Liberal Party factional clash looms over early preselection push

Liberal state president plans to defy Josh Frydenberg and state Opposition Leader over strategy.

Victorian Liberal Party president Robert Clark.

A factional clash is brewing in the Victorian Liberal Party as state president Robert Clark indicates he intends to persist with plans to hold preselections two years before the next federal election, defying the party's most senior Victorian Josh Frydenberg, all of his federal colleagues, and state Opposition Leader Michael O'Brien.

Mr Clark used his president's report at the weekend's party state council meeting in Ballarat to tell members he intends to open nominations for Liberal-held federal seats on January 15 next year and close them on January 29.
Presuming the government calls a concurrent half-Senate election, the next federal election will be held between August 2021 and July 2022.
Asked to respond to Mr Clark's plans, given his public opposition to them, Mr Frydenberg said he intended to "catch up with" Mr Clark.
"The position of the federal colleagues is very clear," Mr Frydenberg said.
"We’ll continue to have that discussion with Robert and the members of the administrative committee."

Every Victorian federal MP has signed a letter to Mr Clark asking him to reconsider.

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Asked whether a public rift between the state president and the most senior state and federal Victorian Liberal parliamentarians was a sign of deep factional divisions, Mr Frydenberg said there were "just differences of opinion" over timing.
"We’re all committed to those preselections, and because we’re a grassroots party ensuring that members get a vote," Mr Frydenberg said.

The Liberal Party’s most senior Victorian member, Josh Frydenberg. Picture: Kym Smith

The Weekend Australian understands factions associated with Mr Clark favour early preselections as a means of ousting veteran MP Kevin Andrews.

Critics of Mr Clark’s plan say it would leave any sitting Liberals MPs who lose preselection or choose to retire as “lame duck” MPs for at least two thirds of the parliamentary term, and mean any candidate currently working in a role which may constitute and “office of profit under the crown” would have to quit their job two years before the election.

Mr O’Brien denied that the dispute between Mr Clark and Mr Frydenberg showed the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party was crippled by factionalism.

“You know what? People of good conscience can have a genuine disagreement,” Mr O’Brien said.

“We can’t see everything through some sort of lens of it being something else.

“Both Robert and Josh are great people, great Liberals with great conscience, so this happens from time to time.

“I’m not going to get into it other than to note that past practice has always been state and federal parliamentary parties respect each other when it comes to these sorts of questions, and I’ve indicated to Josh that I’m happy to support the federal position on this.”

Asked whether the administrative wing of the party should follow his lead and respect the federal party, Mr O’Brien said he would “let other people” make those decisions.

“I’ve just flagged where I sit,” he said.

Victorian Liberal leader Michael O'Brien. Picture: AAP

Clark outlines January 2020 timeline for sitting federal Liberals to renominate

In his president's report, Mr Clark said the next 18 months would provide a "rare window of opportunity" to shape the party's future direction, given there is "no election likely before 2022 and we’ve worked through most of the organisational difficulties and challenges that we’ve faced since 2014."

He said one of his administrative committee's key strategic decisions had been the setting of timelines for Liberal-held lower house federal seats.

"Applications for endorsement will open on the 15th of January and close on the 29th of January, with any required preselections to follow," Mr Clark said.

"The administrative committee has also established a working group consisting of myself, the four vice presidents and the deputy federal leader of the party or nominee to consult widely on options for a timetable for holding the preselections for non Liberal-held house of representatives seats and for Liberal senate ticket positions.

"This hasn’t been an easy matter to make decisions on, and understandably there’ve been a range of views about it."

Mr Clark said a key factor affecting timing was the possibility of an Australian Electoral Commission redistribution, which could result in Victoria getting an additional seat due to population growth.

"In other words, do we have some or all preselections before a redistribution, and then have to make any required adjustments afterwards, or do we hold off the preselections until after any redistributed boundaries are known, and then have to cope with all the problems of late and rushed candidate selection, and miss out on all the advantages of having candidates in the field much earlier?" he said.

Mr Clark said the party's decision to hold off until after the AEC's redistribution ahead of the 2019 federal election had left some candidates in target seats with little time to build a profile.

"Perhaps the result for Indi (won by Independent Cathy McGowan successor Helen Haines) for example, could have been different if that candidate had been endorsed six months or a year earlier than he was," he said.

"On top of that of course as you’ll remember the delay last time created enormous pressures on finding and endorsing candidates for each of the remaining 19 Labor-held seats for which we did not have candidates."

Mr Clark said increased scrutiny of compliance with Section 44 of the constitution, "as well of course as the pervasiveness these days of candidates’ social media and other online records" had posed additional challenges.

"In my view and in the view of the administrative committee, we just can’t afford to have a repeat of the experience that we went through last time," he said.

"Potentially this time we could if we amended our constitution move to start preselections some time in the second quarter of 2021, based on proposed rather than final boundaries, but that would still only leave us three or four months better off at best, than the position we were in 2018."

Mr Clark said he had established a working group of administrative committee members to meet with federal parliamentarians "to talk through all aspects of the federal preselection process so everybody can be confident that these matters will be addressed before any preselection conventions are held."