On Tuesday night, as outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells lobbed a grenade at Scott Morrison, the prime minister’s legal team was hastily putting together an application to have the High Court hear another dispute flowing from the Liberal Party’s factional civil war.
The application was rejected, but the lawyers will still duel it out in the NSW Court of Appeal tomorrow. The legal case provides a crucial backdrop to Fierravanti-Wells’ savaging of Morrison. The fight is particularly murky. It turns on the validity of the Liberal Party federal executive’s move to temporarily dissolve the state division and install a committee to save Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and MP Trent Zimmerman from preselection. The committee consisted of Morrison, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and former party president Christine McDiven.
An initial legal challenge was brought against that move by state executive member Matt Camenzuli, on the basis it breached the party’s constitution. Morrison’s legal team wanted the matter expedited to the High Court, in part because losers in the Supreme Court would probably appeal there anyway.
A ruling from the nation’s top court would resolve things quickly, especially given a judgment could jeopardise preselections and further delay appointing candidates in key marginal seats. On the other hand, it could drag out proceedings until after the election, allowing Morrison’s picks to be effectively locked in.
So what’s the connection to Fierravanti-Wells?
The case is just the latest skirmish in a long-running factional war pitting the senator’s hard-right faction against the centre-right, run by Morrison’s factional ally Hawke. In NSW at least, the moderates have increasingly worked with the hard-right to squeeze out the Morrison-Hawke faction.
Before the last election, the hard-right pushed for adoption of the Warringah Rules, championed by former prime minister Tony Abbott, which would give members greater control over the preselection process. That push was furiously opposed by Hawke and his faction, who wanted to place limits on party members’ votes.
While Abbott’s initial proposal won support from the rank and file, a series of compromises saw it diluted, giving the party machinery considerable sway in picking candidates.
With all that in the background, the Liberals struggled to preselect candidates this time. Until Tuesday, accusations that Morrison and Hawke had filibustered the preselection process so that the federal executive would have to intervene and install desirable candidates were largely anonymous.
Fierravanti-Wells used her speech as a chance to make them public. Morrison and his “consigliere” Hawke had “contrived a crisis” in NSW, she said.
“Hawke, as his representative on state executive for months and months, failed to attend nomination review committee meetings to review candidates, thereby holding up preselections. Spurious arguments were mounted to justify the unjustifiable. The constitution was trashed,” Fierravanti-Wells said.
With that assessment, Fierravanti-Wells joins the long list of colleagues — Malcolm Turnbull, Barnaby Joyce, Julia Banks, (allegedly) Gladys Berejiklian and more — to have called Morrison’s character into question.
But the factional subtext behind her words are important. They reveal the frustration of watching a faction putting an internal turf war over electoral success. It’s left a result where neither side can back down. Morrison is determined to get his candidates. Camenzuli, who has deep pockets, is determined to fight them in court every step of the way. Those spurned, like Fierravanti-Wells, are willing to go off.
What’s also telling is that nobody seems able to turn down the temperature. John Howard was wheeled out yesterday to accuse the PM’s critics of being consumed by personal grievance, but even he delivered a pointed message by maintaining his support for rank and file voting and swift preselections.
Winnable seats like Hughes, Warringah and Eden-Monaro are still without candidates. Yesterday Morrison said he wouldn’t call an election this weekend because the government still had work to do. Right now, his biggest task is putting out spot fires and getting his party’s shit together.
