By Max Maddison and Madeleine Heffernan
Things somehow keep getting worse in the NSW Liberal HQ.
When you thought the saga of dumped Whitlam candidate Ben Britton had stopped causing Liberal HQ migraines, pre-poll voting opened another splitting headache.
Liberal vice president Geoff Pearson handing out pamphlets for Ben Britton on Tuesday. Pearson then resigned from the party.
Spotted by CBD spies at Bowral Senior Citizens centre on Tuesday campaigning for Britton, who was dumped over his chauvinistic views on women in the nation’s military and is now standing as an independent, was none other than Geoff Pearson, a conservative vice president of the state executive, the administrative arm of the NSW Liberal Party.
Of course, the state executive was subject to a federal takeover after the NSW division failed to nominate 140 candidates for the local government elections in September last year. But the office holders have retained their positions, patiently waiting to recommence the incessant factional warfare that has served the party so well.
Liberal moderates are baying for blood over the perceived treachery, calling for Pearson’s expulsion from the party. But the right-winger has taken matters into his own hands, tearing up his Liberal Party membership on Tuesday morning.
With polls increasingly indicating federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton has managed to engineer a reverse Stephen Bradbury, did Pearson decide to abandon a sinking ship?
Not so, according to his conservative comrade, Matthew Camenzuli — the Liberal member famously expelled for taking the party to the High Court over a preselection stoush just weeks before the 2022 federal election.
Camenzuli, who is running his own campaign as an independent in McMahon, the south-western Sydney seat of Energy Minister Chris Bowen, said Pearson had abandoned an organisation that stands for “nothing anymore”.
“Geoff is one of the finest men I’ve ever met and I would gladly stand beside him in any of his future endeavours,” Camenzuli told the Herald.
What more can Dutton do? He gave conservatives nuclear power and boycotted those woke Woolworths types and just look at how they treated him!
After CBD inquired whether Britton’s disendorsement was the straw that broke the conservative’s back, Pearson said he fully supported the election of Peter Dutton but believed “Ben … is the best candidate to represent the people of Whitlam”.
“I realise this puts me at odds with some party rules and for that reason I chose to quietly step away,” he said. “I think everyone realises there are serious structural issues with the NSW division. Peter Dutton certainly recognises that.”
Digitally enhanced
Australians Christians’ catchphrase is “There’s only one!” party that will “defend Life, Faith, Family and Freedom”.
The WA micro party has high hopes for this election, putting forward 14 candidates to champion its anti-abortion, low-tax and pro-Christian-school agenda.
An AI-generated picture from the Australian Christians website which has since been taken down.
“Just imagine what would happen if the 2,500,000 Australians who reportedly attend church, took seriously their mission to be salt and light to their nation,” it says on its website.
“They would seek to be well informed about candidates before election day and consult Christian websites, not just the secular media.”
We at CBD are secular media. We also have five fingers on each hand.
But over at the Australian Christians website, their beautiful model father-figure has six fingers wrapped around a beautiful model mother-figure.
Perhaps “There’s only one!” refers to extra fingers.
CBD asked Australian Christians where extra finger man came from.
“Thank you for pointing out that image. We hadn’t noticed the extra finger and have removed it now,” the party politely responded.
“Yes, the image was AI-generated. As a small party, we occasionally utilise AI tools to generate images for our content, especially when traditional stock libraries are either too expensive, impose restrictive usage conditions or fail to meet our expectations.”
How-to-vote hijinks
To western Sydney, where a new class of non-teal independents are hoping to oust a couple of veteran Labor MPs.
In Watson, emergency doctor Ziad Basyouny is bullish about his chances of making Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke the Kristina Keneally of this year’s election. So bullish that, when Basyouny’s how-to-vote cards were released last week, Labor and the Liberals were dumped to six and seven respectively, with only One Nation and Family First candidates ranked lower.
That’s well below candidates from Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots and the Libertarian Party – surprising given that Basyouny is running as a progressive independent hoping to tap into community anger over the Albanese government’s stance on the war in Gaza.
In neighbouring Blaxland, Cumberland councillor Ahmed Ouf, who’s hoping to knock off Education Minister Jason Clare, has put Labor third behind the Greens.
So what’s happening in Watson? Basyouny told us there wasn’t any secret 5-D chess going on, but that the how-to-votes reflected his team’s polling and focus group surveys in the area, pointing out that about half their respondents wanted to put Labor last. A gauge of community sentiment, perhaps.
- with Kishor Napier-Raman