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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones - this is 7am.
Time is running out for the Liberal Party to select candidates in a number of key seats, ahead of the federal election.

The process should have been completed months ago, but internal battles within the party have caused significant delays.

And there are allegations that one senior minister - close to the Prime Minister - may be holding up the process to deliberately engineer a crisis.

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Karen Middleton on the power struggle within the Liberal Party that’s threatening their re-election chances.

It’s Thursday February 10.

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RUBY:

Karen, in a matter of months, there's going to be an election. It'll be a busy time for all of us, especially you I suppose in Canberra. However in New South Wales, there are several seats where the Liberals haven't actually chosen who they want to run. So how unusual is that?

KAREN:

It's very unusual. They should have candidates in all of their seats by now, and they should have had them weeks ago, months ago. And we all know the further ahead you can start campaigning and get around meeting people in your electorate, the better off you're going to be.

And the reason they haven't is there's this standoff in the Liberal Party, which is really revolving around factional power and personal power too.

And most of the criticism around that is being targeted at Alex Hawke, who is the federal Immigration minister, and he is key to getting these candidates i nstalled.

RUBY:

OK, so can you tell me a bit more about Alex Hawke, then? He’s the immigration minister, but he is relatively low profile. Can you tell me a bit more about him and his relationship to the prime minister?

KAREN:

Well, he is low profile in a sense, but he was elevated to a cabinet level position late last year in the last ministerial reshuffle that Scott Morrison undertook, and he kept his immigration portfolio. But it meant that he was a more senior minister, and he and Scott Morrison have had a close association for quite a long time.

They both belong to the Pentecostal Christian Church, so they have that in common aside from their factional alliance.

And he runs the centre right faction of the Liberal Party. Morrison's faction and they had an overlapping period when Scott Morrison was state director of the Liberal Party in New South Wales, and Alex Hawke was head of the New South Wales young liberals and went on to head the young liberals nationally. So they knew each other politically then.

And in about 2007, Scott Morrison had moved into the seat of Mitchell in Sydney in the western part of Sydney, which was a safe liberal seat, and Alex Hawke was angling to get preselected for that seat himself. So when the former state director had moved into the seat that he had his eye on, Alex Hawke said about helping find him another seat.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Mr Speaker, it is with humility and a deep sense of appreciation to the electors of Cook that I rise to make my maiden speech in this house.”

KAREN:

The upshot of which was that Scott Morrison ended up being effectively installed as the candidate in Cook and went on to enter parliament in 2007.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Today I wish to pay tribute to those who have been instrumental in my journey and to share the values and vision that I intend to bring to this house.”

RUBY:

Hm OK. And so when we're talking about the current preselection process, or I suppose lack thereof, how exactly is Alex Hawke involved in that?

KAREN:

Well, the Liberal Party in New South Wales a few years ago now introduced branch wide voting for pre-selection candidates, and there's a process involved in that that includes having meetings of the Liberal Party, key office bearers and the head of each particular branch to endorse the nominees for preselection for particular seats.

Archival tape -- News:

“Liberal Party members are seeking to end months of delays over the selection of federal election candidates, which could derail their chances.”

Archival tape -- Ray Hadley:

“When are we going to have some of the definitive answer in New South Wales as to who's going to stand.”

KAREN:

And that process has been stalled because one of the people who has to attend those meetings is a representative of the federal Liberal Party leader. So in other words, a representative of Scott Morrison and that is Alex Hawke.

Archival tape -- News:

“Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, who acts as the prime minister's representative on the New South Wales state executive, has refused to hold formal meetings to approve candidates over the last six months”

KAREN:

And he has been persistently unavailable to attend the meetings in key seats that don't have candidates.

Archival tape -- News:

“The delay means roughly 20 nominations are yet to be resolved ahead of the election.”

KAREN:

“That has raised the temperature in right across the state Liberal Party and particularly on the state executive, because there's a feeling that Alex Hawke is stalling to stop this process going ahead.”

RUBY:

Right? OK, so it sounds like by not coming to these meetings, the process is being stopped in its tracks and a candidate can't be picked. But why would Alex Hawke be doing that? What's the benefit to him from stalling this process?

