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‘They made Dom premier then he switched off his phone’: The moment disillusionment set in at the NSW Liberal Party

After the death of conservative Liberal senator Jim Molan in January, hushed conversations of a replacement began behind closed doors.

Moderate powerbrokers spied an opportunity: the NSW Liberal Party’s right wing was in disarray. Premier Dominic Perrottet and his allies were suddenly facing an assault from ideologically driven members of his own faction.

Conservatives were incensed after Young Liberal president Noel McCoy was barred from running in the state seat of Castle Hill; then by backroom efforts to install more women into the upper house at the expense of incumbent conservative MPs, Lou Amato and Mathew Mason-Cox, over Christmas.

With Perrottet intimately involved in both, his office was adamant disillusioned members of the hard right were using a Twitter profile to run a guerilla campaign of leaks and threats against the government as retribution for the perceived betrayal.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet fronts the press after confessing to have worn a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet fronts the press after confessing to have worn a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Weeks after rumours began about the existence of a photo depicting a senior minister dressed in a Nazi uniform, Perrottet outed himself to the media. In a humiliating admission, he confirmed he had worn the uniform to his 21st birthday party.

It was a brutal internal hit job on a leader less than two months from the state election.

Almost 15 years after Alex Hawke established the centre-right faction after he knifed David Clarke – member of the Legislative Council, warlord and his mentor – conservatives were once again at war.

Colloquially known as “The Establishment”, supporters of Perrottet, including Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney and senior Liberal MP Damien Tudehope, were pragmatically working across factional lines to deliver outcomes they believed would help secure a fourth term of government.

Members of the hard right, however, increasingly believed conservative power brokers were jettisoning hard fought concessions on ensuring branch members elected MPs via plebiscites, while pursuing a legislative agenda they considered unpalatable to the party’s core values.

Called many monikers – “the terrorists”, crazies, or their preferred, “members rights” – the grouping increasingly took on a Trumpian Republican mentality: The Establishment was out-of-touch with the Liberal Party base, and consequently, no longer fit to lead.

As a senior moderate Liberal says: “This is the tension: Is the Liberal Party about the membership, which is becoming increasingly small in number and less representative of the community? Or is the focus of the Liberal Party on the broader community we need to vote for us to win elections?”

Across interviews The Sun-Herald conducted with a dozen senior NSW Liberals, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, citing party rules forbidding discussions with the media about internal matters, the rapidly shifting factional terrain has become evident.

With the right tearing itself apart, Molan’s senate vacancy came back into frame. To many, Molan’s successor seemed obvious: for years the articulate, Oxford-educated McInerney was touted as the clear candidate waiting in the wings. With an open conservative senate seat, here was his chance. Then he realised the numbers were no longer there.

Catholic Schools NSW boss Dallas McInerney.

Catholic Schools NSW boss Dallas McInerney.

After years of being one of the go-to powerbrokers in the right, McInerney’s seat at the table earned him the ire of a growing section of irate members of the hard right, particularly expelled member Matthew Camenzuli, whose prominence rose after suing prime minister Scott Morrison.

Gradually, then suddenly, the votes he needed to win the senate preselection disappeared.

“Damien [Tudehope] and Dallas were making decisions in the name of the right without reflecting what the right necessarily wanted,” explains one conservative power broker.

The anyone-but-Dallas campaign cycled through a list of right-wing luminaries: former prime minister Tony Abbott was floated; then failed Warringah candidate Katherine Deves popped up only to drop out in less than a week. Finally, Jess Collins, an ally of Lane Cove MP and right-wing heavyweight Anthony Roberts, was settled upon.

With moderate senators Andrew Bragg and Marise Payne already in parliament, the faction, the NSW Liberal Party’s centre of gravity for the last 70 years, already controlled two of the four senate spots. The chaos among its factional enemies provided an opening to take another.

“It was extreme greed. I said that at the time and I still say it now. It was a right-wing spot that we took because the right was so divided,” says a senior NSW moderate power broker.

Senator Maria Kovacic is embraced by moderate powerbroker Matt Kean after she delivered her maiden speech on Tuesday.

Senator Maria Kovacic is embraced by moderate powerbroker Matt Kean after she delivered her maiden speech on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A deal with Hawke’s centre-right faction ensured former NSW Liberal president and moderate pick Maria Kovacic prevailed in the final count with 287 of the 530 votes. Another moderate, former NSW Liberal minister Andrew Constance, finished second. Collins? A distant third.

Dom’s disharmony

The genesis of the right’s split has several origins, but perversely became increasingly pronounced as Perrottet rose through the party.

The elevation of Perrottet to treasurer and deputy Liberal leader under Gladys Berejiklian in 2017 was celebrated by the party’s NSW conservative MPs. After the moderate premierships of Barry O’Farrell and Mike Baird, the conservative agenda finally had a true defender.

But disillusionment set-in once MPs realised Perrottet, the devout Catholic and father of seven, would not deliver the outcomes they so desperately desired.

The debate over decriminalising abortion in 2019; his perceived complicity in Draconian COVID restrictions; and not opposing the state’s ambitious decarbonisation strategy are underlined by Liberal conservatives as three examples where Perrottet’s pragmatism superseded his supposed ideology.

