Unrest among NSW Liberals as MPs to meet fundraising and campaigning KPIs

Liberal MPs will be forced to meet KPIs to lift their performance in fundraising and campaigning as the party takes on board a scathing review of last year’s state election loss. READ THE FULL REVIEW.

Liberal MPs will be forced to meet KPIs to lift their performance in fundraising and campaigning as the party looks for ways to overturn the Labor “red tide” that has swept across the nation.

Party officials discussed the proposal at a meeting of the NSW state executive last Friday, with work already under way on how it will work.

Fundraising benchmarks have existed before, but corruption concerns and Covid had seen them disappear.

A Liberal source familiar with the discussions said proposed KPIs would likely go beyond fundraising targets, with campaigning and/or doorknocking targets to also be considered.

The move to reinstate a performance measure follows the release last year of a scathing review of the role the parliamentary team and the party executive played in the March state election loss.

Former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet (left) and his predecessor Gladys Berejiklian.

The review, which has met strong criticism from past and sitting MPs, concluded the election had been “winnable” but that a lack of discipline and preparedness — including “consistent hard work” on the ground by MPs — led to the loss.

Not only did the lack of energy and “hunger” among some ministers counter the enthusiasm of then-premier Dominic Perrottet, there was no “performance management” of “poorly performing MPs” or any strategic plan to attack Labor. “A passive culture … let much of Labor’s weakness go unchallenged,” the review said.

Released to the state executive, the report circulated among former and sitting MPs over Christmas, with several taking issue with its findings — in particular, its claim that Gladys Berejiklian would have won had she stayed on.

One NSW MP noted that the report dodged the issue of why Ms Berejiklian had resigned in the first place, questioning how she could have fronted a campaign while embroiled in an ICAC corruption scandal.

Ms Berejiklian resigned as leader in October 2021 after the corruption watchdog announced she was under investigation for breaching the public trust.

ICAC later found both Ms Berejiklian and her then-boyfriend, former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire, had both engaged in “serious corrupt conduct”.

Another MP took a swipe at former Liberal MP Peta Seaton — who is also an archaeologist — who undertook the review with ex-premier Nick Greiner.

“Peta Seaton may be an archaeologist, but she has got rocks in her head if she reckons Gladys would have won the election,” the MP said.

“There is no mention of how Gladys left under a corruption cloud.”

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