KAREN:

Well, that's an excellent question people are asking, and it also begs the question Why would Scott Morrison allow it to happen? Because he's his representative. So if Alex Hawke is refusing to turn up, Scott Morrison must be at least tacitly allowing this to occur.

The answer is - depends who you talk to. But those who are critical and concerned about this believe that Alex Hawke is doing this deliberately, partly because he wants his own candidates installed in certain seats and partly because he's looking to the future and trying to secure his own power.

And both of those things can be achieved by creating, I guess, sort of, chaos in the process and requiring in the end that the federal executive of the Liberal Party step in, intervene and bypass the processes and install candidates and maybe ultimately even install an administrator in the whole of the state Liberal Party that would then run these processes without having branch level votes for the next two years.

So if that were to occur, Alex Hawke would have greater influence over who the candidates were without having to worry about these pre-selection processes. And he would also have greater control over who the administrator was that was appointed.

And effectively it would put him in charge of choosing candidates not only for these key seats for this federal election, but for the state election, which is coming up after that and possibly even in the lead up to the next federal election. So it would greatly increase Alex Hawke's power.

RUBY:

Hmm. So it sounds like the suggestion is that Alex Hawke is trying to essentially engineer a crisis so that he can step in and and entrench his own political power.

KAREN:

That is certainly what his most strident critics across the factional spectrum in the Liberal Party believe is the case. They believe that he's trying to engineer a crisis, that he's trying to get so close to the election that the party will have no choice but to intervene at the federal level and end up giving him greater power over this whole process.

And Alex Hawke is a controversial figure. In fact, one liberal said to me sort of jokingly that Alex is the great uniter of the New South Wales Liberal Party because he brings people together across the factional divide in common hatred.

RUBY:

We'll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Karen, we've been talking about the Liberal Party and the seat in NSW that they’re yet to fill. It sounds like the underlying issue is to do with this battle for political power. But could you actually tell me more about the seats - who is in contention and how this is actually playing out on the ground?

KAREN:

Well, there are a few seats that are at issue that haven't had their candidates chosen.

Seats like the seat of Warringah, which is the seat that Tony Abbott used to hold. It's the seat that independent Zali Steggall won at the last election.

Archival tape -- News:

“North of Sydney on the coast there it's another formerly blue ribbon seat which has since been taken by an independent.”

KAREN:

It's the seat that the Liberals were trying to recruit Gladys Berejiklian to run for at the federal level after she resigned as premier in New South Wales.

Archival tape -- News:

“Gladys Berejiklian says she will not be running for federal parliament at the next election, though she did give it some thought. It's a blow for Scott Morrison, who was desperate for her to win back Tony Abbott's old seat of Warringah.”

KAREN:

“Now that is partly contributed to the delay in that seat. There's a seat on the Central Coast, the seat of Dobell. The prime minister had a candidate there that he wanted to install Jemima Gleeson. Now she is a Pentecostal preacher.”

Archival tape -- Jemima Gleeson:

“Well hello Church, my name’s Jemima. I’m so excited to be sharing with you around this topic of flourishing.”

KAREN:

And she's his preferred candidate.

Archival tape -- Jemima Gleeson:

“I want to read to you from psalm 92 today. The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cider in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the lord.”

KAREN:

And there's the seat of Hughes, which is the seat that Craig Kelly currently holds. Now he's in parliament. He was originally a liberal.

Archival tape -- News:

“We understand that Craig Kelly, the liberal member for Hughes, has just told a meeting of coalition MPs that he will be leaving the Liberal Party to sit on the crossbench.”

KAREN:

He's become firstly an independent, and he now he's lined up with the Clive Palmer United Australia party, and the Liberal Party needs to preselected candidate to run against him and hopefully to get the seat back. So those are three of the key seats where there are issues being raised.

And there are also issues about the seat that Alex Hawke holds the seat of Mitchell, where he's facing a preselection challenge, the seat that Trent Zimmerman holds in North Sydney, who who's a key negotiator for the moderates and the seat that Sussan Ley holds, who's a federal cabinet minister in regional New South Wales, where she's also facing a challenge. And all of those challenges are coming from members of the hard right factin. So there's a lot of contention around all of these seats that aren't resolved.