While he voted against the abortion decriminalisation bill, Perrottet didn’t take part in the raucous demonstrations of his conservative peers – Liberal MPs Tanya Davies, Mason-Cox and Amato – who threatened, then withdrew, a leadership spill against Berejiklian during the marathon debate.

With conservatives not getting their way on policy, the sense of abandonment and grievance was compounded once Perrottet became premier in 2021.

“They made Dom premier then he switched off his phone. He didn’t talk to any of the warlords in the hard right. It’s not like they wanted much; they just wanted an in with the premier’s office,” a conservative source says.

Senior Liberal sources say first as treasurer then once premier, Perrottet delegated day-to-day factional dealings to McInerney, and his brother and best friend, Charles. An arrangement that worked well for the premier, enabling him to (mostly) keep his hands clean of the factional dealings.

That arrangement fell apart after efforts by members of the right – including Charles, the premier’s younger brother Jean-Claude Perrottet, and a former Liberal staffer Christian Ellis – were accused by centre-right MP Ray Williams of seeking $50,000 from a businessman for a branch stacking operation to remove Hawke from the federal seat of Mitchell.

Vowing to have no knowledge of the scheme, the then premier disowned the alleged plot, but Liberal sources said the subsequent parliamentary inquiry and anti-corruption investigation into the matter crippled the infrastructure that underpinned The Establishment’s power.

Present power

Power in the party is dispersed across four levels: (1) control of members and branches, which in turn put forward delegates who vote for: (2) members on state executive, the organisational wing of the division; and (3) MPs in state (4); and federal parliament.

Control of one does not necessitate control over the entire framework. However, for all but several years in the 2000s, moderates have historically been the dominant faction, a situation aided by the warring nature of conservatives, who as one senior Liberal source says, represents pre-federation Germany.

Take for example the current landscape where the moderates are the kingmakers of the factional landscape, although they still need allies. Moderates represent 17 of the 35 MPs in state parliament (see graphic) ; and 42 per cent of state executive. While difficult to say definitively, one moderate power broker estimates the faction controls 55 per cent of delegates; with the right and centre right having the remainder.

Both The Establishment and hard right seek to project power. The hard right controls around 200 delegates, Camenzuli claims, while The Establishment can muster 25, at best. Others see it differently, with members of The Establishment estimating Camenzuli’s control at “barely over 50”.

The problem for hard right according to several Liberal insiders, is its lack of a defined leader. Former MP Vince Connolly, Roberts, and Camenzuli are all mentioned.

“If Camenzuli was in the party we wouldn’t be talking about Robbo because he controls the most numbers. But he’s not in the party,” one Liberal source says.

Camenzuli’s stated goals are simple: ensuring the party’s democratic processes are respected and adhered to. But, according to critics, he tries to be all things to all people: trying to broker deals with factional kingpins behind closed doors, then publicly criticising the very people and system he’s tried to work with.

“I don’t see myself as a powerbroker, I don’t particularly like factions. I think the party should be de-factionalised,” says Camenzuli, arguing he represents the interests of branch members at high-level negotiations.

A future of fractures?

The loss of the March state election had two impacts – one immediate, one longer term.

The “unity deal” – an agreement struck between conservatives and moderate heavyweight Matt Kean to manufacture election-winning outcomes – has disintegrated with Perrottet’s looming exit from politics.

After years of the Coalition promoting a socially progressive agenda at odds with sections of the grassroots, conservatives argue the party’s chances are predicated on returning to the base.

“If you’re true to your base you will do well. Politics 101 is securing your base then securing those undecided voters. Not lurching towards people who would never vote for you,” one warlord says.

The question now for moderates is: where do they turn for support?

The answer already seems self-evident to observers: the return to dealing with Hawke and the centre-right. First, the factions worked together to ensure Maria Kovacic became a senator; then soft-right member Berenice Walker was elected president of the women’s council.

With federal preselections on the horizon, there’s an expectation the factions will work together to manufacture outcomes amenable to all parties, including ensuring deputy federal leader Sussan Ley, Hawke, and Melissa McIntosh all respectively keep their seats.

After 26-years in the Senate, former foreign affairs minister and moderate Marise Payne’s retirement on Friday will once again test the right’s unity.

Her anointed successor, Constance, will go around again and bring a bloc of moderate votes. Prominent No campaign and Indigenous leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine has declined to rule out running.

Backed by Hawke, Mundine’s success will be determined by whether the right comes with him. Losing another senate preselection ballot to the moderates would prove an embarrassment for conservatives.

Over the long run, senior conservatives believe the right factions will reconcile their differences, tapping into disquiet within the rank-and-file to challenge the moderate’s supremacy. Recent factional meetings were the best in 30 years, one MP says, showing an increasing professionalism.

“A quiet revolution is occurring. You’ll see a general movement from across the broad church, what is triggering them is they want the party to succeed, but they want a say in who represents them,” one says.

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One even suggests the eventual return of the centre-right and hard-right under one conservative banner.

Moderates say they’ve heard this rhetoric all before. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

“The right are first and foremost a protest faction. They exist to agitate the moderate establishment. The few times that they have taken power in NSW, they have imploded immediately because they are incapable of getting along with each other,” one concludes.

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