An advocate of Liberal party reform has accused New South Wales delegates of failing to reflect the wishes of grassroots members, saying a backroom compromise to trial democratic votes in just six seats did not go far enough.

Walter Villatora, the president of the Warringah federal electorate conference, which covers Tony Abbott’s electorate, wrote to party members to express his disappointment about the slow progress towards giving the rank and file a greater say in who gets preselected to stand for parliament.

Villatora, who had earlier warned the NSW state council about the party increasingly resembling “a closed shop”, said the limited trials between now and 2019 were an “important step towards a fully democratic party”.

His comments followed Malcolm Turnbull’s speech to the same party event on Saturday, when the prime minister was jeered at by some delegates for claiming that the Liberals were “not run by factions”.

On Sunday, Turnbull laughed off the reaction as “constructive feedback” and acknowledged there were factions in all political parties, but he maintained that “the parliamentary Liberal party itself is a much more independent group of individuals”.

One of the big flashpoints at the Liberal NSW state council meeting was a push by the Warringah conference to rewrite the party’s constitution to reflect John Howard’s proposal to introduce plebiscites involving all local members to decide on preselections in all state and federal seats.

At present, a combination of delegates from local branches and head office decide on who is endorsed as a candidate. Critics say this entrenches factional power.

But Villatora withdrew the original motion after it became clear that enough factional leaders opposed it to block the far-reaching proposal. He negotiated the compromise after talks involving the state premier, Mike Baird, the state director Tony Nutt, and Turnbull. The Warringah federal electorate conference area includes Baird’s state seat of Manly.

It is understood Trent Zimmerman, the incoming state party president and heir apparent to Joe Hockey in the seat of North Sydney, was also involved in the talks. Hockey, who was replaced as treasurer after Turnbull rolled Tony Abbott for the Liberal leadership, is poised to resign from federal parliament soon.

The compromise commits the party to a plebiscite in one federal NSW metropolitan seat for the 2016 election, two seats for the following federal election, and three seats for the 2019 state election.

In an email sent to about 10,000 party members, and seen by Guardian Australia, Villatora said: “The reality is it was abundantly clear that state council delegates did not reflect the will of the membership. We had two possibilities 1) zero democratic reform 2) trial plebiscites. To open the democratic door we had to choose pragmatism today.”

Villatora said he was “certain that if every member of the NSW Liberal party could vote on these reforms that Mr Howard’s proposals would have gained over 80% support”, but at present only a small number of members had input.

“While I am disappointed the Warringah constitution/Howard reforms were not adopted or even debated, I am quite pleased that the 5% of party members with a say in these things did actually agree to trialling democratic preselections (ie plebiscites) in the near future,” he wrote.

“It is critical that seats are chosen for these trials where the party has a sufficient number of members for the plebiscite to be a bona fide trial.”

The agreed package also included a doubling of preselectors for all state and federal lower house preselections, and a doubling of Senate preselection panels.

Villatora, in a speech to state council on Saturday, said the package fell “significantly short of ideal” and democratic reforms were needed to convert thousands of party supporters into members, “which can only be a huge positive in light of our ever-declining membership base”.



“Fellow Liberals, the delegate system is broken,” he told the event. “The current system couldn’t find room for one woman in a winnable position for the upper house in the recent state election.”

Turnbull said the Liberal federal executive would look at ways to make the party more representative. In his speech to the conference, the prime minister called for state divisions to lead efforts to lift women’s representation.

“Now, we should never be afraid of testing new models for how we can make ourselves for accountable to our members, to ensure all the many thousands of Australians who work diligently and devotedly to serve our party, have a strong sense of relevance and belonging,” Turnbull said.

“It seems to me that the proposal to trial plebiscites for preselections in six seats in New South Wales is a good formula to test a new approach to the process of choosing our candidates.”

Reform supporters are urging the party to trial the preselection in a seat with many members to ensure it is not engineered to fail.

Villatora is considered a potential candidate for the seat of Mackellar, currently held by Bronwyn Bishop, who has previously said she intended to stand again at the next election. But Bishop has also told Liberal party members her chief of staff, Damien Jones, would be a good candidate to take over the safe Liberal seat.

A plebiscite in Mackellar could prompt a larger number of candidates to stand for preselection.

Meanwhile, the Liberal party confirmed Patricia Shields had resigned as a member just days after she was elected to a position on the NSW Women’s Council.

Fairfax Media reported that Nutt confirmed the departure about an hour after a journalist enquired about anti-Muslim material shared on Shields’s Facebook page.

The controversy coincides with Turnbull’s attempts to promote community harmony and “mutual respect” as part of efforts to counter violent extremism.

In a speech on Friday the prime minister specifically warned that those “trying to tag all Muslims with responsibility for the crimes of a tiny minority” were hampering police efforts to stop terrorism.