Craig Kelly row ‘risks split in NSW Libs’

Moves to oust sitting NSW Liberal Craig Kelly risk a statewide split in the party.

Liberal MP for Hughes Craig Kelly on the Woronora River in Sydney’s south. Picture: Britta Campion

Moves to oust sitting NSW ­Liberal Craig Kelly risk a statewide split in the party, with branches in his southern Sydney seat of Hughes warning they will back him as an independent candidate if he fails to win preselection.

After a week of damaging infighting over NSW preselections, the Sutherland branch secretary in Hughes warned that a challenge to Mr Kelly from the moderate faction’s Kent Johns would set the conservative landscape across the state on fire.

Anne Easby said branch members were “incensed” that Mr Kelly’s position appeared to be under threat and accused the Left faction of trying to “hijack the party and pursue a more ‘progressive’ path” at a time when many Liberal supporters were still “angry about the Turnbull coup”. “The replacement of conservative MPs by factions of the Liberal Party would be like a lightning rod to all disaffected conservative Liberal Party members and voters — not just those in Hughes,” Ms Easby said.

“These people are looking for alternative parties to vote for, and if sitting MPs like Craig or Angus Taylor (the member for Hume) are removed and replaced by others chosen by factions, the result will be the same as throwing petrol on a fire. Conservative voters do not support backroom deals.”

Ms Easby warned that some of the seven Hughes branches would back Mr Kelly if ousted by the moderates and support him if he chose to run as an independent or as a Nationals MP.

Mr Johns, a vice-president of the party, defected from Labor in 2002 after reporting corruption at Rockdale City Council to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

In 2004, he was elected as a Liberal to the neighbouring Suther­land Shire Council.

Friends of Mr Kelly also told The Weekend Australian that he had informed them as recently as yesterday that he was leaving “open the option” of running as an independent. He will only consider running as an independent if he fails to win preselection for Hughes­, which he holds on a margin­ of 12 per cent following the recent electoral redistribution.

“I’ve had hundreds of emails, calls and messages through social media to run as an independent,” Mr Kelly said. “But it is my intention to run as the endorsed Liberal member. I’m a team player. If there was a challenge, I’d be more than happy to stand on my record as a strong local MP ... I have enormous support on the ground.”

He said he believed he had the support of Malcolm ­Turnbull.

Sources in Hughes said that about half the preselection panel for the seat was likely to be composed of local branch delegates. The rest would be drawn from a random selection of state council delegates, plus a smaller number of state executive members.

Preselection panel sizes vary depending upon the number of financ­ial members within a seat, and MPs in metropolitan electorates can boost their local representation on preselection panels if they oversee an increase in overall Liberal members within the seat.

Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sino­dinos has become the most senior figure to back an overhaul of the preselection process since the latest round of in-fighting erupted. Speaking on Thursday night, he proposed throwing open the recommendations of an expert panel report chaired by John Howard to a vote by the entire membership of the NSW party.

The Howard panel report called for rank-and-file plebiscites to preselect candidates in the House of Representatives and the Legislative Assembly, in a bid to reduce the power of the state executive and the factions in preselection decisions.

“I support the Howard report of last year, which was an attempt to create a new, broader-based system for preselections in NSW,” Senator Sinodinos told Sky News.

“Ultimately, what I would like to see is the whole membership of the Liberal Party in NSW have a vote on the Howard report.”

While the proposal — backed by former prime minister Tony Abbott — was not embraced at last year’s state council meeting, a compromise was engineered by NSW Premier Mike Baird to allow a trial of the proposed plebis­cite model.

Under the deal, one plebiscite was to be brought forward to this year’s federal election preselection process in a key marginal Labor-held seat while two more are to be held ahead of the following federal election and three for the 2019 state poll.

“I’m looking forward to when we can adopt it on a full basis,” Senator Sinodinos said. “Because I think, ultimately, it is important that we encourage everybody who joins the Liberal Party to feel they can have a vote in a preselection.”