Backroom deal infuriates conservative NSW Liberals

NSW Liberal members are furious after factional leaders agreed to a shadowy deal in a Zoom meeting.

A backroom factional deal designed to install Liberal candidates in a raft of vital NSW seats has incensed members of the party’s right faction. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Members of the NSW Liberal Party are furious after a shadowy backroom deal was agreed to by factional powerbrokers during a Zoom meeting on Saturday, saying the consequence of bypassing grassroots members will be felt at polling booths on election day.

With conservatives ostensibly represented at the factional meeting by Charles Perrottet, the brother of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, and Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney, the agreement has incensed members of the hard-right wing.

With plebiscites to be held in just three seats and NSW senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells facing a complicated preselection battle to retain the No. 3 Senate position, Liberal sources alleged the pair hadn’t consulted grassroots members and lacked the “weight of numbers” to agree on behalf of the conservative faction.

The deal could be in jeopardy before the ink has dried.

It requires 90 per cent of NSW State Executive to vote in favour, and The Australian understands only three votes are required to block the arrangement. Already, at least two members are indicating they are opposed.

After months of factional brinkmanship, Saturday’s midday meeting was arranged to try to overcome an impasse that has left a raft of vital seats across NSW without endorsed candidates just months out from the federal election.

The Zoom call included Scott Morrison’s chief fixer Yaron Finkelstein, centre-right leader Alex Hawke, the Immigration Minister, and moderate kingpins NSW Treasurer Matt Kean and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman.

The in-principle agreement included: endorsing incumbent MPs without preselections; PwC management consultant Alex Dore becoming the candidate for Hughes; selecting Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleeson, the Prime Minister’s preferred pick, as the Dobell candidate; and automatically endorsing Foreign Minister Marise Payne as No. 1 on the party’s NSW Senate ticket, leaving the No. 3 spot as the only “winnable” position up for preselection.

Ahead of a NSW State Executive meeting on Friday, amendments to the agreement are understood to be already being discussed. If successful, however, the arrangement would mean plebiscites occur in only three seats: Parramatta, Warringah and Bennelong.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells said any other process than ensuring there were preselection votes for both winnable Senate spots was in breach of the party’s constitution. “This ‘deal’ appears to be a curious and orchestrated strategy to deny grassroots members a say in selection of candidates for both the Senate and lower house seats,” she said.

A senior Liberal source said: “The membership aren’t going to accept this. Morrison and Hawke are going to be very busy on polling day. I’m not sure if they can cover 500 polling booths, because no one else will.”

Endorsement of Mr Dore’s candidacy comes despite Mr Morrison’s desire to have sitting NSW Liberal MP Melanie Gibbons endorsed. It is understood Mr Perrottet pushed back, fearing a by-election loss could put his government into minority.

Other Liberal sources suggested the deal was a sleight of hand designed to bring federal intervention into play. As previously reported, Mr Morrison has threatened a federal executive meeting with unprecedented use of special powers to let him override the preselection process and impose his own candidates in a raft of seats.