‘Impropriety probe’ key to ending WA Liberals’ woes

Liberal senator Dean Smith has called on the troubled WA arm of the Liberal Party to investigate alleged impropriety by some of its members.

Sky News commentator Caroline Di Russo.

Liberal senator Dean Smith has called on the troubled West Australian arm of the Liberal Party to investigate alleged impropriety by some of its members, ahead of what promises to be a fiery state conference in Perth this weekend.

Senator Smith blamed a lack of action on internal issues identified in a review of the disastrous 2021 WA state election for the party’s worst federal result in the state since 1946 at the May poll.

He said calls for reforms had been frustrated and an inquiry into unethical membership behaviour had been “whitewashed”.

“Revelations of illegal cash reimbursements using Liberal Party funds that were exposed by a 2021 state election review have gone unaddressed,” he said.

This weekend’s conference, Senator Smith said, was the most important in the party’s history. The “watered down” plebiscite model being put to members needed to be the start, not the end, of the reform process.

“Greater transparency and accountability over the party’s finances, the quick and thorough investigation of financial and membership impropriety, and disciplining unethical behaviour must be done without fear or favour,” he said.

“This will restore business and donor confidence that the party can manage our affairs credibly.”

The conference will also see members vote on party appointments, with the challenger for the WA Liberal presidency painting this weekend’s vote as a referendum on The Clan, a group of conservative powerbrokers.

In letters sent to delegates and obtained by The Weekend Australian, the sole challenger to Richard Wilson’s presidency, James McLagan, said if elected he would withdraw the membership of “false flag Clan contributors and associates”. Mr McLagan, considered a rank outsider to win, said The Clan was to blame for the party’s current crisis.

The Clan, he said, comprised “political dills that exercise stupidity and poor political judgment”, and had delivered unelectable candidates and MPs who would “struggle for employment outside parliament”. “The results of the 2017 and 2021 WA state elections and the 2022 federal election are a result of Clan stewardship of the WA state Liberal Party,” he wrote.

“The Clan have made the Western Australian Liberal Party a laughing stock.”

The group of conservative WA powerbrokers, including former senator Mathias Cormann and current upper house MPs Nick Goiran and Peter Collier, has become known as The Clan since a cache of WhatsApp messages was leaked to The Australian last year. The group, which discussed how to secure preselections and party positions for their allies, called itself The Clan in those messages.

But Mr Wilson has also moved to distance himself from the clique, throwing his weight behind two non-Clan candidates – including Sky News commentator Caroline Di Russo – for the party’s vice-presidency. In his letter to the party faithful, he said his constitutional amendments would limit factional behaviour, allow for the selection of the best candidates, and show the party is intent on stamping out branch stacking.

“We are at the lowest point in our party’s history. We need to take decisive action to reset the Liberal Party’s direction and win back the support of voters,” he wrote.

Mr Wilson also took the unusual step of singling out two candidates for vice-presidency, Ms Di Russo and Adam Santa Maria, as having the experience and capability to help overcome the party’s issues.

The endorsement has been seen as a snub of incumbent vice-presidents, Clan-aligned Phil Turtle and Paul Connelly. Some in The Clan see it as contradictory to Mr Wilson’s efforts to stamp out perceived excessive influence over party appointments.