The Libs had a man with a plan to fix their problems. If only they’d told him

If we needed a further reminder of the Liberals’ woeful ability to carry out basic admin critical to the party’s functions, it was on full display again on Tuesday. As the NSW division of the party was spectacularly taken over by the federal arm after its failure to nominate 140 candidates in this month’s local government elections, a three-man committee was appointed to run the NSW Liberals: two elderly Victorians, and the much younger Rob Stokes, the only New South Welshman.

A hiccup to that plan, which had been voted on and accepted by the Liberal federal executive, was that no one bothered to ask Stokes. The first he heard of his new role was when he read the Herald’s story while away for work in New Zealand. Stokes was having none of it, and within an hour he had politely told the office of federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton that he was not available.

Who, me? Couldn’t be. Rob Stokes, a former NSW cabinet minister, was appointed to a committee to rescue the NSW division of the Liberal Party – without his knowledge.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Perhaps it was an administrative oversight, just like the one that saw the party miss a well-publicised deadline to nominate candidates for the council elections. Stokes, a former senior NSW cabinet minister, is still a respected figure on Macquarie Street. He is a clean skin, close to state Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, and he was Dutton’s personal choice to run in Mackellar in next year’s federal election. (Stokes also politely declined that offer.) Perhaps someone simply forgot to pick up the phone to call him?

The more likely theory, however, is that Stokes was there as “window dressing”, as one senior moderate Liberal swiftly described his appointment on Tuesday. Of the three-man panel, two were Victorian right-wingers. They are the former senator Richard Alston and the former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale, so Stokes’ moderate view was never going to prevail. Sceptics quickly joined the dots. The federal plan was a Dutton-led right-wing takeover of NSW, backed wholeheartedly by former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Aside from hailing from Victoria, where the Liberals have been locked in a brutal civil war for years, 82-year-old Alston and 79-year-old Stockdale – that’s a combined age of 161 – are curious picks to lead NSW out of its troubles and modernise a party that is also bitterly divided. “Old, white and right” was how they were labelled by one exasperated long-serving senior Liberal operative. Dutton used the more genteel descriptor, “council of wise elders”.

In what has become a defining characteristic of the Liberals, there was no attempt at gender diversity on the committee. Instead, the party’s so-called women’s problem continues despite repeated warnings and even an election loss, as the Morrison government learnt in 2022.

Charlotte Mortlock, who runs the Coalition’s women’s advocacy group Hilma’s Network, is dismayed. “It is imperative that a woman is added to the committee,” Mortlock says. “Not including any women sends a bad message to female members and voters, and would be a gross oversight in what is supposed to be a constructive intervention.”

The Liberal Party has many capable women. Obvious names would be former NSW Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski, former senator and communications minister Helen Coonan or recently retired senator Marise Payne.

While the moderates in NSW, the largest faction in the state, are furious at what they see as a politically motivated takeover of the party by the right, a harsh reality exists. The NSW Liberals have been in freefall for years. They only managed to paper over the emerging cracks and run successful election campaigns until the divisions became too deep and too damaging.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull once claimed that factions did not exist in the Liberal Party. Nothing could be further from the truth. A highly experienced Liberal campaigner says NSW’s problems are simple. “They are 100 per cent focused on fighting each other,” the seasoned party figure says. “There are people in the NSW Liberal Party who would rather stay in opposition than see a factional opponent win a seat.”

Dutton would not have cared much about NSW’s council-nomination debacle. He would, however, care that if the NSW division could not manage the simple task of lodging nomination forms, it was highly unlikely to be in a position to help win a federal election. The moderates, led by the godfather of the faction, Don Harwin, can accuse Dutton of political opportunism all they like, but the recent track record of the NSW division speaks for itself.

The NSW Liberals need a major overhaul and, with a looming federal election, Dutton could not afford to take any risks with a party that was not up to the job. But in taking the first steps to clean up the party, he has faltered at the first hurdle.

To allay fears that he is purely trying to oust his factional opponents, Dutton should rethink the makeup of the committee imposed on NSW. That must include a woman, preferably one who has been consulted on her appointment before it is publicly announced.

Alexandra Smith is state political editor.