By Lucy Cormack
Loyal right-wing Liberal frontbencher Anthony Roberts will urge the party’s state executive to overhaul preselection and boost women’s representation within the year in a significant gesture to unify the party as he seeks support to become the next NSW opposition leader.
The outgoing planning minister is a potential frontrunner to replace Dominic Perrottet, with colleagues across factions considering him a reliable “placeholder” leader that can guide immediate reform of a party in crisis after its election loss.
Anthony Roberts, Alister Henskens and Mark Speakman are in the mix for NSW Liberal leader.Credit: NewsWire/Monique Harmer, Dean Sewell, Janie Barrett
Outgoing Sports Minister Alister Henskens, caretaker Attorney-General Mark Speakman and outgoing Environment Minister James Griffin have also been in the mix; however, Griffin pulled out of the race on Monday.
Recriminations within the party’s organisational wing have cascaded since Saturday’s poll revealed stunning swings away from the Liberals, prompting calls for a full-scale overhaul of the NSW Liberal Party constitution and its election strategy.
The Coalition has gone from holding 46 seats to 29, with eight still to be counted late Monday.
Treasurer Matt Kean on Sunday bowed out of the contest to replace Perrottet before it officially began, further fuelling speculation he will eventually attempt a switch to federal politics.
Speakman has also been suggested as a potential future contender for Scott Morrison’s federal seat of Cook if the former prime minister were to vacate the southern Sydney seat.
Asked about his leadership intentions on Monday, Speakman said he was looking forward to discussions with his colleagues to bolster “a strong, refreshed and energised team” ready to hold the new government to account.
“I’ll have more to say shortly,” he said in a statement.
Roberts, who plans to hold talks with state executive after consulting colleagues, will make his pitch for the leadership on a platform promising to bring the party’s factions back together, overhaul its candidate preselection strategy and design a policy platform to take to a 2027 election.
Central to the preselection process overhaul that he will call for is improving female representation within the party, ensuring preselectors better reflect their communities.
“There needs to be a complete revamp of the party structure. The party needs to renew itself,” Roberts told the Herald on Sunday. “We need someone to lead the party to iron out our differences. I’m happy to be the person that would deliver a clear way forward.”
Multiple senior Liberals, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said Roberts was a servant of the party who had the “factional imprimatur” to bring the party together and manage its renewal.
An outgoing senior Liberal minister said Roberts would be a strong contender because he has friends across the board, “left and right, Labor and Liberal. He’s very much a consensus politician”.
However, another senior Liberal insisted “Speakman is the only sensible choice. He should be the opposition leader.”
Outgoing environment minister James Griffin pulled out of the leadership race on Monday.Credit: James Brickwood
While Griffin said he spoke to colleagues about the leadership on Sunday, by Monday he confirmed he would not make a bid.
“The NSW Liberal leadership will be determined by the party room, and I’ll be enthusiastically supporting whoever that may be,” he said in a statement.
Party sources said the outgoing environment minister, who fought off a teal threat in his northern beaches seat of Manly, would be wasted leading the party in the shadow of defeat because his strength was more likely in electoral success.
“Whoever becomes the leader is not going to take us to the next election in four years, it’s a placeholder,” one senior Liberal MP said.
Henskens did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.
The outgoing sports minister was among senior Liberals acting as scrutineers overseeing the remaining vote counts on Monday, with a clutch of key seats still on a knife edge.
A number of Liberals contacted by the Herald on Monday said talk of the new leader was premature until all votes were counted, with one arguing “you can’t a discussion about who’s going to lead the party before you know who is in the party”.
The blame game for Saturday’s election result is in full swing within the NSW Liberal Party, with the organisational wing accused of fail to learn lessons from the federal campaign, which swept away historic grips on seats from the northern beaches to the south coast, as well as western Sydney.
The party’s inability to organise and preselect candidates that appropriately represented their communities has been held up as a key failing that contributed to the defeat.
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