Daisy Turnbull spurns Dominic Perrottet’s pitch to enter politics

NSW Premier fails to convince Malcolm Turnbull’s daughter to run for the Labor-held seat of Coogee.

Daisy Turnbull’s refusal to campaign for Coogee has seen the electorate in eastern Sydney fall off the list of Coalition target seats.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has failed to convince Daisy Turnbull, daughter of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, to run for the Labor-held seat of Coogee, but ALP leader Chris Minns’ ­Kogarah seat is on a Coalition hit-list for the March poll.

Bad internal polling in Coogee, held by Labor’s Marjorie O’Neill, has deflated the Liberal Party’s ability to attract the high-profile talent needed to challenge for the once-considered winnable seat in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: David Swift

A Liberal insider said Ms Turnbull’s decision to pull out earlier this year had, in conjunction with other factors, seen the seat fall off the list of Coalition target seats.

The NSW state executive voted to open nominations for seats across the state on Friday in an effort to ensure Liberal candidates nominated have significant time to gain a community profile.

A raft of other seats have been identified as key by Liberal strategists, including Mr Minns’ seat, the recently established electorate of Leppington, Londonderry and The Entrance, along with Bega and Strathfield, both claimed by Labor in February by-elections.

A senior Liberal MP said the party had lined up strong candidates in Gosford and Wyong – on the central coast – and was confident about the party’s chances of taking those seats.

However, a Liberal insider questioned the party’s prospects, pointing to Leppington – created as part of the NSW Electoral Commission’s redistribution, and notionally a Labor seat that takes in parts of Liverpool, Camden, Macquarie Field and Campbelltown in the city’s western suburbs – as the only seat with a good chance of being won by the ­Coalition.

Kogarah, the source said, was virtually impossible given Mr Minns’ profile as leader and the Chinese diaspora’s widespread movement away from the Liberal Party during the federal election.

Bega and Strathfield, won by Michael Holland and Jason Yat-Sen Li, respectively, were unlikely to be reclaimed.

Coogee MP Marjorie O'Neill. Picture: AAP

In Sydney’s south, the seat of Heathcote was identified as a target for the Coalition, despite being won by Liberal MP Lee Evans in 2019 on a 5 per cent margin. The redistribution has transformed the electorate into a notionally Labor-held seat.

Ms Turnbull – director of wellbeing at St Catherine’s School in Waverley – had considered the idea since being approached in early 2021, but ultimately decided against a tilt for the ultra-marginal seat, held on a 1.64 per cent buffer. She had been a “hard no” since January, Liberal sources said.

Media personality Kellie ­Sloane has also resisted the party’s overtures in Coogee.

According to NSW Liberal ­insiders, Ms Sloane did not believe she was a good fit for the seat, ­instead pointing to the seats of Vaucluse and North Sydney – held by Liberal MPs Gabrielle Upton and Felicity Wilson – as more suitable.

Ms Sloane lost her bid in January to become the party’s candidate at the Willoughby by-election, being defeated by conservative Tim James in a ­Liberal Party preselection ballot. A Liberal insider pointed to Randwick city councillor Christie Hamilton and Luke Coleman, a former staffer to Liberal minister Mitch Fifield, as potentially strong candidates who had expressed interest in running against Dr O’Neill.

A Labor source said the party had a list of “around 20” seats on its wish list which was likely to be refined over the next three months, before being finalised in September or October.

The notionally Labor Leppington and Heathcote were identified, as were deputy Liberal leader Stuart Ayres’s seat of Penrith, and Parramatta held by Corrections Minister Geoff Lee.