Federal Liberals ‘dumb and dumber’ to keep moving right: NSW powerbroker

NSW Liberal powerbroker Michael Photios says the party can return to government at the next state election if it keeps to the political centre and avoids the “dumber and dumber” rightward trajectory of its federal counterparts.

Photios, a former MP turned lobbyist who wields significant influence in the Liberals’ dominant moderate faction, also said the party would need to restore some of the “special powers” formerly enjoyed by officials to install candidates after widespread delays and issues with preselections.

Anthony Roberts (left), Alister Henskens and Mark Speakman are in the mix to lead the Liberals in NSW.Credit: NewsWire/Monique Harmer, Dean Sewell, Janie Barrett

Meanwhile, moderate frontbencher Mark Speakman, the former attorney-general, is firming as a leadership contender, with four MPs privately saying they believe he will seek the job rather than run for the federal seat of Cook if and when Scott Morrison resigns.

The Coalition will hold 36 out of 93 seats in the new parliament after the Liberals won Ryde at the weekend by just 50 votes, although Labor may seek a recount. The result represents a clear defeat for the Liberals while leaving Labor governing in minority.

Photios said the NSW Liberal Party needed to remain “centrist and modern while underpinned in Liberal values of inclusion, freedom, enterprise and social justice with opportunity”, and should distance itself from the federal Liberals under Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

“If we continue to differentiate our state Coalition from our federal colleagues, while respecting their more hardline approach, it will test what Australia wants,” he told the Herald.

Liberal Party powerbroker Michael Photios at the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Photios said One Nation’s share of first preferences in the lower house – 1.8 per cent – was “almost a flop”, and it was electorally silly to pursue that voter base.

“I’d rather chase the 60 per cent plus we didn’t get than the 2 per cent we can’t get,” he said. “It’s simply dumb and dumber to think going hard right will magically transform today’s landscape.”

In an intervention that will anger the hard right, Photios said the Liberal Party would need to change its internal structures and restore “a more flexible special powers facility that will make for more strategic and corporate management”.

That would mean giving head office greater capacity to install candidates and override or prevent local preselections. Special powers exist already but require 90 per cent support from the party’s state executive committee.

As occurred before the federal election, the Liberal Party struggled to pick candidates in a timely manner, including in winnable seats such as Parramatta, where outgoing Liberal MP Geoff Lee announced his resignation in August but a candidate wasn’t chosen until mid-January.

Numerous party figures criticised head office on election night, including former minister David Elliott, who said some candidates seemed to have been “picked out of nowhere”. Former premier Mike Baird also said Dominic Perrottet had been let down by party headquarters.

The Liberals’ most pressing issue is to select a new parliamentary leader, with Speakman, former science minister Alister Henskens and former planning minister Anthony Roberts regarded as the chief contenders.

Speakman, a moderate, didn’t return calls and messages on Sunday. But four Liberals – who spoke about internal party matters on condition of anonymity – said he was leaning towards running for the leadership rather than pursuing Morrison’s seat of Cook if the former prime minister resigns.

“It’s not like he’s halfway through his term. He got re-elected two weeks ago,” one source said.

Photios is currently away in Malaysia and may be absent for the leadership contest, but said he would return to “enforce my mantra” that a party which can’t govern itself can’t govern the state.

He described the Coalition’s election loss after 12 years in power as “honourable and narrow”, and said the teal independents had been “comprehensively defeated”.

One teal independent was elected – Judy Hannan in Wollondilly on Sydney’s south-west fringe – although Jacqui Scruby came close in Pittwater where former frontbencher Rob Stokes retired.

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