RUBY:

And there's a lot to lose, Karen, because the lack of candidates that must be impacting the party's chances of success at the election already because they're losing all this valuable campaign time. And I'm sure Labor knows who they're running in those seats already. So you have to, I guess, wonder if something like this is actually worth it for those who are involved?

KAREN:

Well, exactly. And there are a lot of people in the Liberal Party wondering why on earth they are squandering all of this time when they need to have candidates in place. Because key people, very senior people in the New South Wales Liberal Party won't agree to finish the process, and they are suspecting that it's to do with personal power and that that that is being put ahead of the interests of the wider Liberal Party because it's hard to see how leaving it this late and also having public fights can be beneficial to the Liberal Party's chances of winning these seats.

We all know the old cliche that disunity is death, and there's nothing worse when you're about to ask people to vote for you than looking like a party that's in disarray.

RUBY:

Hmm. And you mentioned earlier that, you know, if this is what Alex Hawke is doing, it would be happening, I suppose, with the sort of tacit approval of Scott Morrison. And I just wonder what he would stand to gain from this.

KAREN:

Well, that's also a good question. It goes back, I guess, to his association historically with Alex Hawke. He owes a lot to Alex Hawke. In some ways he owes the very beginnings of his own political career. And so he's stuck by Alex Hawke, and he's very much a transactional politician. He's admitted that himself. And so it's it's often about, you know, you do a favour for someone. They do a favour for you. You protect someone. They protect you.

So the view generally is that the prime minister is by not intervening to stop this happening, effectively endorsing what Alex Hawke is doing. But at the moment, the issue hasn't been resolved, and there are people even threatening legal action in the event that certain candidates are sort of rammed through without that democratic vote.

So it's still up in the air and they're trying to do it through persuasion and negotiation. But there are these lingering threats in the background that it get quite serious if it doesn't move soon.

RUBY:

Mm yeah, it definitely sounds messy. Karen, and I wonder, I mean, if this is the plan, what are the the chances of it succeeding of the federal executive intervening and someone like Alex Hawke getting the power to pick candidates?

KAREN:

Well, at the end of the process, that is the key question, because Alex Hawke can manoeuvre as much as he likes to get into the position that the federal executive will be asked to intervene. But they still have to- the members of the federal executive agree to do that - and at the moment they haven't.

There are rules in place that mean that they have to have a vote of 75 per cent. So a majority that more than just an ordinary majority to agree before the federal executive would intervene in these circumstances.

There's already been the idea floated by Scott Morrison late last year to the federal executive that they should intervene, and my understanding is that they don't have that majority support at the moment to be able to get the federal executive to do this. So it may turn out that all of these delays in stalling tactics and pressure amounts to nought.

And they're being put in a very difficult position because their prime minister is going to ask for an intervention, it seems, and they either have to agree and then risk a big backlash from within the Liberal Party of members that want to be able to vote themselves or the federal executive has to rebuff their own prime minister, which is not a very good look.

So it's a very difficult situation they're in and there are a lot of frantic negotiations trying to avoid it coming to that.

RUBY:

Karen, thank you so much for your time.

KAREN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame says she received a threatening phone call last year from a senior member from a government funded organisation asking her not to say anything damning about the Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Archival tape -- Grace Tame:

“He’ll have a fear, they said. You know with an election coming soon. And it crystallised - a fear, a fear for himself and no one else, a fear he might lose his position and more to the point, his power.”

RUBY:

At her National Press Club Address on Wednesday, alongside former staffer Brittany Higgins, Tame said she had nothing to lose and that she made a "conscious decision to stand up to evil" and will continue to do so.

**
And Richard Pusey has been charged with allegedly sharing an image of a body of a dead police officer.

The 44-year-old has been charged with two counts of using a device to menace and two counts of committing an indictable offence while on bail.

The image Pusey shared on a Melbourne Porsche dealership website was of one of the four officers who was killed in a car crash in Melbourne in 2020.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see ya tomorrow.