NSW treasurer backs female candidate over David Elliott for upper house seat

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has shot down suggestions outgoing cabinet colleague David Elliott should be handed a political lifeline, saying a new upper house vacancy needed to be filled by a female candidate instead.

NSW Liberal powerbrokers were working to quickly replace dumped upper house MP Peter Poulos, with Elliott on Monday morning, declaring he was open to being parachuted into the upper house after being edged out of his Legislative Assembly seat in a factional battle.

Treasurer Matt Kean (right) says a newly vacant upper house ticket should be filled by a female candidate, not Transport Minister David Elliott (left).

Poulos was removed as a candidate and suspended from the party for six months for forwarding an intimate photograph of a female colleague from a Penthouse magazine.

Asked whether the newly vacant upper house seat should be offered up to Elliott, Kean said it should be filled by a strong female candidate.

“What I’d like to see is a female fill that vacancy. That’s no secret, I’ve been campaigning on that front for a while and that’s what I think should happen,” he said.

“This is about what’s best for the state of NSW.”

Elliott on Monday said he believed the vacated upper house seat was a genuine opportunity for him to salvage his political career, but acknowledged that it was ultimately a decision for the party.

“This is a pathway for me to return. I certainly can confirm I’ve told the premier that I would like to be considered, but the Liberal Party being what it is, we’ve got to go through processes. That’s appropriate, that’s proper,” he told 2GB’s Ben Fordham. (2GB is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.)

“I was sad to leave politics but I accepted the circumstances in which I found myself, that was that my seat was abolished. I also said ... I couldn’t see a pathway for me to return. But this is a pathway for me to return.”

Elliott, who has described himself as the “Liberal spear thrower” insisted he would accept whatever decision was made, but said he remained hopeful.

Jacqui Munro (left) and Melanie Gibbons have been floated as possible candidates.

“I’m not going to spit the dummy. I accept the fact that politics is a brutal game and the fact that redistributions can destroy careers; it certainly ended mine. If there was a pathway, I’d come back. This may be a pathway.”

Key moderates, including Kean and former federal MP Trent Zimmerman, have told colleagues they are backing NSW Liberal Women’s Council president Jacqui Munro, who ran for the seat of Sydney in 2019.

Outgoing Holsworthy MP Melanie Gibbons has also been floated as a potential replacement.

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