Developer Nigel Satterley digs in for Liberal membership fight

Perth property developer Nigel Satterley has vowed not to give up his membership of the WA Liberal Party without a fight.

Perth property developer Nigel Satterley. Picture: Colin Murty

Millionaire Perth property developer Nigel Satterley has vowed not to give up his membership of the WA Liberal Party without a fight, after he was formally notified of the expulsion proceedings against him.

Mr Satterley, who has built an estimated $540m fortune on the back of his namesake company, revealed he has enlisted leading Perth lawyer Steven Penglis SC to run his defence when he faces the party’s internal disciplinary committee in coming months.

He has been a vocal critic of what he describes as the excessive influence over the party by ­religious conservatives, having taken repeated pot shots at the party and some of its senior figures since the final days of Colin Barnett’s premiership in 2017.

At the same time, he has become an increasingly prominent supporter of WA’s Labor premier Mark McGowan and during the most recent federal election campaign hosted a meet-and-greet for teal independent Kate Chaney during her successful run for the blue ribbon seat of Curtin.

Liberal Party delegates last month voted strongly in favour of pushing ahead with the expulsion proceedings against Mr Satterley, with the party sending him formal notice of the move last week.

Mr Satterley told The Australian he still wanted to be part of the WA Liberal Party and wanted to help it once again become a political force in the state.

Achieving that, he said, would require the party to reduce the influence held over it by the conservative faction known as The Clan, after the name of a leaked WhatsApp chat group led by former finance minister Mathias Cormann and current state MPs Nick Goiran and Peter Collier.

He said more people needed to step forward and hold the party’s leadership accountable.

“It is clear to me that an insular minority within the party currently holds sway with a narrow world view out of step with our more secular, inclusive, and diverse community, and the issues that are most important,” he said.

The Clan messages came to light after the party was reduced to just two lower house seats at the 2021 state election. It also retained just five federal seats in WA in the May election after winning 11 in 2019.

The WA party has announced some structural reforms since then, most notably introducing plebiscites for lower-house seats, but critics from the Liberal Reform Coalition have argued the changes do not go far enough.

Mr Satterley said the health of WA’s democracy was at stake if the Liberal Party did not change.

“Even a popular government needs a healthy opposition to act as a check and balance on how it uses its power,” he said.

“At its heart, a political party needs to balance the wider aspirations of society with the varied personal beliefs of individuals and not be beholden to the views of a particular few that have co-opted the machinery of a once respected party to their own ends.”

Mr Satterley’s criticisms of the party had been largely ignored, but some within the party believe it ultimately had no choice but to take action given it would have looked weak to not respond.

Property developers in other states are explicitly barred from engaging with politicians in the way Mr Satterley does in WA, but he said he had never benefited from his political engagements.

“I have an interest in supporting good people,” he added.