or two things locally, but we knew exactly what the issues were and there were three – age of the government, retirements, which really hurt, and preferences, especially in seats such as Wollondilly, Camden and even maybe in Penrith with One Nation.”

LIBERALS BEGGING DOM TO STAY ON

A senior Liberal has pleaded for Dominic Perrottet to stay on as leader “for a while longer” as counting revealed it is now highly unlikely Labor will form a majority government.

With former treasurer Matt Kean ruling himself out of taking on the leadership, former planning minister Anthony Roberts — who held off a Teal to hold Lane Cove — is among three possible contenders for the top job.

But, with Chris Minns likely to be forced to use Greens or independents — or both — to get anything done, the job of opposition leader will be far more complicated and demanding.

Likely to also run for that job are former attorney-general Mark Speakman and ex-trade minister Alister Henskens.

Anthony Roberts places his vote in the north shore electorate of Lane Cove last week.

Mr Roberts — a 20-year veteran of the right faction — is being urged by past federal and state leaders to have a tilt.

But he told The Sunday Telegraph that he believed Mr ­Perrottet should stay on.

“ He is by far the best person to lead in opposition,” he said.

Mr Perrottet declared on election night that he was standing down as the NSW Liberal leader following the election defeat, saying he would take “full responsibility”.

Yet a week later, the scale of the defeat is nowhere near as dramatic as it first appeared to be.

Either way, the matter will not be resolved until a party room meeting is held, with Liberal Party Whip Scott Farlow responsible for calling one.

Just one seat remains in play as counting in the state election continues, with the Liberals set to retain Holsworthy and Terrigal.

Despite early results on election day pointing to huge Labor swings in Ryde, postal vote counting yesterday was favouring Liberal candidate Jordan Lane.

In Ryde counts on Saturday, the 28-year-old former Ryde mayor was leading by just 232 votes, although the seat was still too close to call.

Latest counts in Terrigal have Liberal incumbent Adam Crouch ahead and likely to retain his seat after the addition of more than 4000 postal votes counted on Saturday extended his lead.

Ongoing counting in Holsworthy has Liberal Tina Ayyad likely to win the seat — she was ahead by 600 with postal votes trending towards her.

That would leave Labor on 45 seats and needing at least two more votes to do anything in parliament.

It is not impossible to govern effectively in a minority, however the government will have to give and take with members of the crossbench to deliver its legislative agenda.

With The Greens and independent Alex Greenwich eager supporters of a cashless gaming card, this could be a sticking point for Chris Minns, who has only voiced support for a trial but has stopped short of committing to across-the-board cashless gaming.

— by JESSICA McSWEENEY and LINDA SILMALIS