Scott Morrison facing preselection headache with sitting Liberal MPs in the firing line
Liberal MPs #LiberalMPs
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is facing preselection turmoil in NSW with at least four sitting Liberal MPs facing an internal attempt to overthrow them ahead of the next election.
Despite Morrison saying he wants more women in parliament, the challenge to sitting members includes a push to oust female MPs in two key marginal western Sydney seats – Fiona Martin in Reid and Melissa McIntosh in Lindsay.
The immigration minister Alex Hawke – a key ally of Morrison – is being challenged in his blue-ribbon seat of Mitchell, while Trent Zimmerman, the leader of the NSW moderates in Canberra, is also under threat.
NSW’s notoriously vicious preselection season will see candidates decided by a vote of each of the MP’s electoral branches after the state moved to the controversial plebiscite model successfully pushed by former prime minister Tony Abbott.
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Without the usual factional deals being done to stitch up candidates, the outcome of the various challenges to incumbent MPs is both more unpredictable and more difficult for the prime minister to control should he wish to intervene.
The challenge to incumbents exposes the current factional allegiances in play in the state, with the moderate and the hard-right factions in an uneasy alliance to counter the power of Hawke’s centre-right faction.
Video: Scott Morrison remains preferred prime minister ‘by one heck of a margin’ (Sky News Australia)
Scott Morrison remains preferred prime minister ‘by one heck of a margin’
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None of the challenges are between moderate and hard-right MPs and candidates.
In Zimmerman’s seat of North Sydney, the centre-right aligned Jess Collins has nominated for the seat, along with Hamish Stitt, the son of barrister Robert Stitt.
In Lindsay, McIntosh – a centre-right factional ally of Morrison’s – is being challenged by Penrith councillor Mark Davies, who is being backed by the hard right and is the husband of hardline anti-abortion MP Tanya Davies.
Martin, a moderate, is being challenged by sports administrator Natalie Baini, who is also seen as a Hawke supporter, and is being backed by powerbroker and Liberal lobbyist Joe Tannous.
Michael Abrahams, a former army colonel who is being backed by the hard right, has nominated for Hawke’s seat of Mitchell.
Doubt is also circling about the fate of John Alexander in Bennelong, however, nominations for his seat have not yet opened.
It is understood that the former chief of staff for Michaelia Cash, Gisele Kapterian, will put her name forward for the seat when nominations open.
The NSW Liberal party president, Philip Ruddock, would not comment when contacted by Guardian Australia on Monday, saying the party’s preselection process was confidential.
“We go through a process to test the bona fides before we get to a point where we would announce that there are candidates, and that is a process that we are going through,” he said.
The party will now embark on a candidate nomination review process. During this time various powerbrokers could work behind the scenes to convince some of the challengers to stand down.
A fight is also brewing over the NSW Senate ticket, with the right-aligned Concetta Fierravanti-Wells facing a potential challenge from Dallas McInerney from Catholic Schools NSW.