Former PM says he will proceed with own motion on plebiscites regardless of prime minister and Mike Baird’s position

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Tony Abbott says he will proceed with a motion allowing Liberal party members to choose candidates in New South Wales, despite Malcolm Turnbull and Mike Baird signalling they want the fraught issue of plebiscites to be decided at a party convention in the first half of next year.

Friday’s joint position on party reform from the prime minister and the premier comes before what has been shaping up to be a high-octane meeting of the NSW Liberal state council on Saturday, which will also consider the motion from Abbott’s Warringah branch, which proposes opening up preselections to ordinary members for all federal and NSW positions.

The Turnbull/Baird proposal includes plebiscites but it puts democratisation in a broader context, saying change should be modelled on the Victorian system and should also improve policy participation by members, boost female participation and focus on improving a “ground game” campaign apparatus to allow the Liberals to compete with progressive activists during elections.

On plebiscites, Baird told reporters in Sydney on Friday that both he and the prime minister “strongly believe that every member should have more opportunities to have a vote in relation to preselections, so, one member, one vote, is a principle we both absolutely agree with”.

The premier also pointed to the opportunity to pursue more comprehensive change, arguing there was “a chance to reform the party and that’s what we’re going to discuss with our membership”.

But Abbott confirmed on Friday that he intends to proceed with his own motion on plebiscites on Saturday, notwithstanding Friday’s counter proposal from Turnbull and Baird.

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The motion from Abbott’s federal electoral conference would amend the NSW division’s constitution to allow each financial party member a vote for their local, state and federal Liberal candidates, senators and state upper-house members.



The current constitution has Liberal candidates in NSW chosen by a small group of party delegates.

Abbott told Guardian Australia he hoped the Warringah motion would succeed on Saturday and he said it would be “a bad look” if it failed. Party sources query whether the Warringah motion has the numbers to succeed.

Earlier in the week, as part of a number of public interventions challenging the prime minister, Abbott warned the process of party reform in NSW could fall victim to factional influence and inertia.

On Friday he was much more positive about the intervention on party reform from the prime minister and the premier.

He said there was no inconsistency between their position and his. “I welcome the hard work the prime minister and the premier have put in.”

But Abbott said he believed there were “some people” in the NSW scene who would view the Turnbull/Baird motion, which passed the state executive on Friday morning, “as a mechanism to kick the reform can down the road”.

Notwithstanding internal resistance, Abbott said he believed the momentum behind the democratisation push was now strong enough to ensure progress. “The status quo people will be delayers but they will not be blockers,” he said.

Another key advocate for change, the assistant minister for cities, Angus Taylor, told Guardian Australia he was strongly supportive of the Turnbull/Baird position but it needed to deliver concrete change.

“I think this is great but we do need a process to get an outcome, and that process has to involve the membership,” Taylor said on Friday. “It is crucial this process leads to genuine reform. It can’t be cosmetic this time.”

There is some talk that the former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell might be tasked with leading the issue through a process of resolution.