NSW Liberal factions have ignored former PM John Howard’s plea for a return to “basic values” and voted for a Matt Kean-backed candidate as NSW State President.
“Captain’s pick” Maria Kovacic won the NSW Liberal Party ballot 413 to 243 after a deal was struck between the NSW Deputy Leader’s radical Left faction and self-interested parties on the Right.
- Philip Argy was labelled “male, pale and stale” by factional opponents.
- Maria Kovacic described as an unknown factional blow-in likely to take the Party further Left.
- Her closeness to Matt Kean was widely flagged as the best explanation for her swift rise.
Independent candidate Philip Argy, who was the only other nomination for the position, entered the race as an underdog, however, Mr Howard’s support was expected to provide late momentum to his campaign.
The 25th Prime Minister had described Mr Argy as someone who brought “energy and high intelligence”.
VALUES
“Philip was always keen to strengthen the Party organisation,” Mr Howard said.
“As well, he constantly argued good policies – which were consistent with our basic values.
“These are two qualities much in need at present.”
Mr Argy, however, was labelled “male, pale and stale” by factional opponents.
The elevation of Ms Kovacic was viewed by senior Party conservatives as little more than factional horse-trading – as Mr Kean attempts to relocate to a safer electorate prior to next year’s NSW general election.
FUMING
Many members are fuming that Matt Kean’s pick will steer the Party even further to the Left.
Ms Kovacic was Scott Morrison’s failed “captain’s pick” for Parramatta at the last federal election.
“Members are bewildered that an unknown factional blow-in will likely fill the most senior position in the division,” one NSW MP told The Australian newspaper prior to this month’s ballot.
“They’re calling her a ‘puppet candidate’,” another Liberal source said, adding: “Rather than yielding control, the people who deliberately cancelled federal pre-selections are consolidating their power.”
According to The Australian, another senior NSW Liberal questioned Ms Kovacic’s fundraising credentials and her dizzying rise from a “relative unknown” among grassroots members to the division’s most prominent role.
Her closeness to Mr Kean was widely flagged as the best explanation for her swift rise. Ms Kovacic is president of Hornsby’s Federal Electoral Conference, within Mr Kean’s electorate.PC
Who supposedly celebrated @ the Pirates & Lisa’s abode on Albos victory on 21/5, non other than Green Kean, who is now telling us we know longer have a true Conservative party socialists only?
If this is the NSW Liberal membership speaking, then we know where the NSW Liberal Party is heading. Don’t we!
And it will not be with me!
I will support another conservative, centre right party.
I’ve been a long time Liberal backer. Not anymore, who’s going to fit the bill where the Libs once were?
If I wanted a left leaning government I’d be voting Labor not a pretend to be Labor government. I hope Matt Kean is still on the ship when it sinks.
If this Photios grub is the future of the party, the libs will be subsumed into Adam Bandt….good riddance and start learning Chinese
Get out of the Liberal Party whilst it’s still possible. Completely unelectable trash. Anyone still enjoying Liberal Party membership will be tarred with the same brush as Hazzard, Kean and Morrison. Emerging political forces will usurp the ageing corroded Liberal machine
The NSW Liberal Party has signed its death warrant lead by a weak-kneed puppet Premier who jumps every time Kean pulls the strings. Kean is the millstone around the Party neck, ably supported by his leftie cohorts not the least being Turnbull. If Perrottet hasn’t got the brains to realise how poisonous Kean is, or the guts to stand him down, then he is not the person to lead the Liberal Party. We had high hopes that he would take the reins and lead the Party to another victory – but how badly has he let us all down! He obviously has no idea what the electorate feels about these incredibly disastrous decisions. He will lose the election and he will lose the leadership and the residents in NSW will lose any opportunity to resist the catastrophic future that awaits us under the combined State and Federal Labor governments. Wake up Dominic before it’s too late for us all!!!
It appears that no-one within the Liberal Party hierarchy is listening to what so many of us are saying. As a result, we have people like Kovacic and Kean deciding which direction we take as a Party. How in hell did we reach this situation in this once-great political party? More importantly, what do we have to do in order to bring it back to its centre-right orientation? I have no solution but one must be found soon. Leadership is the key ………. but do we have any competent leaders in this Party who can drag us out of this situation?
How did it get that way? Collectively years of apathy, and lazy attitude within the party membership, is how.
How do you bring it back? The simple answer is, You Don’t! It’s too late, these grubs have it gamed from every angle, and they’ll burn the party to the ground before they relinquish control.
No vote, no plebiscite, no membership push can change it when they hold all the levers. They’ll decide who’s are your choices on the pre-selection ballot, they’ll thwart growth of any branch not factionally aligned.
