Moderate-leaning Liberals in Tasmania, including the prominent federal MP Bridget Archer, are staring down a challenge from the state’s conservative faction ahead of the next federal election, which party sources say is being driven by the former senator and rightwing powerbroker Eric Abetz.
Multiple sources say Archer’s seat of Bass and Richard Colbeck’s Senate seat are under threat by conservative up-and-comers as part of a push that would disrupt the factional balance of the state’s federal representatives in parliament.
Colbeck and his conservative Senate colleague Clare Chandler are both up for re-election at the 2025 federal election, but the conservative candidate Brendan Blomeley, who is believed to be backed by Abetz, is understood to be vying for Colbeck’s second-placed spot.
Only two of the six Senate seats up for grabs are thought to be winnable for the Liberal party.
Meanwhile, Nine newspapers reported the Braddon MP, Gavin Pearce, told colleagues he would withhold his preselection nomination until party officials forced Archer out.
Pearce did not confirm the series of events and said he would not discuss private conversations in public.
“That goes against everything I stand for,” Pearce said.
Despite the factional challenge, Archer told Guardian Australia she was “standing firm” and had “no intention of stepping aside” in the state’s upcoming preselections.
The moderate Liberal MP has become increasingly outspoken against her party, recently accusing the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, of appearing to “weaponise” child abuse for some “perceived political advantage”.
Archer had crossed the floor in October after the Coalition moved to suspend the standing orders to vote on calling for a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities.
It marked the 28th time the Bass MP had crossed the floor against her party.
Brad Stansfield, a party veteran who once advised Abetz and is now a partner of Tasmanian lobbying and public relations firm Font PR, singled out his former boss as the driving force behind the move to stop Archer running for Bass again in the 2025 federal election.
Stansfield had earlier labelled “certain forces” looking to topple Archer as “politically crazy” in March but had declined to name names.
When asked why he didn’t name Abetz, or others he suspected of being involved months earlier, he said he “didn’t think that was appropriate at the time”.
“Given that this is going on, I think it is appropriate that names are now put on the record,” Stansfield said in an episode of his regular podcast, FontCast, released in November.
“The person who’s behind all this, the person who is agitating within and … outside the party to have Bridget deselected for want of a better term, is former senator Eric Abetz, current member of Liberal party state executive and future state Liberal member for Franklin.”
The former Liberal party staffer described the alleged moves by Abetz as “bad” for the party and for Tasmania.
“In my mind, the sort of factional warfare that he’s engaged in here, to try and blast Bridget out of the party … I think it’s wrong. I think it’s bad for the party, I think it’s bad for the state,” Stansfield said.
“And I also think it’s probably not something which a member of the state executive should be doing quite frankly.”
Guardian Australia contacted Abetz to respond to the claims but he declined to comment.
The party’s state director, Peter Coulson, said the preselection process is confidential but insisted the Liberals “are a strong and united team”.
He declined to comment on when the preselection votes would be held. It was expected the process would be held before March next year.
