Liberals’ local government fiasco must never happen again

The NSW Liberal Party has enough problems trying to claw back voter support from teal independents and recapture its heartland without being white-anted from within by seeming incompetence.

But in what Opposition Leader Mark Speakman has described as “probably the worst act of mismanagement” in the NSW branch’s history, the administration missed the deadline to nominate its total list of candidates in next month’s local government election.

NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman has called for consequences.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The party’s local government campaign is now in disarray and in some municipalities the door is open for a clean sweep by Labor and independent hopefuls.

Nominations closed on Wednesday, but the Liberal administration missed the deadline and as a consequence some 140 candidates will be absent from up to 16 councils including Northern Beaches, Lane Cove, Shoalhaven, Wollongong, Campbelltown, Camden and Blue Mountains.

Somehow the administration managed only “partial nominations” for Georges River, North Sydney, Penrith, Canterbury Bankstown and Maitland.

State director Richard Shields has blamed limited resources and apologised for stranding his potential candidates. But surely for a political operative ensuring that Liberal candidate nominations are filed on time is a baseline position, if not his main task.

NSW Liberal Party state director Richard Shields.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

Speakman has already turned his back on Shields: “The state director has to fall on his sword. He is the CEO who runs the organisation. He is the CEO who is responsible.”

Members of the state executive are also gunning for party president Don Harwin, saying responsibility sat across the division’s leadership team. More turmoil certainly lies ahead.

Some of the stories that emerged following the fiasco border on comedic: Candidates for Woollahra, where Shields moonlights as mayor, registered last week because his deputy Sarah Swan wanted to go on holidays instead of fronting up at the close of nominations.

City of Sydney and Lane Cove candidates gathered at a Liberal campaign launch on Tuesday evening, but when the penny dropped they dashed to Liberal HQ to fill in nomination forms in time for the midnight deadline, but only the Sydney team made it.

In one ward in Penrith, only five ALP nominations were received, and they will be duly elected; while on the Northern Beaches, the ground has been completely surrendered to independent group Your Northern Beaches and will cost the head of popular deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn.

The highly factionalised nature of the NSW branch, the evidence of local branch stacking and lobbyists moonlighting as party officials have all contributed to undermining the party’s standing within the electorate.

Heightening the stupidity of missing the deadline is the knowledge that political parties have used local government as a humidicrib for future high fliers.

The NSW Liberals have been struggling to attract suitable candidates for years without this latest self-inflicted wound. The administration’s incompetence has not only denied the party places at council tables but left supporters across the state without representation.

Such dereliction of duty is a disaster for democracy but raises the question: how can voters have confidence in the Liberals running NSW when it clearly cannot run itself?

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