Looming NSW Liberal leadership decision risks ‘utter annihilation’

Sussan Ley’s latest internal party test risks bleeding the membership of the NSW state branch, members warn, saying timing could not be worse after their electoral flogging.

Administrative committee members Richard Alston, left, and Alan Stockdale at a meeting where Mr Stockdale said Liberal women had become ‘sufficiently assertive’, inviting widespread condemnation.

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NSW Liberal Party members fear any change to the party’s appointed state leadership so soon after the federal election rout could risk “annihilation” and accelerate its haemorrhaging membership.

The Liberals’ federal executive will next week make a decision on the future of an administrative council parachuted in last September to repair the state branch after it failed to nominate 144 local government election can­didates.

The decision will be another test of Sussan Ley’s knack for navigating internal party diplomacy after her federal leadership contest and the short-lived rupture of the ­Coalition agreement. Should she and the executive decide to do away with the state administration, the state branch would return to its own devices on June 30.

The three-headed council of Liberal elders is made up of former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale, former NSW MP Peta Seaton and former Victorian senator Richard Alston.

Appointed to stabilise the party across 10 months, after the election it began shoring up support to try to secure an extension of its term and complete a review of the party constitution.

Deciding the future of the NSW Liberal Party is the latest in a string of sensitive internal negotiations Sussan Ley has had to navigate. Picture: Martin Ollman

These lobbying efforts were derailed after an off-colour joke by Mr Stockdale that Liberal women had become “sufficiently assertive” went public last week and provoked widespread condemnation.

Despite critics pouncing on the remarks, former Labor president and Liberal candidate Warren Mundine urged the party to stay the course, arguing there would be no chance at constitutional reform of the party should the administration lapse.

“It is going to be the most critical decision of the NSW Liberal Party in decades, and if they get it wrong there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of members just about to walk away from the party,” he told The Australian.

“There’s a lot of work still needs to be done. There has to be a constitutional change and a cultural change within the NSW Liberal Party.

“We need to get more members back into the party, because unlike the Labor Party, we don’t have the unions. They can just stand there and send 200 people to one polling booth and 200 to another. The Liberal Party has not got that luxury … we need the volunteers and the people that turn up, we need to treat them decently, and we need to build the numbers.”

Party membership statistics are a closely guarded secret within Liberal branches, but Mr Stockdale – speaking on behalf of the administrative panel in the Australian Financial Review – gave a glimpse at the party’s dwindling fortunes.

Senior Liberal figure Warren Mundine. Picture: Thomas Lisson

He said 4500 party faithfuls had allowed their memberships to lapse in recent years while another 608 applicants were refused membership, which he attributed to branch stacking.

A moderate Liberal in support of the administration, who did not wish to be identified, told The Australian the timing of the extension decision so soon after the party’s federal election wipeout could also have a calamitous effect on membership.

“You couldn’t have picked a worse time to try and resolve this. Regardless of the stupid comments out of Stockdale, someone at arm’s length from all this needs to take charge in terms of constitutional reform so that you de-fang the factions, and that now is likely lost,” they said.

“We’ve been very stupid and with everything that’s happening right now, there’ll be a lot of ­people who will not renew their party memberships if they have this explosion next week. The party’s become an organisation that is not renewing, will not renew and is incapable of renewal.”

The anonymous Liberal said policy, membership and structural decisions made in coming months would decide whether the party would skirt past or sink into “political oblivion”.

“We’ve only got six (federal MPs) in NSW, and we’re staring down a landslide defeat at a state level unless something drastically changes. The warnings are pretty ominous,” they said.

“The place is a dumpster fire.

“The party’s been in the doldrums before, I accept that, but … it is seriously running the risk – because of the personalities ­involved – of complete and utter annihilation.”

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman went into damage control after the federal election, publicly differentiating state policies from Peter Dutton’s election platform, yet party members remained concerned for the 2027 state campaign.

“You’ve got a moribund party,” one moderate said. (Mr Speakman’s) risk is losing all the furniture. There are several seats with very, very, very tight margins.”

A factionally unaligned Liberal source feared an end to administration would return an identical, cumbersome state executive that would leave the state branch prone to administrative failures.

“They have to keep the administration in place. If they don’t, we’re going to end up with what we had when we lost 140 candidates for local government, because those people will come back,” the source said.

“These players couldn’t sell a raffle ticket in a pub, but they’re not interested in that. All they’re interested in is their own power base.

“I’ve seen people being undermined and underfunded because of factional fights … We had some brilliant candidates in the federal election campaign, and they were just wiped off the face of the earth.

“The Labor Party has brutal battles as well, let’s not kid ourselves, but they have structures there that mean they are able not to do the massive damage that the Liberals are doing.”

The NSW Liberal Party was contacted for comment.