by SEAN BURKE – A POPULAR Sydney mayor has this week quit the once-conservative Liberal Party saying he’s fed up with “factional rubbish”.
Lane Cove Mayor Scott Bennison tendered his resignation to Liberal HQ on Monday after a dirty factional deal saw him replaced on the Liberal’s Local Government ticket by a 22-year-old staffer.
- The juvenile prescriptions of the Turnbulls and Keans are not the prescriptions of true conservative Liberals.
- Silly deals with the Left have hollowed out the Party.
- Its moral compass has been irretrievably lost.
He will instead run for re-election as an independent at NSW’s Local Government elections on September 14.
Mr Bennison said the Liberal Party preselection process had been “dodgy”, having been held online during weekday peak hour with only a 15 minute window to complete the vote.
He told 2GB’s Ben Fordham yesterday that, after 17 years, he had formally ended his Liberal Party ties.
RUBBISH
“I quit the Party because I’m sick of the factional rubbish that happens within the Party,” he said.
“After all my time serving residents, I was rolled at a Liberal Party pre-selection and re-placed by a staffer.
“Knowing that, many people in my community came to me and said ‘we want you to run’.”
Mr Bennison joined the Liberal Party in 2007 while former Prime Minister John Howard was leader.
Since Mr Howard’s departure from Federal Parliament that same year, the Liberal Party has been overrun by Left-leaning operatives at an executive, administrative and representative level.
Mr Bennison’s campaign manager, Mr Mark White, also resigned from the Liberal Party over its “loss of direction”.
At the time of his resignation, Mr White said Left-wing extremists had infiltrated the Party and had wrested control.
“It’s increasingly clear that reform of the NSW Liberal Party is not possible while a subservient Right leadership is dealing with the Left,” he said.
“The main reason members are leaving – almost all of who are centre-Right conservatives – is due to the actions of other conservatives, known as the Relm (Representatives of Elected Members), who are selling out grassroots principles to the Left faction.
“This compromise of conservative values has rewarded a handful of Relm factional players with trinkets such as executive positions, lower house seats and cabinet positions.
GREENS
“But the true cost has come by passing legislation that would otherwise be expected of Labor and The Greens.
“These silly deals with the Left have so hollowed-out the Party, its moral compass has been irretrievably lost.
“Make no mistake, the juvenile prescriptions of the Turnbulls and Keans are not the prescriptions of true conservative Liberals.”
In an unrelated incident, the Liberal Party will now not run any candidates for Lane Cove Council next month due to an administrative error, which saw it miss the AEC’s registration deadline.
“By error or design, the Liberals have abandoned voters and left it to conservative independents to represent voters,” Mr White said.
“We are now the only conservatives in Lane Cove left to fight The Greens, Teals and other Leftie nutters,” he said.
“Scott was looking forward to campaigning as an independent against the Liberal’s 22-year-old staffer, but the Party has stuffed up.”
Mayor Scott Bennison said local State MP Anthony Roberts, who employs the 22-year-old staffer, would have been aware of the stitch-up deal.
“My decision to leave the Party was with a heavy heart,” he said.
“For so long I have been supporting federal, State and local elections. All the hours you put into the Party running campaigns, it’s a big decision.
“In life, though, you have to move on and my community deserves better than a 22-year-old staffer.” PC
As a Liberal Party branch president for 16 years and SEC president in regional NSW, I am disgusted with the election processes I have witnessed at the State Council meetings over many years. So many former impressive hard-working members of parliament have lost being re-elected to make way for some infiltrated leftist thinking inexperienced person who are destroying our once formidable and honest Liberal Party. I am seriously considering leaving the party after so many years of dedication and, volunteer work to help protect this once-great nation from politicians such as Turnbull, Kean, Albo, Bowen, Bourke, and Harwin. Members are leaving in droves and it is no wonder. What can we do to save Australia from the socialist left leadership that our forefathers fought and died against?
Why do monarchists want Australia’s head of state to be inferior to the UK’s head of state?
A glimmer of light appears from Peter Dutton standing up to the demolitionists in the Labor Party but until leftists like Harwin are shown the door true Liberals will never be fully represented.
One day the Libs may wake up to the ‘broad church’ fallacy and get back to their core roots. We live in hope.
Twenty years ago, many of us just cringed at attending a pre erection meeting in our electorates, to be lectured by that lamentably boring self seeking Harwin, about what to do on polling day and in scrutineering. He was the sole reason two elections ago, that I happily voted No. 1 Mark Latham in the Upper House ! It seems that his own elected colleagues ended up showing him the door; and now those ghastly serve serving factional mongrels have promoted him to Party President :(( There needs to be a major cleanout and rid the Party of the Turncoats, Keens and other self seeking ULTRA LEFT factional imbeciles who have seen thousands of decent honest members depart from this now sad joke of a political party. At the recent election, Mat Kean was 80% the reason I did not vote Liberal for the first time in ~59 years of voting. the other 20% was because of the unseemly rolling of my perfectly good effective Member for Holdsworthy, Melanie Gibbons. This recent stuff up will have serious consequences at the next Federal election. Or have our lefty twerps done this deliberately??? I am but Middle of the road, not an extreme right menace. Good for you Scott. I was in Lane cove for over 30 years, until 2012.
The Libs are a spent force. Can we borrow Nigel Farage to help set up and Australian Reform Party?
Scott,
Most people support you. Liberal values are no longer what they were! The Liberal party has been infiltrated by people that are not there for the right reason. It started with Turnbull, self-promotion, not a people’s person.
Harwin needs to go! bring in Mark Ballie (loss by one vote) very suspicious.
It is amazing how the inner west council was put forward, very dodgy! I am aware of BFMEU tactics used to intimidate. Harwin needs to be investigated.
Turnbull backstabbing the point of no return for genuine longstanding conservatism, a few of the wets have departed but a long way to go.
Scott, you are much too white and probably not gay enough to be a modern Liberal representative. Good for you. Most normal people will support you if you talk to them honestly.