‘Shocked, gutted, in disbelief’: Liberal blame game erupts over council catastrophe

A desperate blame game has erupted between the NSW Liberal Party’s state director and president over the stunning failure to nominate as many as 140 candidates in 16 councils for next month’s local government elections.

NSW Liberal president Don Harwin called an urgent state executive meeting for Thursday evening where party boss Richard Shields will be asked to explain how the blunder occurred.

Harwin said the meeting would “review the situation surrounding the local government nominations”. The state executive is the only body that has the power to sack Shields, who has been blamed for the nomination debacle.

NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman and senior party figures have taken aim at NSW Liberal Party state director Richard Shields.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“It’s crucial we understand what occurred and take decisive action to maintain the trust of our members and the public as we prepare for the future,” Harwin said.

However, Shields said in a statement that “calls for my resignation are premature as there must be a proper review of the nomination process to establish the full facts”.

Shields pointed the finger at the state executive, and said it only completed final party endorsements “as late as 10am on 14th August (two hours before the close of nominations)”.

He also blamed Harwin, and said the party president had “volunteered to run the local government nomination process”.

NSW Liberal president Don Harwin has called an urgent state executive meeting.Credit: Sam Mooy

“I had full trust this would be delivered successfully,” Shields said. He said he was not made aware that the deadline would not be met until “it was too late to rectify the deficiencies”.

Analysis from psephologist Ben Raue, who runs The Tally Room blog, shows the Liberal Party failed to nominate candidates in as many as eight local councils, with another 10 partially affected, with candidates nominated in some wards but not others.

Those figures were “probably the ceiling” of the damage, Raue said, as NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman on Thursday called on Shields to resign, and the party faithful scrambled to make sense of the unfolding mess.

Raue said the political fallout would look different in each local government area, adding: “When one side of the fight just doesn’t take the field, you get an imbalanced result.”

The most high-profile casualty is likely to be Northern Beaches Council, where the Liberals were hoping to overtake the Your Northern Beaches grouping to seize as many as seven seats.

With those plans derailed, Liberal Deputy Mayor Georgia Ryburn has also been denied any chance of taking the mayoralty and said she had been left feeling “shocked, gutted, in disbelief”.

“I’m really devastated not just for the candidates, but also for our community who at this upcoming election won’t have a choice to vote Liberal,” Ryburn said on Thursday.

Northern Beaches Deputy Mayor Georgia Ryburn will lose her job because of the failure.Credit: Steven Siewert

Ryburn said she “hasn’t decided” what the next four years will bring but knows “I can’t be on [the] council”.

“My next opportunity will be four years away. I think that’s part of my frustration. If we were told, or we would have known, that we weren’t going to be able to submit, we would have had options to nominate as individuals,” Ryburn said.

“On the northern beaches, the Liberals had the most votes, so for a huge proportion of our community, it’s … devastating. It’s important to our community that we are representative at the local government area”.

Earlier on Thursday, a furious Mark Speakman said Shields had declined his invitation to brief MPs at a party room meeting to grapple with the situation.

Touted by senior NSW Liberal insiders as the worst failure in the division’s history, the party on Wednesday said it was “likely” that several local government areas had not been successfully lodged by the noon deadline for the September 14 elections: Northern Beaches, Lane Cove, Shoalhaven, Wollongong, Campbelltown, Camden and Blue Mountains.

Speakman labelled the failure a “monumental debacle”, saying it was imperative for the state director to find the necessary resources to manage the nomination process.

“I’m furious on behalf of those candidates who have missed out, including sitting councillors, on behalf of our Liberal Party members who work so hard to get Liberals elected, and on behalf of the general public in those areas who we thought were entitled to have Liberal candidates offered as a choice,” he said.

“Unfortunately, in these circumstances, the state director has to fall on his sword. He is the CEO who runs the organisation. He is the CEO who is responsible.”

Speakman said Liberal HQ was exploring whether there were any available avenues for affected councillors and candidates to run in September, including asking the NSW Electoral Commission for leniency on the deadline and exploring legislative options.

Speakman also told federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton that Shields’ position was untenable as the party prepares for a federal election early next year.

Dutton told 2GB that the mistakes made inside the NSW Liberals head office were “not acceptable”.

“We want to make sure that there is a proper administrative process put in place. And they failed in that regard. And it’s very, very disappointing to see,” Dutton said.

At the 2021 council elections, Liberal nominations were mostly filled out by individual council tickets, who were then reimbursed their fees by the party’s HQ. However, a change in processes meant that the party’s head office had taken responsibility for council tickets, a task they were unprepared for.

Sources said Shields, who spent Wednesday morning opening a park in his capacity as Woollahra mayor, failed to ask for additional resources to handle the nominations.

Relaying a conversation with Shields, a senior Liberal source said the state director told him he “misinterpreted the amount of work involved” in the nomination process.

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