What they can’t control is the nation’s votes and the hearts and minds of Australian voters as is being demonstrated in election after election. So there is hope.
like many I’d hoped that the Liberal Party could revive, but like many more I’ve come to the conclusion it is past saving. The Liberal party is past its best before date but Menzies Liberalism is not, it’s just desperately in need of a home and some organisation.
It’s no for want of leadership, several good leaders have tried and failed in recent times. A great leader cannot succeed without a great organisation to lead, which is why Liberal will continue to fail as it attacks itself from within.
It’s up to all of us, every conservative thinker to see that change happens, we cannot give in until it does.
Mmm – let’s have a closer look at the numbers: Argy lost by 170 votes, 830 ballot papers were issued, only 659 made it back to the ballot box for the count. Three were informal. The winner’s 413 vote count just happened to be 50% of the number of ballot papers issued. And the 173 missing ballot papers just happened to be how many Argy lost by.
Lost? Sitting in Kean’s rubbish bin?
There’s hope for all after what SA liberals have just been able to achieve. M/s Kovacic is very likely to preside over a disastrous loss next March and be replaced the following July by a conservative so decent people should not give up. Functional pre-selections will produce performing members who can become elected, govern properly, return us to cheap power, remediate the education system and give Australia a future. We know that the left libs were smashed in WA and SA, can’t even beat Dan Andrews in Vic, and that when Boris Johnson briefly turned right he won 80 seats. There’s hope yet. A large percentage of normal people yearn for functional representation, not Matt Kean and Malcolm Turnbull, whose Snowy project has predictably begun to evolve into a full scale disaster.
The really delusional part is these factional grubs think they’re assured of a vote because they’re not Labor. The reality to anyone with a pulse and a double figure IQ, is that they are Green/Labor and undeserving of a vote.
The once great Liberal Party has fallen, it is dead but too thick to know it should lie down. It’s been taken over, the victim of apathy and inaction which has allowed it’s takeover from within.
Menzies liberalism however, is not dead, rather it is homeless. It is pointless devoting dollars, time and effort or votes towards a Liberal Party organisation intent upon its own demise. Liberal cannot be fixed, because all of its process is rigged. Talent is stifled at every juncture by a cabal of careerist who represent no one but themselves and their backroom interests who own their souls.
The sensible majority has got to get it’s act together, unite and consolidate it’s efforts. Just as Liberal and and the original UAP formed through need, there needs to be a new home for sensible government. What form that takes, I do not know. A few egos will need to be checked on the way through. It’s up to al of us to do something about it. Don’t fall for all the usual “a vote for minor parties is a vote for Labor”, or “there is nothing we can do”, those are idea perpetuated by the force who do not represent anyone but their own positions of privilege.
The best time to do something in our own and the nation’s interests was yesterday, the next best time is right now. I don’t have the answers, but I know none of us ever will if we don’t begin to redress the balance.
Without doubt Tony Abbott should be installed as N.S.W. President if the Liberal party is to regain any integrity and trust by the people of N.S.W. Green Keane and his ilk have caused so much damage it is only Abbott that can restore any faith in the party.
There are two opportunities for hope:
1. That Kean loses his seat in the State election next year
2. Worst case that Libs lose the State election and have to rethink the whole Liberal Party ethos
Kean’s arrogance is beyond comprehension and absolutely Kean is about Kean
If Kean wants a transfer from Hornsby, it must be that he realises the branches are sick of him and would boycott his re-election campaign. His options may be limited to Dominello’s seat of Ryde. Vaucluse would be out of the question.
There will be no resurrection for the NSW Liberal Party without a full plebiscite system for members to elect all levels of control including the state executive thereby removing the hands of the disgraceful & damaging factional players from the levers of power.
The party should have disposed of Kean in week one of the Federal Election campaign, when he torpedoed what was probably the best week of the campaign….by proposing dis-endorsement of Katherine Deves. But, once again, factional horse trading appeared to see fit to back Kean against Deves. No one likes the way Deves was parachuted into Warringah, but to have not used that as an opportunity to dump Kean must be a mystery to most decent Liberals.
But somehow, the likes of Turnbull, Kean etc, are allowed to trample the good people of the Liberal Party.
Sad.
Very sad.
Except for 2016,2022 a 60 year LP member & voter, no longer a true Conservative party @ any level, sadly infiltrated with wets & moderates, worrying who can drain the swamp.You can’t just have only socialist parties undemocratic surely?
The Liberal party are doomed if the factions vote for Kean
Without doubt.
They apparently know not what they are doing, what they look like from the outside world and that we who watch are disgusted.