A Maitland councillor who the Liberal Party failed to nominate for council elections has called the federal Liberal Party's takeover of the NSW division a "band-aid solution".
Ben Mitchell was one of two Maitland Liberal members caught up in the statewide blunder that saw the party miss the 12pm deadline on August 14 to register 140 candidates in numerous council areas across the state, including Newcastle and Cessnock.
The Liberal Party's federal executive has moved to put the NSW division under the control of a committee of management for the next 10 months.
Cr Mitchell said the takeover would not fix what happened.
"It's been a long-running issue, everyone wants reform of the way the NSW division works, but of course every faction wants a different type of reform and they can never agree," he said.
A federal executive meeting held on Tuesday put forward replacing the state executive with a committee comprised of Alan Stockdale and Richard Alston from Victoria and former NSW minister Rob Stokes.
Mr Stokes turned down a role on the proposed administration committee late on Tuesday.
The NSW division will face a federal intervention if it does not comply by Thursday next week, which would see the committee of management forcibly imposed.
Cr Mitchell said the issue with federal intervention is that it then becomes unclear who makes party decisions.
"There's no guarantee with the three person panel from the federal intervention that it certainly becomes all democratic with local members getting a vote," he said.
"Theoretically I assume if the three person panel, two of whom are from Victoria, decide they want a particular candidate, they could just impose that candidate against the will of local members.
"I don't think that fixes anything."
Cr Mitchell said regardless of what happens at a state level, there are still constituents in his ward who are left without the option to vote Liberal.
"I feel sorry for the people that want to vote for us that are now denied that opportunity, the community in my ward and communities all around state are now left with one less option on who to vote for, and it was completely my own party's doing," he said.
"While I do think the state director should have been gone and he was fired, I don't see how the federal executive intervening fixes the long-term issue.
"My main concern is that the community is now left without a choice."
Cessnock was hit hardest by the bungle, where all four Liberal candidates Paul Dunn, John Moores, Karen Jackson and Paul Paynter were not registered as candidates.
In Newcastle, candidates were registered for lord mayor and all wards except ward three, where Matt Bailey was endorsed to stand.
Newcastle Liberal candidate and Cr Callum Pull said he welcomed whatever change was needed to get the party back on track.
"Clearly they're resisting it as much as possible, but at the end of the day, if it means that we can get on with the job and do the job that people expect us to do, I don't think it's a bad thing," he said.
The meeting of the executive was held at the request of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, who had former federal secretary Brian Loughnane undertake a two-week review into the division which was presented at the meeting.
The Newcastle Herald contacted Cessnock Cr Paul Dunn and Matt Bailey, who was endorsed to run in Newcastle but was not nominated before the cut-off, for comment.
