LIBERAL factional bosses are engaging in backroom deals to prevent Party members from exercising their newly acquired right to select candidates.
With the 2022 federal election only months away, NSW powerbrokers have stalled the pre-selection process – hoping to stitch up deals to parachute factional allies into winnable seats.
- Party heavyweights delay pre-selection votes to ‘run down the clock’.
- Factions scramble to ensure their mates avoid facing member endorsement.
- Liberals risk losing huge numbers of campaign volunteers.
The Party’s amended constitution, which was set to take effect for the 2022 federal election, was to guarantee members’ participation in the selection process.
Self-serving dealmakers, however, are terrified of rank-and-file members and are moving to minimise their involvement as much as possible.
VITAL
With a raft of vital federal NSW seats still without candidates, only three have been approved for member plebiscites: Warringah, Parramatta and Bennelong.
An online meeting was attended by factional bosses on the weekend to divvy up the remaining seats.
The meeting was attended by the Right faction’s Charles Perrottet (brother of the premier) and Catholic Schools CEO Dallas McInerney.
PM Scott Morrison’s aide Yaron Finkelstein and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke represented the centre Right, while NSW Treasurer Matt Kean and federal backbencher Trent Zimmerman spoke for the Left.
According to a report in The Australian newspaper this week, the deal would result in a factional carve-up of what are considered “safe” electorates.
The in-principle agreement is understood to ensure all incumbent MPs are to be automatically endorsed without pre-selection – shoring up Alex Hawke’s and Trent Zimmerman’s hold on Mitchell and North Sydney respectively.
PwC consultant Alex Dore would be gifted Hughes, currently held by former Liberal MP Craig Kelly, while Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleeson (the PM’s preferred pick) would be selected for Dobell.
GUARANTEED
The Left would also be guaranteed the number one spot on the senate ticket, with Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne likely to be given the nod.
But whether the deal will be accepted is far from certain, according to The Guardian.
Senior Party figures have warned that any attempt to avoid the new pre-selection rules will create havoc in the Party, particularly among conservatives, and would result in the Liberals being unable to staff polling booths with members.
Federal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said she was outraged by the deception.
“Many in the Party, including myself, who have campaigned for 20 years to democratise our pre-selections, want these hard-earned democratic rights to be up-held by the Party,” she said.
“A date has not yet been set for senate pre-selection. I believe that this is a deliberate attempt to ‘run down the clock’ and then use special powers to take away members’ rights to select candidates.”PC
Really it is hard to believe the Liberal power brokers can be so stupid. They were losing members at an alarming rate due to the LNP’s continued transition to the Left. They offered an olive branch of the amended constitution to allow rank and file to choose candidates. If nothing else, that change would have slowed the exodus as local party groups could temper changes they saw as outside Liberal ideology. Every 5 years or so local members could have pulled the lefty coup up short and ejected the 5th columnists.
But no, having already shot themselves in the foot with the original left takover the party is now hopping on one good foot while desperately trying to get a shot into that one as well. At which point they will fall over, never to recover. They fail to understand the basic principles of democracy. We don’t want two parties that are fundamentally the same with only slightly nuanced differences to choose between them.
In other news, this is excellent news for the minor parties (excluding the Watermelons) who will present as the true voice of Conservatism against the different factions of the same left wing party, one made up of LNP / ALP / WM.
Alex Dore is from Warringah NOT Hughes. NOT a Local. Hughes actually have a Great local MP.
He’s a Hero! = Craig Kelly
Before commenting on the LINO left faction/s I would like to point out part of what former Labor Opposition Leader Mark Latham wrote for The Australian Financial Review some years ago, he pointed out that Labor has many factions ranging from the centre-left to far-left and while some factions cooperate many are often at war with one another.
He also wrote that in his opinion Liberal-Nationals do not understand Labor’s factional system or the controls exercised, discipline. Unlike the Coalition MPs Labor MPs must not cross the floor and oppose party positions. And that if the Coalition wanted to get to the bottom of Union-Labor following the paper trail would prove useful. I assume that was what the Abbott Government Trade Union Royal Commission into governance and corruption was doing before the Turnbull Government decided not to allow any extension in time for the Commissioner and Commission?
Back to Liberal Party of Australia, the rot set in not long before the Howard Coalition Government was elected in 1996, but there were some MPs who apparently were on a mission to wreck the party, there is a Timeline History of information indicating this available on the internet. Control of the executive of the Liberal Party NSW in particular enabled the LINO left to increase their parliamentary representation and power base. In my opinion creating a major problem for the Liberal Party and including political damage in the electorate.
The beginning as far as I am aware was a major branch stacking exercise in the Wentworth Electorate NSW that resulted in sitting MP Peter King losing pre-selection and his seat in Federal Parliament.
The undermining of PM Howard and Treasurer Costello for example, then after Rudd Labor was elected in 2007 the undermining of Opposition Leader Dr Nelson followed by the undermining of Opposition Leader Abbott continuing while he was Prime Minister from 2013 to 2015 when he was replaced by Prime Minister Turnbull.
Traditionally electorate branch members have selected the candidate chosen by a majority of branch members until the LINO left effectively took over the executive office and bypassed the branches by pre-selecting candidates with no input from electorate branch members.
From my conversations with people like me who are not members of any political party the LINO left have damaged the image of what was the Menzies Australian Liberal Party of centre to centre-right MPs, and to be fair centre not far away politically from traditional Labor centre-left. But the Lino have given the impression of being more closely aligned with Labor and Greens on the far-left of the political spectrum.
A great pity because in general, in the majority, Australians are in the centre politically, and what both major sides seem to ignore is the migrants who settled here since WW2 and since who came here from totalitarian regimes and who absolutely hate leftists, and rightly so.
Good on PM Morrison, by the way, for standing up for Australians against the globalist nonsense of climate hoax at the Cop 26 Glasgow Conference and by video conference address to the World Economic Forum rejecting their reset, build back better and new green deal nonsense. That we peasants should have no assets and then be happier????
So I hope that the LINO period is ending, and that the real sensible right, as compared to the “Trojan horse” candidates from the climate hoax plotter’s collective of Independents targeting only Liberal and National MPs who in 2019 claimed to be “:sensible right” and other deceptive descriptions to fool voters, can again dominate and govern our nation through the China aggression and trade barriers, pandemic recovery but realising State Governments have the most power and responsibility for public health and imposing restrictions and lockdowns, and continuing economic recovery and future growth because right now the global financial and economic position is not looking good.
Well, who would have thought? This is what happens when righteous socialists take control. In their minds, they know best.
Time to remove Liberal Party executive special powers and, also, to stop Young Liberals doing the faction leaders’ dirty work via a loophole allowing them to be bussed in to overwhelm the vote of locals.
Similar to the 2019 “Independent” candidates collective and their Union funded GetUp activist organisation supporters with student aspiring to be actors and models brought in to wear the shirts identifying with GetUp or a candidate as organised.