Despite predictions of a resounding Labor victory,Gilmore was the only seat Labor won off the government at the last election that wasn’t already notionally Labor after the redistribution. A former Labor Party president,Mr Mundine was installed by Mr Morrison as a captain’s pick in January 2019,four months before polling day,overriding the candidate chosen by local party members.
Some members quit in protest and Mr Mundine faced a difficult task uniting the party behind him in his fight against Labor’s Fiona Phillips. “I concluded during the campaign that it was a bad idea,” he says now.
This time the Liberals are yet to select candidates in nine winnable NSW seats. Three of those are sitting MPs facing internal preselection challenges:Alex Hawke in Mitchell,Sussan Ley in Farrer and Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney. The others are Bennelong (where Liberal John Alexander is retiring),Hughes (held by former Liberal MP Craig Kelly),Warringah,Dobell,Parramatta and Eden-Monaro.
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Among the disputed matters are whether to install ex-Young Liberal president Alex Dore as the candidate in Hughes and coffee chain owner and Pentecostal preacher Jemima Gleeson in Dobell. In Warringah,frontrunnerJane Buncle withdrew her nomination in protest at the delays.
On Monday,a member of the party’s state executive,Matthew Camenzuli,launched a legal bid to stop an intervention led by Mr Morrison and his ally Alex Hawke,after the federal executive last week took the first step toward appointing an administrative committee to run the NSW division.
The failure to select candidates in key seats imperils the Liberals’ election hopes in Mr Morrison’s home state,where the party had been hoping to gain seats and offset potential losses elsewhere.