Two of Scott Morrison’s allies are facing preselection challenges in their seats, as are two other senior federal Liberals – the deputy leader, Sussan Ley, and the manager of opposition business, Paul Fletcher.
Nominations for the first batch of New South Wales seats closed on Monday. Morrison backers Alex Hawke, the former immigration minister, and Melissa McIntosh, the member for Lindsay, are being challenged.
In addition to an expulsion motion, Hawke will face a challenge for his north-west Sydney seat of Mitchell from at least one candidate, the army reserve lieutenant colonel Michael Abrahams, who tried to unseat him ahead of the 2022 election.
In another repeat of a 2022 challenge, McIntosh faces a preselection battle with Penrith councillor Mark Davies, the husband of hardline anti-abortion state MP Tanya Davies.
Ley is being challenged by Jean Haynes, a conservative who quit the Liberal state executive to contest the south-west NSW regional seat of Farrer.
Paul Nettelbeck, a communications expert who previously worked for the Menzies Research Institute, has nominated for Fletcher’s seat of Bradfield.
Guardian Australia understands Nettelbeck’s nomination was primarily a defensive manoeuvre to prevent Fletcher retiring and passing his seat uncontested to a NSW moderate. However, Fletcher has renominated.
“That’s just a nuisance challenge,” a senior Liberal said.
Challengers must pass an internal Liberal candidate vetting process before preselection voting, which is expected by late October.
Before the 2022 election, Hawke and Ley were challenged but then saved by a federal intervention in the NSW division triggered by Hawke’s alleged failure to attend nomination review committee meetings. His absence delayed the preselection process.
Candidates in nine NSW seats were then selected by a three-person panel which included Morrison and the then premier Dominic Perrottet just weeks before the election.
Morrison defended the intervention which he said had protected Ley and helped other women and multicultural candidates run for parliament.
On Tuesday, Ley declined to comment on internal party matters.
“Anyone is entitled to put their hand up and put their name forward for preselection – that’s the democratic process within our party,” she told reporters in Scarborough. “Right now, my entire focus is on the issues that ordinary middle Australians are facing.”
Ley said the cost-of-living crisis was “the fight that I’m having” around the country including in her electorate of Farrer.
On Thursday, Guardian Australia revealed that an urgency motion proposed at the last state council succeeded in putting a motion to expel Hawke to the next council, expected in October or November.
In the wake of the 2022 election defeat, the federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, warned the NSW division it was “completely unacceptable” to preselect candidates on the eve of an election.
