Octogenarian Victorians ousted from NSW Libs, but not before trying to block appointment of a woman
Federal Liberal Leader Sussan Ley and her NSW counterpart Mark Speakman have secured a major win in determining who will run the beleaguered state party, appointing a new committee headed by former premier Nick Greiner and ending the term of two octogenarian men from Victoria.
Ley and Speakman's plan for the NSW Liberals was endorsed at a federal executive meeting 20 votes to one on Tuesday, a decision which will see the division remain in administration until March but with committee members handpicked by the two leaders.
Ley chose former state MP Peta Seaton as her representative on the committee while Speakman nominated barrister and leading moderate Liberal Jane Buncle as his.
The party's vice president, Berenice Walker, Peter O'Hanlon and James Owen will be on the committee, as well as Mark Baillie, who will serve as treasurer.
Greiner and Seaton, who was the third member of the original intervention committee which included former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale and ex-Victorian senator Richard Alston, conducted the review of the party's 2023 state election loss.
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The continuation of Stockdale and Alston on a committee running the NSW division was seen as untenable because both men were Victorian. Stockdale sealed the pair's fate when he made ill-thought-out comments to a meeting of the NSW Liberal Women's Council, in which he joked that women were now 'sufficiently assertive' that reverse quotas for men could be needed.
Several Liberal sources with knowledge of Tuesday's meeting said Stockdale argued that Walker, who is president of the women's council, should not be on the new committee. At the same time, some Right-wing members were pushing for former prime minister Tony Abbott to be on the committee, but that was overwhelmingly opposed.
The women's council was vocal in its criticism of the administration of the party under Stockdale and Alston, passing a motion of its executive on May 25 expressing 'our firm and formal opposition to any extension of the federal intervention'.
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