Tony Abbott’s nemesis, Michael Photios, faces his own numbers deficit

Michael Photios. Picture: Kym Smith

Factional wars in the Liberal Party may not be new but they have never been as vicious as they are today.

Even if you go back to the bad old days of the Labor Left being run by Communist Party joint-ticket holders such as Arthur Gietzelt, it would have been unthinkable that a ministerial staffer from the Left would be chief heckler and leaker to the media at a meeting to endorse an unopposed candidate of the Right. Yet that is exactly what happened at a meeting called to endorse Tony Abbott as the Liberal candidate for Warringah, a seat he has represented for decades. In the bid to destroy Abbott the gloves are well and truly off.

The Photios faction sees it as its mission to get the former prime minister to quit politics.

Its efforts only seem to strengthen his determination to stay. Aided by allies in the Fairfax press, there has been a consistent thread in the public discourse — the numbers of the vote on the night in question were being kept secret because they were so close it would be highly embarrassing to Abbott.

When the numbers were revealed, Abbott was shown to have been absolutely spot on when he claimed it was roughly 70 votes to 30. The losers were exaggerating their support and a few mugs in the media fell for it.

Tony Abbott. Picture: AAP

Abbott has criticised the fact that lobbyists, and Michael Photios in particular, have far too much influence on the NSW branch of his party. If you meet Photios you will find him a charming, urbane bloke who could lay claim to an Olympic gold medal in networking.

While running the party and simultaneously running an extraordinarily successful lobbying firm, Photios has become a wealthy man. He brooks no opposition and managed to expel from the party a lifelong supporter in my Sky News colleague Ross Cameron, a former MP for Parramatta.

The Photios business model is truly fascinating. He can send in one of his troops to lobby a state minister or a federal minister from NSW and that minister knows that his or her preselection may well rest with that lobbyist’s boss. Just how much that fear would influence a minister we can only speculate, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it may count in the decision-making process.

Those companies that do hire Photios pay big bucks for the access and, they hope, the influence. The NSW government is at war with Acciona, the mob building the disastrous light rail, and which pays Photios to represent it. He has also signed up The Star casino, Transfield, Telstra, Sydney Airport, Suncorp, QIC, Merivale, Xstrata, Glencore and Caltex. You would be entitled to wonder why all these big outfits go to one place.

There is one problem with the Photios business model: it depends on a state Liberal government. Premier Gladys Berejiklian and two-thirds of the NSW cabinet are members of the Photios team. Given the terrible string of by-election results and the state of the polls, I am left wondering whether a Photios employee could ever gain entry to the office of the likely new premier, Luke Foley. Come March, methinks the days of wine and roses for one lobbying firm may well be over.