State MP Natasha Maclaren-Jones may stand for Mackellar and her place be taken by her husband and former Bishop chief of staff Damien Jones

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A mooted succession plan in Bronwyn Bishop’s Sydney seat has been denounced by local Liberal party members as “North Korean nepotism”.

Damien Jones, a former chief of staff to Bishop and a key figure in the “choppergate” scandal, has long been understood to have ambitions to succeed the MP for the northern beaches electorate of Mackellar.

A new possibility reported by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian would involve the New South Wales upper house member Natasha Maclaren-Jones standing for Mackellar and her place in state politics being taken by Jones – her husband. The plan would be predicated on Bishop’s support.

Jones, who is the president of the Mackellar federal electoral conference, said on Tuesday: “Mrs Bishop is running again and she has our support.”

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A Liberal source told Guardian Australia: “It sounds more like North Korean nepotism than globally competitive Sydney and if that were to occur it would weaken the democratic structures of the Liberal party, because in a democratic party people want a democratic say in the outcomes.”

The New South Wales Liberal party on Tuesday opened nominations for 22 Liberal-held federal seats, including Mackellar, which Bishop has represented since 1994.

It comes amid anger within Liberal party ranks over factional manoeuvring across NSW, with the moderates said to be on the march against conservative MPs and senators.

Bishop, Philip Ruddock, Craig Kelly and Angus Taylor face potential preselection challenges for their lower house seats. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who is the assistant minister for multicultural affairs and a conservative senator, and her long-serving upper house colleague Bill Heffernan, are also under pressure.

The major projects minister, Paul Fletcher, who is a close ally of the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said the preselection processes were simply “good, competitive discipline”.

“This is not a job for life,” he warned his colleagues during an interview on Sky News.

It is understood the federal director of the Liberal party, Tony Nutt, acting on behalf of the prime minister, has sought to calm the tensions by calling for stability in the NSW division.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, a prominent conservative, urged the party to maintain “a broad church” of conservative and liberal members.

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“I believe very strongly, and will fight very strongly, to make sure that that diversity of views is heard for a long period of time to come, so if people have a thought in their mind that somehow they’re going to knock out conservative candidates in NSW or anywhere else then I think I’ve made my position very clear,” Dutton told Sky News.

“I think that would be the view of other colleagues within the parliamentary party in Canberra and obviously the prime minister has been very clear that it’s his view as well.”

Tony Abbott’s former Senate leader, Eric Abetz, also writing in the Australian, called on the party to lock in behind Fierravanti-Wells and Taylor.

“Any talk of disendorsing such proven performers should be laughable,” Abetz said. “Yet the threats are sadly serious.”

Fierravanti-Wells said there was a lot of “posturing” during preselection processes but she welcomed the prime minister’s stated support for sitting members.

“I led the Senate ticket in 2010 and I seek that honour again for the next federal election,” she told Sky News. “In my case, I’d like to think I have plenty of positive things to talk about that I have done.”

Bishop is facing pressure to bow out at this year’s election, due to a combination of the damage she suffered from the expenses scandal last year and the fact she has held the seat for more than 20 years.

She has previously promoted Jones as a potential successor but it is believed Jones’s standing was also damaged by his links to the expenses scandal that brought down the parliamentary speaker.

Rightwing sources said the rumours about Jones and Maclaren-Jones could lay the foundations for a tilt at the seat by a candidate from the left, such as the former Young Liberals president Jason Falinski.

Ruddock, who entered parliament in 1973 and served as immigration minister in the Howard government, is also under pressure to retire. Sources said a former executive director of the Menzies ­Research Centre, Julian Leeser, was likely to win preselection for Ruddock’s seat of Berowra in the event of a challenge.

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Peter Hendy, the Liberal MP for the marginal seat of Eden-Monaro and a close supporter of Turnbull, said Ruddock was well respected within the party for his decades of service.

“He is often described as a hero of the party, so whatever happens I think Philip needs to be treated with enormous respect,” Hendy told Sky News.

On the other side of politics, the Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has disclosed the purchase of a property in the inner west Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill, amid speculation about whether he will seek to change seats as a result of boundary changes.

Most of Dulwich Hill remains within his electorate of Grayndler under the boundary changes finalised by the Australian electoral commission last week.

Albanese updated his pecuniary interests register to say that the purchase occurred in December. It is understood he bought it as an investment property.

The house Albanese lives in has been pushed outside Grayndler in the boundary changes but his office remains inside the seat. He is yet to announce his intentions.

Figures published by the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, suggest the number of notionally Coalition seats in NSW will decline from 30 to 27 after the boundary changes take effect, a development that is fuelling nervousness in Liberal ranks. The number of notionally Labor seats will increase from 18 to 20.