When it rains it pours, and right now it feels like the NSW Liberal Party is drowning

In the lead-up to Saturday’s byelection in Pittwater and in its immediate aftermath, Liberal Party insiders kept recounting the same experience on polling booths in the insular peninsula: no one wanted to talk to them.

Not in an angry, brickbats-out type of way, either. It was colder than that. Said one MP: “It was just quiet. It felt like they looked at us and were just, like, ‘nope’.”

Despite a strong showing from candidate Georgia Ryburn, the NSW Liberal Party lost another blue-ribbon seat in Pittwater.Credit: Steven Siewert

Which is not overly surprising when you consider the context in which the byelection took place, following the resignation of first-term Liberal MP Rory Amon after he was charged with child sex offences. He denies the allegations and intends to fight them. Despite Liberal candidate Georgia Ryburn mounting a strong campaign, it’s difficult to think of a less appealing context in which to have to ask people to vote for you.

Couple it with the decision by Labor and the Greens not to contest the vote, that we are not quite halfway through the first term of a new government, and the easy holds in the other two byelections in Epping and Hornsby, and losing Pittwater is not the end of the world.

But when it rains it pours and right now, it feels like the NSW Liberal Party is drowning. Amon’s resignation was bookended by the council nominations fiasco, which led to state director Richard Shields’ sacking and the federal takeover of the division. Another loss – the first byelection that an opposition has lost in NSW since 2005, according to election analyst Kevin Bonham – feels like just the latest in a series of blows for a party that is deep in the doldrums.

“We needed this like a hole in the head,” another MP said on Sunday.

The most interesting part of this byelection, though, is what it means for Liberal leader Mark Speakman, for whom the second half of 2024 has oscillated between horror and vaudeville.

Besides Amon and the nominations saga, there have been a series of tests to his authority including the embarrassing theatre of 2GB host Ray Hadley reading out text messages from a member of his shadow cabinet, Alister Henskens, appearing to criticise his judgement.

Add to that the bizarre blow up with Coalition partner the Nationals after one of its MPs, Wes Fang, publicly attacked Speakman for the sin of travelling to the Riverina (where Fang is from) without telling him, and you start to get the vibe that this is not a group of people exactly banging down the door to form a government.

All of this is arguably not Speakman’s fault. It’s also far enough away from the election in 2027 that most voters will either not notice it at all or have forgotten it by the time they have to cast a ballot.

But as we approach the halfway point of this term in government, the overriding feeling coming from the Coalition is drift. The most recent Resolve Political Monitor conducted for the Herald had Labor’s primary vote growing for the first time this year, and many Liberal insiders say they are struggling to comprehend what the Coalition leadership’s strategy is.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.Credit: Kate Geraghty, Alex Ellinghausen

As an example, on one sitting day last week the Coalition used parliament’s question time to ask Labor about Palestinian protests, illegal tobacco, domestic violence, immigration, and 24-hour Metro services.

In other words, they still haven’t figured out what their criticism of the Minns government is. That is not necessarily a reason to panic yet, but if things have not changed by the midway point of the term in March the drums for change will start to beat louder.

Scruby’s win means NSW parliament now has the second-largest crossbench in the state’s history, and only one fewer independent than the entire Nationals in the lower house. It feels significant that the majority of those independents are in seats traditionally held by the Coalition, and Scruby’s victory is also a warning to Liberals who had hoped the teal movement had reached its high watermark.

In some ways, it is surprising that morale should be at such a low ebb. Labor is only governing in minority in NSW, and the resurgence of their federal counterparts should show the Liberals it is possible to quickly correct course. The next election should, hypothetically, be winnable.

But 2027 could also cement them in opposition for a decade because so many Liberals seats are now ultra-marginal after the 2023 election.

The party room is not clamouring for Speakman’s head because of Pittwater, but there is growing concern he is not helping them correct course, and if things don’t improve, the loss of a blue-ribbon Liberal seat – no matter how trying the circumstances – will certainly be used as evidence for the need to change.

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