Matt Kean further alienates himself from Liberals amid transgender controversy

The NSW Treasurer has repeatedly found himself at odds with his own party, and in recent days sparked an almighty stoush. But for what?

Matt Kean has once again alienated himself from the base of his party and sparked days of distraction that has achieved little but undermine the Prime Minister’s central campaign message.

It’s never a good day in the middle of a campaign when a senior Coalition Minister is forced to front morning radio and deny they are undermining their state leader and the PM.

But Kean seems to find himself in this position repeatedly.

And in perpetuating these “green on blue attacks” - the term used to describe attacks by the Afghan national army on coalition forces during the Afghanistan conflict - Kean has only undermined his own position as a government minister.

The irony is that after days of headlines sparked by his Good Friday intervention to condemn Katherine Deves, Matt Kean has only highlighted comments he describes as appalling.

Kean has caused an almighty six-day stoush, but for what?

NSW treasurer Matt Kean. Picture: Justin Lloyd

In his own words, he has not addressed the “substantive issue” - whether transgender athletes should be free to play elite sport against people born as biological women.

Scott Morrison and Dominic Perrottet have made gutsy calls by weighing into the highest profile issue facing women’s sport right now.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Picture: Jason Edwards

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Flavio Brancaleone

Perrottet is right to call for these issues to be debated in a sensitive way.

“An insensitively expressed view should never distract us from the merits of the substantive issue,” he says.

As the Premier says, the issue needs to be handled with “compassion and commonsense”.

If anything, Kean has only ensured that the comments he has condemned have been front-page news for days on end.

Warringah candidate Katherine Deves. Picture: Supplied

Deves has since apologised for comments including likening her fight to stop transgender athletes from participating in women’s sport to standing up against the Nazis.

Morrison on Tuesday indicated that Deves had learned her lesson and would approach her advocacy in a more sensitive fashion.

Privately, senior Liberals are perplexed about Kean’s end-game in weighing into this debate.

Kean’s critics suspect he is a puppet of Malcolm Turnbull who still harbours resentment for Morrison.

Some moderates think it would be better for the Coalition to lose government federally rather than for Morrison to win - a view driven in no small part by the factional wars in NSW that led to Deves being hand-picked to run for Warringah in the first place.

Kean insists that he wants Morrison to win the election but muddying the Prime Minister’s campaign message isn’t doing anything to achieve that outcome.

It was suggested that his intervention to call on Deves to quit was a dogwhistle to his moderate faction, by condemning hurtful comments levelled against members of the transgender community.

If it was designed to aid moderate liberals like Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Dave Sharma in Wentworth, all Kean has achieved is to highlight internal division in his own party he says he is trying to help.