Backing for sitting NSW Liberal MPs ‘invalid’

The Liberal federal executive’s appointment of a committee to endorse Scott Morrison’s three senior MPs is ‘invalid’ and has breached the party’s constitution, legal documents allege.

Scott Morrison. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

The Liberal federal executive’s appointment of a committee to endorse Scott Morrison’s three senior MPs is “invalid” and breaches the party’s constitution, legal documents filed with the NSW Supreme Court say.

Scheduled for Thursday, the hearing will commence just days after the contested committee – comprising the Prime Minister, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and former federal Liberal president Christine McDiven – was reappointed on Sunday to install candidates in a raft of NSW seats.

On March 4, the federal executive appointed the committee for 72 hours to endorse Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman, who were all facing preselection challenges in their respective seats.

The spectre of a legal stoush comes amid lingering uncertainty about Liberal candidates in several vital seats.

On Monday, NSW Transport Minister David Elliott surprised the party by deciding against nominating for the federal seat of Parramatta. Less than 24 hours after reports emerged he was considering a tilt, he reportedly told colleagues he did not want to commute to Canberra, given his wife’s battle with breast cancer.

Western Sydney’s Parramatta is held by Labor on a 3.5 per cent margin, but the ALP is yet to select a candidate to replace retiring MP Julie Owens.

On Monday afternoon, hours before preselections were set to go ahead, the Liberal Party officially notified the Parramatta and Eden-Monaro conferences they would in fact be cancelled.

The decision opens the door to parachute in the preferred candidates of Mr Morrison and the committee.

Factional infighting has paralysed the NSW Liberal Party, leaving a clutch of winnable seats without candidates just weeks out from the federal election.

Brought by state executive urban representative Matt Camenzuli, the challenge will argue that the appointed committee has no legal recourse to appoint or endorse candidates, despite the Liberal federal executive’s decision to temporarily dissolve the NSW division on March 4.

“The words at the foot of cl 12.3(b) of the federal constitution make clear that neither the federal executive nor an administrator or committee appointed by them shall have the power to amend a divisional constitution,” written submissions read. “It follows that those resolutions were not effective to endorse any person as the Liberal candidate.”

Mr Morrison has been named as the first of eight defendants in the case. Because the Liberal Party is an unincorporated association, Mr Camenzuli is suing the committee members.

In court documents seen by The Australian, legal representatives for Mr Morrison, Mr Perrottet and Ms McDiven assert the committee has the authority to select and endorse candidates “It is likely to be impracticable for the … selection and endorsement of candidates under the NSW constitution to occur prior to any federal election,” they said.

The legal challenge comes with consternation rippling through the party’s grassroots. Reports have emerged that Mr Hawke was booed on stage by party delegates as he spoke ahead of the Liberal Party’s Senate preselection voting on Saturday.

In Ms Ley’s seat of Farrer, the Deniliquin Liberal branch moved a motion criticising the “poor ­action” of Mr Morrison to “bypass the rights” of local members to install a candidate and condemned an “absence of leader­ship” by NSW president Philip Ruddock and state director Chris Stone.

In Queensland, the Liberal National Party picked a political unknown to tackle Labor incumbent Anika Wells in the state’s most marginal electorate. Party members chose human relations worker Vivian Lobo after the previous candidate, Ryan Shaw, withdrew last month citing mental health concerns.

Additional reporting: Charlie Peel