The formerNew South Walespremier Nick Greiner will chair a new committee in charge of the state Liberal division after a federal takeover was extended for nine months.
The Liberal party’s federal executive voted on Tuesday to install the new body, which will replace a three-person panel announced in September 2024 following acouncil elections bungle.
Two former committee members – Victorian Liberal octogenerians Alan Stockdale and Richard Alston – have been dumped but the third former member, ex-NSW state MP Peta Seaton, will serve on Griener’s new seven-person panel.
The other members are Jane Buncle, Mark Baillie, Peter O’Hanlon, James Owen and Berenice Walker.
The federal executive on Tuesday also signed off on who would lead two separate reviews following the May election – one standard post-election review and another deeper dive into the future of the party.
The Liberal party’s peak administrative body announced the intervention into the NSW branch last year after thelocal government election nominations fiasco,installing an administrative committee to run the division for 10 months.
Stockdale, Alston and Seaton were charged with reviewing the party’s constitution, overhauling the administrative machinery and helping to conduct the federal election campaign.
The committee’s term was due to expire on 30 June, creating an early test for the new federal Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, as the competing factions in her home state wrangled over the division’s future.
The federal executive had the option of extending the three-person committee’s term or ending the intervention and handing control back to the NSW executive.
But a third option emerged in recent weeks, in which a federal-backed committee would remain, but the current members would be replaced with NSW figures.
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The internal push to replace the committee members gathered momentum after 80-year-old Stockdalesaid Liberal women were “sufficiently assertive”and perhaps male candidates needed a leg up.
The new seven-member committee will be in place until the end of March 2026.
The Liberals went backwards in NSW at the 3 May federal election, losing Bradfield, Banks and Hughes and failing to win any of its target seats.
It contributed to the worst result in the Liberal party’s 80-year history, with the Coalition reduced to just 43 lower house seats in the next parliament.