Legal challenge may hit Liberal candidates

The validity of Liberal candidates in 12 seats across NSW could be plunged into uncertainty during the election campaign if a legal challenge is successful.

Scott Morrison in Canberra on Wednesday. Picture: Adam Taylor

The validity of Liberal candidates in 12 seats across NSW could be plunged into uncertainty during the election campaign if a legal challenge seeking to overturn the endorsement of three sitting Coalition MPs is successful, according to an affidavit filed by legal representatives for Scott Morrison.

Late on Tuesday night, the Prime Minister’s legal team made an unsuccessful application to expedite the legal challenge to the High Court. The NSW Supreme Court directed the case to be heard by a full bench on the Court of Appeal on Friday morning.

Liberal sources said the determination represented a loss for the Prime Minister’s legal representatives, claiming the attempt to shift the case to the nation’s highest court was an effort to delay any final ruling beyond the election.

The impending case hinges on the March 4 decision by the Liberal federal executive to temporarily dissolve the party’s NSW division, installing a committee to endorse Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman.

Legal representatives for NSW Liberal Party state executive member Matt Camenzuli assert the committee – comprising Mr Morrison, Premier Dominic Perrottet and former federal president Christine McDiven – is “invalid”, arguing its endorsement of the sitting MPs is in breach of the NSW Liberal Party’s constitution.

In court documents filed by Mr Morrison’s counsel late Tuesday, solicitor John Howard said that if successful the case brought by Mr Camenzuli could be broadened to include nine additional seats yet to be decided by the reappointed committee, including the battleground electorates of Hughes, Eden-Monaro and Parramatta.

“If this were to concur there would be a total of potentially 12 party candidates for election in 12 separate seats whose candidacy was being challenged prior to the federal election, giving neither the candidates nor the party, nor the electorate any certainty as to the validity of the candidate’s selection and endorsement,” Mr Howard’s correspondence reads.

The ongoing legal stoush came amid intensifying party anger about the decision to cancel preselections. In an incendiary speech on Tuesday night, NSW senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells accused Mr Morrison of being an “autocrat” who was “trampling the rights” of party members.

“He and his conciliator Alex Hawke have deliberately contrived a crisis in New South Wales through a year of delays in not having selections,” she said.

NSW senator Andrew Bragg also lashed out at the actors who had “debased and twisted” the party’s constitution, seemingly a thinly veiled reference towards Mr Hawke and factional powerbrokers who have allegedly worked to prevent preselections.

“As you know, I have argued strongly for a preselection to be held in Warringah but sadly that has been thwarted by a small cabal which has sought to turn our great party into a closed shop,” he said in correspondence obtained by The Australian, as he called for structural reform of the division’s constitution.

In an email sent to the NSW state executive on Wednesday, the Sutherland Liberal branch – part of the Hughes electorate and close to Mr Morrison’s seat of Cook – moved a motion of no confidence in Mr Hawke, as they lashed the party’s decision to parachute a candidate into the seat.