Former RSL NSW boss to take on teal MP Sophie Scamps in northern beaches

Former RSL NSW president James Brown has won Liberal preselection for the once blue-ribbon federal seat of Mackellar as the party works to wrest the seat back from teal MP Sophie Scamps.

Brown’s victory on Sunday comes after the NSW Liberals ignored calls to reopen nominations for the seat due to fears that a dearth of female candidates would hurt its chances of reclaiming the electorate.

Former NSW RSL president James Brown has been preselected to run for the Liberals for the federal seat of Mackellar.

Scamps seized Mackellar as part of a backlash against the Morrison government when she was elected alongside other teal candidates, including Allegra Spender in Wentworth and Kylea Tink in North Sydney.

It has long been speculated that Brown, who was previously married to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s daughter Daisy, was keen to enter politics, and last year he paid $1 million for a house in Great Mackerel Beach in Pittwater.

Brown, who was also formerly chief executive of the Space Industry Association of Australia, bought the property from Spender and her husband Mark Capps, in a move many saw as preparation to run for preselection in the northern beaches.

Amid a field dominated by male candidates, the party had been pressured to reopen nominations to allow northern beaches finance executive Sophie Stokes to run.

Stokes has lived in the electorate all her life and is the wife of former NSW minister Rob Stokes. She was viewed by many within the party as a preferable choice for the Liberal Party as it seeks to turn back the teal wave in its traditional heartland.

Senior Liberal women encouraged Stokes to put up her hand after the party’s disappointing result in the state seat of Pittwater, where teal candidate Jacqui Scruby won last month’s byelection.

Central to Scruby’s campaign was highlighting that her Liberal opponent lived outside the electorate.

However, nominations for the seat closed abruptly as the Liberals were contesting Pittwater. Stokes was heavily involved in the campaign of Liberal candidate Georgia Ryburn, who had also been courted to consider a federal tilt.

The candidates who contested the preselection in Mackellar included Michael Gencher, the Australian executive director of Israel advocacy group StandWithUs; former Qantas pilot and founder of Pandora Jewellery Brook Adcock; and national security expert Lincoln Palmer.

Brown, not-for-profit director Paul Nettelbeck, and deafness advocate David Brady also nominated.

Catholic high school teacher and author Vicky McGahey was the only female candidate in the mix. She was eliminated in the first round of voting.

A three-person panel is currently running the NSW division of the party following federal intervention after a disastrous local government nominations debacle saw 140 candidates miss out on contesting the council elections.

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