Liberals finalise preselections in key NSW seats - for now

The NSW Liberal Party has finally named candidates for nine seats across the state, with the federal election due to be called in a matter of days.

The candidates were chosen by the three-person committee that took over the running of the NSW division - which comprises Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Premier Dominic Perrottet and former party president Christine McDiven - on Saturday morning.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was unsuccessful in his attempt to seek the High Court’s urgent intervention to resolve a factional feud.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

In the more marginal seats that have seen new candidates installed, Jenny Ware has been named for the must-win seat of Hughes, Maria Kovacic in Parramatta, Jerry Nockles in the former bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro and Katherine Deves in the former blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Warringah.

In the electorates that are considered safer Labor seats, Wenjie Zhang will stand against Labor leader Anthony Albanese in Grayndler, Courtney Nguyen will run in Fowler, Pradeep Pathi in Greenway, Vivek Singha in McMahon and Katrina Wark will run in Newcastle.

But the selection of the nine candidates by the Prime Minister, the Premier and the former president could be short-lived.

A legal challenge has been brought by a member of the NSW Liberal state executive, Matthew Camenzuli, to the earlier confirmation of sitting MPs Alex Hawke, Sussan Ley and Trent Zimmerman as candidates in the seats they currently hold.

If the NSW Court of Appeal decides to overturn the preselection of Mr Hawke, Ms Ley and Mr Zimmerman that would likely place the selection of the nine candidates announced on Saturday in doubt, too.

Mr Morrison said on Saturday praised the candidates chosen in the nine NSW seats and highlighted that nine of them were women.

“I’m particularly pleased that our candidate in Parramatta Maria Kovacic is the former Western Sydney Businesswoman of the Year, someone who started the Western Sydney Business Women’s initiative, sits on the Parramatta women’s Eels board,” he said.

“I think she provides a real contrast to Anthony Albanese’s captain’s pick from the eastern suburbs of Sydney. ”

Labor’s Parramatta candidate, Andrew Charlton, is a multimillionaire and former economics adviser to Kevin Rudd and his selection has caused disquiet among Labor members in the seat.

“We’ve got a great team of western Sydney women standing up in this case, to a team of Labor blokes there in Parramatta.”

Last week, outgoing Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells let fly at Mr Morrison in a late-night speech in the Senate, lashing him as not fit to be leader and a bully with no “moral compass”.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells was recently dumped to an unwinnable spot on the senate ticket in favour of Jim Molan, a Liberal senator and retired army major general.

She also claimed to be aware of several statutory declarations testifying that a candidate originally beat Mr Morrison for preselection in Cook before it was overturned.

“I’m advised that there are several statutory declarations to attest to racial comments made by Morrison at the time that ‘we can’t have a Lebanese person in Cook’,” she said.

Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.