Young Liberals’ stoush exposes right’s real enemy
A spat in the youth wing of the Liberal Party has not only proved an unwanted distraction for senior members but has exposed the Liberal right’s real enemy, writes Miranda Devine.
While Scott Morrison was fighting to turn around the Coalition’s fortunes in parliament last week, a spat in the youth wing of the party was distracting Liberal Party grandees.
Young Liberal president Harry Stutchbury has dragged Liberal federal president Nick Greiner and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian into a quarrel over the annual Meritorious Youth Award. The prestigious award is bestowed on one outstanding Young Liberal from each state in a vote by the youth wing’s executive council.
When Stutchbury’s candidate and moderate (left) faction ally Brigid Meney was trounced 8-2 last week by Alex Hawke staffer Dean Shachar for the NSW gong, all hell broke lose.
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Liberal vice-president Teena McQueen intervened on Stutchbury’s behalf with phone calls and a critical email about Shachar to federal executive members.
“All, the NSW Young Liberal President has requested I look closely at this, and I will.”
In one email she wrote: “The Premier has called him ‘immature’, his antics certainly do not display the character required to be an outstanding Young Liberal.”
What a shocking thing for a senior party office-holder to put in writing about a kid starting out in his career.
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Shachar, 24 last week, is a pleasant, hardworking high-achiever. I know him slightly, having met him when he was a Sydney Uni student on an academic scholarship and when I spoke last year at a YL function he organised.
He strikes me as far more mature than the loquacious McQueen, a self-described delcon. Insiders say Berejiklian was not happy about her name being used by McQueen.
But for some in the Liberal right the real enemy is not the moderates or even Labor.
It is Shachar’s boss Hawke and his centre-right faction, who happen to be the Prime Minister’s praetorian guard.
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