WA Liberals signing up for branches 100km away

At least five WA Liberal Party branches have been taken over by members living more than 100km away, in what insiders believe are clear cases of branch stacking.

At least five West Australian Liberal Party branches have been taken over by members living more than 100km away, in what party insiders believe are clear cases of branch stacking.

Liberal Party records, ­obtained by The Australian, ­detail how several branches on the outskirts of Perth have been infiltrated by members with no obvious connection to the area.

The leak comes as the party prepares to receive the findings of a review into the disastrous March state election, which left the Liberals holding just two of 59 lower-house seats. The findings of the review, which is understood to run to more than 70 pages, will be handed out following a meeting of the Liberal state council on Saturday and could set the stage for reform of the party’s systems and structure.

The membership records show branches that would have otherwise fallen dormant have been boosted by an influx from city-based members, who then fill office bearer positions that give them greater influence over the broader party’s inner workings.

The documents show that not one of the 17 members or six ­associate members listed as ­belonging to the Liberal branch for Bindoon, a country town one hour north of Perth, has an ­address in the area. Almost half of them instead give addresses from south of Perth’s Swan River, with one member listing an address in Rockingham, 137km away.

The man listed as the branch’s senior vice-president, secretary and treasurer has an address in the luxury coastal suburb of Cottesloe.

The party’s Lancelin branch does not have a single member living within 90km of the town. Its president, treasurer and one of its vice-presidents all appear to be part of the same family from Nedlands, in Perth’s wealthy western suburbs, while two other vice-presidents live in the southern suburb of Warnbro, 176km from Lancelin.

Those five office holders, ­according to the documents, all had their party memberships ­approved on the same day in June last year.

 

A membership list for the branch of Toodyay, another rural town an hour and a half northeast of Perth, shows that of 11 members and six associate members, only two are listed as living in Toodyay itself. The branch president lives in Alkimos, more than 100km away, while the two vice-presidents live in the wealthy Perth western suburbs of Nedlands and Floreat. According to the records, five of the branch’s 11 members formally became members on the same date in 2016. None of those five list an ­address anywhere near Toodyay.

Similarly, the Guilderton-Lancelin branch, representing a stretch of coastline two hours north of Perth, is led by a president and secretary who lives in the eastern Perth suburb of Kiara, 146km away. The four members listed as living in Lancelin and nearby Gabbadah and Eglington are vastly outnumbered by members and associate members from metropolitan addresses.

And a list of members for the party’s Bullsbrook branch – a semirural area to Perth’s north east – is dominated by members and associate members from metropolitan addresses. Only two of the 31 are listed as living in Bullsbrook.

The Liberal Party declined to answer questions about the memberships. “The WA Liberal Party respects our members’ privacy and doesn’t discuss their personal details with non-party members,” a spokesman said.

Rural branches of the Liberal Party only require a minimum of 15 active members, rather than the 30 person minimum for metropolitan branches. Insiders say this makes them easier to stack.

While Liberal Party rules prohibit branches in which more than 50 per cent of the members live outside the electorate from voting on local preselections, the office bearers for those branches still enjoy rights to participate in meetings of the state executive and state council.

It is those bodies that then control federal Senate preselections, as well as resolving internal party disputes and deciding on who will and won’t be admitted as members of the party.