Embattled NSW Liberal committee undergoes major shake-up, as moderates reassert dominance whilst fending off unexpected bid from Tony Abbott
The beleaguered NSW Liberal state committee has been purged, with ex-Victorian Senator Richard Alston and former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale dumped as administrators of the branch after a string controversies and gaffes.
The federal executive met on Tuesday afternoon and voted 20 votes to one on the new leadership panel proposed by federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley and her NSW counterpart Mark Speakman.
The meeting concluded that the bruised division would remain in administration until next March with former NSW Premier Nick Greiner installed as the independent chair to oversee the seven-person state executive committee for the next nine months.
Ms Ley selected former state MP Peta Seaton as her delegate on the committee, while Mr Speakman appointed barrister and outspoken moderate Jane Buncle.
It is also understood that multiple members of the NSW right faction lobbied for former Prime Minister Tony Abbott to be appointed to the committee, however the move was resoundingly voted down by the executive.
The meeting's rejection of Abbott's bid resulted in a tense factional dispute between moderates and the right.
Numerous Liberal right figures labelled the new group the "committee of management" and attacked party bosses for establishing an executive stacked with staunch social moderates and soft-right forces led by factional leader federal MP Alex Hawke.
One anonymous conservative Liberal described the outcome as a "Hawke/Moderate intervention' and told The Daily Telegraph, 'their mission will be to prevent reform from happening.'
'If the rules of the party mean that Hawke and the Moderates are always in charge, what incentive do they have to change the rules?'
The new committee will include Mark Baillie who will serve as treasurer, James Owen, Peter O'Hanlon and Berenice Walker who is also the President of the NSW Women's Council.
The result means that Victorian Liberal elders Alan Stockdale and Richard Alston will be axed as interim administrators, after former federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton announced a 10-month takeover of the NSW branch and installed a three-person oversight panel due to the 2024 council nomination blunder.
Mr Stockdale's tenure was viewed as unsustainable by a myriad of NSW Liberal figures after the veteran politician stated at a gathering of the NSW Liberal Women's Council that women had become 'sufficiently assertive' and that reverse quotas for men were needed.
Multiple Liberal insiders told the Sydney Morning Herald Mr Stockdale was vocal in his opposition of Ms Walker being appointed to the committee.
Ms Walker had previously railed against the party's direction under Mr Stockdale's leadership, with the women's council passing a motion on May 25 conveying their 'firm and formal opposition to any extension of the federal intervention'.
Ms Seaton was the only member of the interim panel who survived the restructure.
The singular vote against Ley and Speakman's committee was Charlie Taylor, the brother of shadow defence minister Angus Taylor who recently lost the Liberal leadership ballot, Liberal sources told the Sydney Morning Herald.
A Liberal source told the Daily Telegraph that NSW members had 'reclaimed the party back from Victoria'.
'The Victorian division is sinking fast and we want nothing to do with that Titanic,' the unnamed source added.
The meeting also appointed former NSW state minister Pru Goward and former federal minister and factional powerbroker Nick Minchin to lead a review into the Liberal's thumping 2025 federal election defeat.
Ms Goward and Mr Minchin are set to investigate the Coalition's tumultuous election campaign and the last term of parliament under former opposition leader Peter Dutton and provide recommendations about how the party can best reclaim the litany of seats lost to both the Teals and the Labor Party.
They are also expected to scrutinise the centralised nature of Liberal campaign HQ in the lead-up to the election, of which numerous Coalition figures have spoken out against since the overwhelming defeat.
