The NSW Liberal Party is gripped by paranoia and confusion and has begun a purge of officials after this week’s nomination blunder.
At a hastily called meeting last night, the powerful members of the party’s state executive agreed unanimously to sack state director Richard Shields, who has been in the job since 2023 and was blamed for the failure on Wednesday to hand in nomination paperwork for up to 140 candidates for local council elections.
Party sources told Crikey both Shields and the man who has emerged as his nemesis, state president Don Harwin, attended the meeting in person at the Liberal headquarters on Macquarie Street in Sydney.
Shields was questioned on the failure but didn’t give an inch, taking all questions on notice. Earlier in the night, he had issued a statement to reporters saying calls for his resignation were “premature” and arguing there should be a “proper review of the nomination process to establish the full facts”.
He also sought to redirect attention to Harwin, saying in the statement: “This year my focus — as agreed with party leaders — has been on preparing for the upcoming federal election. To maintain this focus … Harwin, a highly experienced party official and former minister, volunteered to run the local government nomination process. I had full trust that this would be delivered successfully.”
Harwin apparently did not take kindly to the statement, telling the meeting Shields had been “briefing” against him and questioning whether a party media advisor should stay employed due to their role in issuing the statement. Harwin did not respond to a request for comment.
Members of the state executive floated Chris Stone as a possible replacement for Shields. Stone has experience in the position — he held the state director job for eight years until 2023.
When he quit, he lamented the infighting that had hamstrung Liberals ahead of the last federal election: “Our main enemy is the Labor Party, and we need to ensure that we’re focused on the main game,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the time. Stone did not respond to a request for comment from Crikey.
While preselections for next year’s federal campaign appear to be proceeding on schedule, some Liberals worry that the chaos of the last few days will impact their chances of retaking government. Certain seats in Western Sydney will be crucial to that ambition.
“[Opposition Leader Peter] Dutton’s clear strategy involves winning some of those outer suburban electorates, like Werriwa and Macarthur, and some regional electorates in NSW as well,” Redbridge Group strategy director Kos Samaras told Crikey.
“The chaos puts them on the back foot logistically, they have to find someone who is fit and ready to run the operation in NSW.”
Samaras would know about the pressures of that sort of job, having been Labor’s Victorian deputy campaign director from 2005 to 2019.
“Whenever you lose a director from your team so close to a federal election, reappointing someone, getting them acquainted with the entire machine, it’s pretty difficult, it can take years,” he said.
“That being said, it might not be as seismic as people think, with regards to the federal election, because Liberal HQ in Canberra is going to run it all — state branches are effectively auxiliary support and run the logistical requirements of the campaign on the ground.”
