Furious Liberals fire up over Bradfield loss as internal anger brews

The fallout of a meeting of the NSW Liberal Women’s Council has revealed fury over the party’s narrow loss in Bradfield.

Furious Liberal members have claimed they were left short on volunteers and cash in crucial seats, including in Bradfield where they suffered a razor-thin loss, after local branches weren’t redistributed following a boundary shake-up in September.

It’s understood Tuesday’s meeting of the NSW Liberal Women’s Council involved multiple members expressing anger that Liberal branches weren’t shifted into new seats before May’s election, amid claims it delayed campaign organisers accessing lists of local Liberals.

It meant branches in the now defunct seat of North Sydney – which was abolished in September – weren’t allocated to Bradfield, Bennelong or Warringah, which swallowed up much of the area covered by abolished electorate.

Members claimed it delayed campaign organisers getting access to lists of local members, who could have been called upon in the lead up to the federal election to man booths and help with fundraising.

Liberal candidate for Bradfield, Gisele Kapterian, who has narrowly lost the seat. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

The blame has been laid at the feet of the three-person administration committee put in place in a federal takeover last year to shepherd the NSW Liberals through May’s election.

Anger is particularly white-hot within the party over Bradfield, after the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on Wednesday found Teal independent Nicolette Boele had beaten Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian by just 26 votes.

It’s also understood the Bradfield campaign missed out on a funding pot from the North Sydney electorate, worth about $53,000, with a chunk of funds sent instead to Warringah.

A Liberal Party spokesman defended the failure to redistribute branches across NSW before the election.

“Branch redistribution is a complex, detailed and incredibly labour intensive process, that under our Constitution can only be done all at once,” he said.

“So that local campaigns could hit the ground running, the NSW Liberal Administrative Committee promptly varied the guidelines to allow for relevant information to be provided to campaigns as it was required.”

A Liberal source took aim at the administration committee, saying failing to redistribute branches was “absolutely appalling”.

“It was a dereliction of duty – they agreed to take on this role to get NSW to win the federal election, and they didn’t do the basics,” they said.

Administrative committee members Richard Alston (left) and Alan Stockdale as they appeared in the online meeting on Tuesday night. Image: supplied

The Daily Telegraph revealed this week one of the members of the committee, former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale, had triggered fury among Liberal members after telling Tuesday’s Women’s Council meeting that women in the party had become so “assertive” they may have to introduce special rules ensure men could be preselected. Mr Stockdale later said it was “a lighthearted but poorly chosen remark” and he “intended no disrespect to anyone”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seized on the comments on Thursday.

“The statements by Mr Stockdale to the Liberal Women’s Group … that somehow you might need to actually have discrimination in favour of men because women were too assertive in the Liberal Party, has been met with derision by members of the Liberal Party … I think people just shake their heads (at the comments),” Mr Albanese said.

Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie implored Mr Stockdale to “read the room”, adding his remarks were “shocking”.

Originally published as Furious Liberals fire up over Bradfield loss as internal anger brews