Not Goodenough: Liberals defy Dutton on preselection
Party members in the seat of Moore, in Perth’s northern suburbs, voted 137-39 in favour of replacing Mr Goodenough with former MP Vince Connelly.
Liberal Party preselectors in Western Australia have emphatically rejected Peter Dutton’s call to save the party’s last Perth metropolitan MP, voting on Saturday to disendorse Ian Goodenough.
Party members in the seat of Moore, in Perth’s northern suburbs, voted 137-39 in favour of replacing Mr Goodenough with former MP Vince Connelly.
The Australian had previously revealed that Mr Dutton and his deputy Sussan Ley had written letters of support for Mr Goodenough, with Ms Ley arguing that retaining Mr Goodenough would best support Mr Dutton in winning the next election.
Mr Goodenough had lost much of his factional support base in recent years, amid concerns from some corners about his parliamentary performance and his slim prospects for promotion.
His defeat increases the prospects for Mr Goodenough to run for the seat as an independent in an effort to repeat the scenario that played out in Moore in 1996. In that instance, Paul Filing lost his Liberal preselection but went on to retain the seat as an independent.
Speaking to reporters after his defeat, a disappointed Mr Goodenough said he had not yet decided whether to stand as an independent.
“I will not make that decision without the benefit of a well-considered and careful-thought process,” he said.
But he warned of the potential for disunity in the party in the months ahead, noting reports suggesting that Mr Connelly had secured Moore through a three-way deal with influential party figures Simon Ehrenfeld and Colin and Cheryl Edwardes.
“I hope that that doesn’t result in civil war within the party,” he said.
Mr Goodenough would have ample capacity to run a campaign as an independent, given the resources at his disposal as an incumbent MP and his own healthy financial resources.
Mr Goodenough is the second incumbent Liberal to lose their seat in WA in the space of a week as the party prepares for back-to-back state and federal elections next year.
Last weekend, former state party leader David Honey lost the party’s nomination for the safe seat of Cottesloe to property development lobbyist Sandra Brewer.
WA is shaping up as a key battleground for the next federal election, with the fate of the five Liberal seats lost at the 2022 election likely to determine whether the Albanese government can hold on to power in its own right.
Ms Ley signalled the importance of WA in her letter of support for Mr Goodenough.
“We need strong, local candidates to bring a new energy in the seats we don’t hold, but we also need the incumbent members we do have in place to continue their work,” Ms Ley wrote in her reference.
“The last thing we can afford in a tight election is having to divert precious party resources to support new candidates in seats where we already have strong performers.”
Mr Connelly has been eyeing the seat of Moore ever since his previous seat of Stirling was abolished at the 2022 election. He unsuccessfully challenged Mr Goodenough ahead of that election, before going on to contest the seat of Cowan which was ultimately won by Labor’s Anne Aly.
He has since been serving as the chief executive of the WA arm of the RSL.
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