Legal threat latest blow to WA Liberals

An attempt by a breakaway group of Liberal Party elders to gain access to the party’s membership list in Western Australia has soured.

Former WA Liberal Party president Norman Moore. Picture: AAP

An attempt by a breakaway group of Liberal Party elders to gain access to the party’s membership list in Western Australia has soured, potentially putting the party on track for a messy legal challenge.

Norman Moore, a former state president who spent 36 years in the WA parliament, is expected to receive a heavily watered-down version of the party’s membership register in the coming week after lodging an application under a little-known clause of WA’s Associations Incorporations Act last month.

The exact format the register will take is still to be confirmed, but a ruling by the chairman of the party’s Constitutional and Drafting Committee, lawyer Tim Houweling, in recent days has advised the bare minimum amount of information should be handed over. That would include only the first name of members, and the opportunity to contact them through either the “Libmail” system used by the party for mass email correspondence, or through letters addressed to party headquarters rather than home addresses.

In a document obtained by The Australian, Mr Houweling wrote that Mr Moore’s request caused a “strong backlash” from party members concerned about privacy and safety. He also said the former party president was seeking to “thwart” the proposed changes – developed in recent months by a dedicated reform committee – to be considered when the party meets this month.

“Promoting amendments of the constitution outside of the legitimate process, and therefore not validly and properly before state conference, following a failure to be involved in the legitimate reform process, could only destabilise the party and the reforms that are properly before state conference,” he wrote.

In terse correspondence between Mr Moore and party state director Stuart Smith, also obtained by The Australian, the former MP warned he could take legal action if his application was refused or delayed.

“You are required under the Act to provide the register,” Mr Moore wrote. “If you choose not to do so, or delay your response in an unreasonable way, then I will have no option other than to refer the matter to the State Administrative Tribunal or the relevant department.”

Mr Moore has been a central figure in the formation of the group calling itself the Liberal Reform Coalition. The group wants to see sweeping changes to the party that it hopes will curtail the influence of perceived powerbrokers and reduce the risk of manipulation of the party’s internal mechanisms.

The group is championing the proposals put forward last year by party stalwart Danielle Blain and Perth lawyer Mark Trowell in their scathing internal review of the party’s disastrous 2021 state election, in which it was reduced to just two lower house seats.

Mr Moore and other LRC members want the review’s recommended changes implemented, rather than what they say are the far more modest constitutional amendments to go before the state conference this month.

In his decision, Mr Houweling wrote that Mr Moore’s request was arguably designed to “disrupt the processes” of the party. The request for the register, he wrote, was not in connection with the affairs of the party as required under the law but instead connected to the affairs of Mr Moore and his supporters.

“Mr Moore now wishes to urge reform as recommended in the review report into the 2021 election, however, events of the party have moved on,” he wrote.

The fracas will only add to the existing deep tensions inside the WA Liberal Party at the upcoming state conference.