Recriminations over the Coalition's federal election loss have boiled over spectacularly, with senior Liberal Party figures engaging in a vicious blame game over the impact of factional infighting on the result.
Four Corners has spoken to dozens of Liberal Party members about the Coalition's devastating loss, which has been blamed in part on the failure to preselect candidates in more than a dozen NSW seats until weeks before the election date.
The situation was further inflamed when a NSW party official, businessman Matthew Camenzuli, took the Liberal Party to court in a failed bid to force preselection votes for ordinary branch members.
Speaking for the first time about his actions Mr Camenzuli launched a broadside at former prime minister Scott Morrison's representative in NSW, rival faction leader and then-cabinet minister Alex Hawke.
"I think the guy's a cancer," he told Four Corners. "I think Alex and the movement that he's built is a cancer that has infected the party … and it needs to be excised. This cancer needs to be cut out."
Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke have been accused of holding up the process so they could install "captain's picks" without a regular preselection.
"There was World War III between the factions in terms of the candidates who had been nominated," former Liberal Party treasurer Michael Yabsley said.
"It then became a stand-off."
Mr Hawke has been accused of failing to agree to a timetable for candidate review meetings that would have allowed preselections to proceed.
The delays culminated in a federal intervention in the NSW branch.
The intervention protected Mr Hawke from being challenged for preselection by a candidate from the rival conservative faction in his seat of Mitchell.
Mr Hawke declined to be interviewed but said in a statement: "The specific allegation made by some that I delayed or had any ability to delay nomination review by not attending [key meetings] is false.
"As per party requirements, I have no role in deciding matters in relation to my own preselection," he said.
Mr Camenzuli, who was expelled from the party over his court challenge, said he did not know how Mr Hawke would have fared if he had been forced to face a preselection.
"But I do think it's appropriate for Alex to have faced preselection if there are people that thought they would be a better representative for the seat of Mitchell than Alex Hawke," he said.
"And I personally don't believe that would be very difficult."
'Factional warlords who have nothing better to do'
However, supporters of Mr Hawke have hit back, accusing conservative faction forces aligned with Mr Camenzuli of "thuggish" behaviour that required the intervention of Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke to protect them and others.
Melissa McIntosh, who won the prized western Sydney seat of Lindsay from Labor in 2019, said she was "ambushed" last year at a meeting of her local branches when 20 new people from out of the area turned up and took over all the official party positions.
"They aggressively took over that meeting, every single executive spot that belonged to local people," she said.
"They shouted over the minister for women, Marise Payne. They shouted over me. These were people we'd never met before in our lives. A bunch of blokes who were working specifically to take me out."
Ms McIntosh, who is aligned with Mr Hawke and Mr Morrison's centre-right faction, credits them with heading off what she believed would be a challenge to her preselection to contest the 2022 election.
"If it wasn't for prime minister Scott Morrison and [Alex Hawke] I wouldn't have been the candidate for Lindsay and I can definitely say we would not have won the seat of Lindsay. This would now be a Labor seat."
Ms McIntosh also took aim at the governing body of the NSW Liberal Party, the state executive, over what she believes has been its lack of action on the issue.
She said when she raised the behaviour before the state executive, she was intimidated.
"That state executive is made up of factional warlords who have nothing better to do that to act in a thuggish way towards members of parliament like myself," she claimed.
Ms McIntosh said for 14 months, the party has ignored her request to investigate the behaviour at the branch's meeting.
'We have to get our house in order': deputy leader
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who was shielded from being challenged for preselection by a conservative candidate in her seat, also defended Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke.
"I blame the factional games and the infighting that led to this point and would have seen good cabinet ministers, good first-term members of parliament and good marginal seat members ousted potentially," she said.
"The general public is completely turned off by what they see is factional games. That's why we have to get our house in order."
Ms McIntosh warned that the Liberal party urgently needed to change its culture if it was to attract more women.
"We can have all the quotas in the world, but it will be a revolving door of women if we don't address the culture within the Liberal Party to make it a more supportive culture where complaints or issues or concerns are taken seriously," she told Four Corners.
"It is unacceptable that the Liberal Party is allowing this type of behaviour to happen. I can't encourage other women, professional women, to leave their careers, to spend time away from their families to pursue a career where there is this type of thuggish behaviour happening within the Liberal Party."
Senator calls on Alex Hawke to consider his future
Mr Hawke was also returned in his seat of Mitchell, but with a swing against him. Shortly after the election, he was dumped from the front bench by new Liberal leader Peter Dutton.
The decision prompted another of Mr Hawke's factional enemies — conservative former senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells — to question his future.
Ms Fierravanti-Wells was removed from a winnable position on the NSW Liberal ticket before the election and responded by criticising Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke in a blistering speech to the Senate in March.
She claimed that Mr Morrison and Mr Hawke's role in the preselection process meant that the NSW Liberal Party constitution – which guarantees branch members a vote in preselection contests — was "trashed".
Reflecting on the election loss and Mr Hawke's demotion, she told Four Corners: "Hawke should now look at his future, consider his situation in relation to his next preselection and reflect on his actions and reflect on why his constituents and party people in his area should continue to support him into the future".
Moderate NSW senator Andrew Bragg has proposed changes to the party constitution to avoid a repeat of the preselection crisis, including a strict timetable for preselections.
"We want to have candidates in the field … and that will help us attract new people who want to be one of our candidates," he said.
"Then we want to make sure that the division can get on and do the job without there being undue interference from the leaders' representative."
Ms Ley said Senator Bragg's proposals – which are due to be considered at the NSW Liberal Party's annual general meeting in August — were "well and truly worth considering".
"Everything needs to be on the table at this point in time, as we work hard to get our house in order to resolve the issues that have caused the problems that have unfortunately been so apparent to the Australian people," she said.
"Our job is to fight for them, not fight each other."
Four Corners' investigation has also uncovered extraordinary allegations about backroom Liberal Party operatives and their relationships with wealthy business interests. Watch the full program on iview.
