Scott Morrison factional ally, the sitting MP Alex Hawke, is facing a motion to expel him from the Liberal party at the upcoming state council over claims he delayed preselections, harming the Morrison government’s chances at the 2022 election.
The motion was put forward by the Artarmon branch of the Liberal party and will be debated at the next council meeting in October or November, about the same time Hawke is likely to face a preselection challenge in his north-western Sydney seat of Mitchell.
Hawke, the former immigration minister, was accused before the 2022 election of failing to attend nomination review committee meetings, delaying preselections.
This prompted an intervention that led to a three-person panel, including Morrison and the then premier, Dominic Perrottet, handpicking nine candidates just weeks before the election. This sparked an unsuccessful legal challenge from a party member, Matthew Camenzuli, who was expelled.
An urgency motion proposed at the last state council succeeded in putting the Hawke expulsion and a motion to restore Camenzuli’s membership on the agenda for the next council, despite earlier efforts from the state executive to frustrate attempts to expel Hawke.
A New South Wales Liberal source told Guardian Australia that Hawke was a “deeply unpopular figure” in the party but some fear the motion sets a “dangerous precedent” and could lead to him being expelled even if local members re-endorse his preselection.
The source said the urgency motion, moved by the hard-right faction, was supported by some moderates “letting off steam, to punish [Hawke]” despite the fact senior members of the faction regard it as a “dumb idea”.
The urgency motion passed 224 votes to 110, which backers suggest shows the push against Hawke is viable, although others rate it as having a slim chance of succeeding.
The particulars of complaint against Hawke, seen by Guardian Australia, said the failure to hold nomination review committee meetings had “seriously impaired” preselections in Farrer and North Sydney.
This had brought “negative publicity” to the party and – although it said no judgment was passed on the truthfulness or otherwise of the allegations – posed a “serious risk” to its electoral prospects and may bring the division “into disrepute”.
Camenzuli, who was a Liberal member from 2006 until he was expelled, said he “simply asked the party to hold the preselections we were promised in the NSW Liberal party constitution”.
“To have been expelled for that I always thought somewhat surprising,” he told Guardian Australia. “If the party wants to demonstrate they’re listening to members, and they’ve turned the corner, they should restore my membership and I’d happily go back into the party.
“Hawke has to take ownership of the role he played in that executive and in the party, in delay of preselections and … the spectacular loss in the 2022 election as a result of all sorts of things including this. Whether he remains a member is a matter for the party.”
The release of the robodebt report on Friday and adverse findings against Morrison, which he rejects, have resulted in pressure within the party for the member for Cook to quit parliament.
One NSW Liberal source suggested that the Hawke motion could be amended to also expel Morrison, but three others rejected that as either procedurally difficult or impossible.
Another nuclear option to remove Morrison would be to add Cook to the list of seats requiring early preselection.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has asked the NSW Liberal party to finalise preselections early, responding to recommendations from the 2022 election review to give candidates more time to establish themselves.
Cook was omitted from the edict due to the widespread belief that Morrison would retire mid-year if he found a private sector job.
Colleagues believe that Morrison’s response to the royal commission will be to dig in, delaying plans to retire for fear it could appear that he was accepting any fault or blame. They now expect his exit closer to or at the next election.
On budget night in 2022 the then NSW Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells called Morrison an “autocrat [and] a bully who has no moral compass” in the Senate. She accused Hawke of “corrupt antics” over the preselection saga, in which she failed to gain a winnable position on the Senate ticket.
In April 2022 Morrison defended the intervention, which he said had protected the now deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, from a preselection challenge and had helped other women and multicultural candidates run for parliament.
In the wake of the 2022 defeat Dutton warned the NSW division it was “completely unacceptable” to preselect candidates on the eve of an election.
Guardian Australia contacted Hawke and the NSW Liberal party for comment.