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Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. 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MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating. Long the overlooked understudy, Sussan Ley remains cautiously Delphic about her plans to rebuild the Liberal Party. But don't let that fool you. For years, she's been watching and learning from the "big beasts" of conservative certainty: Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton - men "destined to rule". These chaps are now all gone from politics - each, in the end, having made more opponents than supporters. Categorically, Ley is not "of" this phenotype. Which is why her plans to resuscitate the flatlining party begin with what not to say when communicating internally with MPs and externally with voters. Self-evidently, Ley can be a circuit-breaker ... if they allow her to be. Already, her vanquished rival, Angus Taylor is publicly opposing the suggestion of rule changes to select women for winnable seats. He calls affirmative action "undemocratic" knowing full well how that cruels her pitch. Some people might make the same observation about Liberal factions. Or the enforcement of shadow cabinet solidarity. Some might even say that opposing quotas is a strange mound to die on for "liberals" after ascending the mountainous debt of government-funded-and-operated nuclear power. In any event, it is hard to recall an instance when Dutton was so publicly countermanded. Despite a margin of just four votes over Taylor in last month's leadership ballot, what Ley envisions simply must be bold - closer to a rebuild than a renovation - albeit, while keeping the heritage-listed facade - let's call it "mid-century Menzies"? For all that, Ley knows she must hasten slowly. Reading between the lines, she wants to get back to basics, steer back to the mainstream. This would involve concentrating political contest around the traditional differences with Labor over managerial competence, budget and economic discipline, defence and national security, business deregulation and aspiration. Her "sealed section" might also include an end to the climate wars and the formal adoption of quotas to get women in Parliament - about which she is "agnostic". She describes all this as "meeting Australians where they are", which sounds as harmless as it does overdue. But for a punchy party addicted to the sugar-hit gratifications of culture wars, it is a correction likely to adduce plenty of Trumpian malcontents. On the plus side, Ley has a bona fide crisis to fix. The Coalition she has inherited needs a 75 per cent increase in seats to reach a majority in 2028. And virtually all of those gains must come in the cities, where the anti-woke, anti-renewables and anti-metro vibes from Dutton and the Nationals have basically killed the brand. "We didn't just lose, we got smashed, totally smashed," Ley told the National Press Club on Wednesday. "Over two elections, the Coalition has lost 33 seats in the House of Representatives. We've lost eight seats in the Senate. "Our primary vote has fallen by more than 9 per cent in the House. Our two-party-preferred vote is down more than 6 per cent, and we now hold just two of 43 inner-metro seats and seven of 45 outer-metro seats." Take that! Simply by acknowledging the scale of her party's descent, Ley showed more grit and empiricism than Dutton ever did. The "hardman" drafted unopposed after Morrison surrendered six Liberal jewels to female community candidates in 2022, had preferred to revile rather than resolve the "gender-quake" that had just levelled his party's blue-ribbon heartlands. Morrison had scoffed at the "cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of the inner-cities," but instead of disowning such bone-headed insults, Dutton doubled down, never hiding his contempt for the teals and for their voters. It was a declaration of war, with women generally and with the affluent Australians on whom the Liberal Party was built. Yet nobody in the party room (Ley included) spoke up at the time. MORE MARK KENNY: In her first month as leader, however, Ley has already done more soul-searching and more listening than her predecessors undertook in eight years. In the aftermath of a thrashing, she prefers John Howard's folksy wisdom that the Australian voters got it right. Thus, she says openly that a Liberal majority requires some or all of the teal seats. That Ley's was the first Press Club address by a Liberal leader in three years simply underscored what an odd, divisive unit Dutton had been. That it was the first address to the club by a female opposition leader (from either side) also made it historic. Of course, this was also smart internal politics. It cemented on the record that the 2025 rout belonged as much to the abrasive rhetoric and policies Dutton espoused as to his poor standing. Ley needs her MPs to accept that future success begins with recognising how far the Coalition has drifted from the mainstream voter. Modernisation is not a choice but a necessity. The scale of this task will be rendered visually next month when Ley faces Anthony Albanese across the dispatch boxes in Parliament. With 94 seats, Labor MPs will extend well around the horseshoe while, behind Ley, will sit a rump comprising less than half of Labor's holding and just five Liberal women. Dutton made the basic error of moving further rightward because Albanese had colonised the centre-ground. It is not a mistake Ley plans on repeating.
