Nicole Werner edges out Antionetta di Cosmo to win Liberal Party preselection in Warrandyte

The final round of the preselection was fought between two young women with immigrant heritage.

Nicole Werner, former state Liberal candidate for Box Hill.

A former Box Hill candidate, charity manager Nicole Ta-Ei Werner, the daughter of Malaysian-Chinese migrants, has been chosen by the Victorian Liberal Party to contest the state seat of Warrandyte, in a fight seen as a test of John Pesutto’s leadership.

More than 100 Liberal Party members convened on Sunday at the Heritage Golf and Country Club in Chirnside Park, on Melbourne’s outer northeastern fringe, to preselect a candidate.

Delegates chose from a field of nine, which included Ms Werner, 22-year-old law student Antonietta di Cosmo, a state rower and granddaughter of Italian migrants who is a staffer for retiring Warrandyte MP Ryan Smith, and former Institute of Public Affairs boss John Roskam.

Ms Werner and Mr Roskam were equal after the sixth round of voting, and a tie-breaker was won by Ms Werner, leaving her to battle with Ms di Cosmo in the final round, winning by 55 votes to 50.

Manningham councillor and maths teacher Andrew Conlon and former Pakenham Liberal candidate David Farrelly were knocked out in the first round of voting, followed by energy industry communications director Jemma Townson, a former staffer for Matthew Guy and Katie Allen.

A third round knocked out cancer campaigner and former John Howard staffer Allison Troth and prodigious fundraiser Jason McClintock, an IT company founder and former Eltham candidate, and a fourth round claimed former KPMG executive Sarah Overton. The preselection process lasted almost six hours from shortly after 1pm, with candidates spending 90 minutes rotating between roundtable forums, allowing delegates to ask questions of them. A further 90 minutes were devoted to candidate speeches.

Warrandyte Liberal preselection hopeful Antonietta di Cosmo.

Ms Werner lives just south of Warrandyte in Blackburn North, but grew up attending Chinese school in Doncaster East.

She has strong relationships across party factions, having launched her campaign for Box Hill last year with the support of both outspoken conservative upper house MP Bev McArthur and Pesutto ally and upper house deputy leader Matt Bach.

A relative newcomer to the Liberal Party, Ms Werner joined during the pandemic, while business development manager for the Empower Australia food relief centre, run by the charitable arm of the Planetshakers Pentecostalist church. She abandoned what was intended to be a six-week European holiday a fortnight in when news broke of Mr Smith’s retirement.

Former IPA executive director John Roskam.

Mr Smith holds the seat with a 4.2 per cent margin and has been a popular local member, making Liberals fearful of a repeat of the April federal by-election loss in Aston, just south of Warrandyte.

Senior Labor sources said the party would make a decision on whether to run a candidate after this weekend’s ALP state conference, with the by-election likely to be held in August or September.

Manningham councillor, serial independent candidate and shareholder activist Stephen Mayne was at the convention in his role as a Crikey journalist, and told The Australian he was considering running as an independent.