He told his local newspaper, the South Coast Register, that Mr Morrison "has taken the party to the days of Eddie Obeid and the faceless men of Labor". Long-serving south coast Liberal MP Shelley Hancock, who is also Speaker of the NSW Parliament, said it was "one of the darkest days of the Liberal Party", and unleashed an extraordinary tirade against the PM. "What they’ve done to us here in Gilmore is appalling. We’re handing this seat to the Labor Party," she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. South Coast Liberal MP and NSW Speaker Shelly Hancock unleashed a tirade against the PM. Credit:Kate Geraghty "I’ve had mass threats of party resignation from branch members. I can’t convince them otherwise. These are long-term Liberal members.

Loading "I know this area pretty well but nobody bothered to pick up the phone and ask 'what do you think about this Shelley?'" Ms Hancock said voters would not accept the "outsider" Mr Mundine, who lives on Sydney's north shore and applied for membership of the Liberal Party only on Tuesday. However, he has ancestral ties to the Shoalhaven area and family members who live in the electorate, and has said he would prefer to run in Gilmore if he made a tilt at politics. Ms Hancock and other local Liberals said disgruntled members would likely stay in the party until the state election but would not campaign for Mr Mundine.

"I doubt he's even seen the Princes Highway in the last 10 years," one irate local Liberal member said. The Liberal Party conducted polls in the seat of Gilmore last year which "came back really good" for Mr Mundine, according to a senior Liberal source. "While he's an outsider to the Liberal Party, that's his strength," the source said. But Mr Mundine faces an uphill battle. Retiring Liberal member Ann Sudmalis holds the seat by a thin 0.7 per cent margin, and polls point to a significant swing against the Coalition. The deal to install Mr Mundine was led by Mr Morrison's centre-right faction, but agreed by the dominant moderates, whose state executive members were required to support the plan. Local members preselected Mr Schultz on December 12, but party executives had not yet formally rubber-stamped the endorsement. "The locals are livid but it's not their decision," one member of the Liberal state executive said.

Loading Ms Hancock said she was bewildered by her fellow moderates on the party's executive. She said Mr Mundine's only interest in the seat of Gilmore was his support for a nuclear power plant in Jervis Bay - an idea he has previously entertained. Mr Mundine served as the ALP national president in 2006-07, and later expressed interest in becoming a Labor senator, but was bested by former NSW premier Bob Carr. He left the Labor Party in 2012 after 20 years, saying it was "no longer the party I joined", and his politics have since drifted rightward. One of Mr Mundine's first post-Labor roles was as chair of the Prime Minister's Indigenous Advisory Council under Tony Abbott, which was then dissolved under prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. In the months after last year's leadership coup, Mr Mundine branded Mr Turnbull "Malcolm Termite" and said the former PM should "crawl back into his little hole". Many of his tweets express support for Mr Morrison and his government's policies.

Mr Morrison is due to announce the move in Gilmore alongside Mr Mundine on Wednesday. After The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported the story on Tuesday, he praised Mr Mundine as a "top bloke" and a friend who had "a lot to offer". "When I have more to say about our candidate in Gilmore, I will say it then," the PM said. Mr Mundine did not return calls. The Nationals are also expected to run former state MP Katrina Hodgkinson in the seat, a move that will maximise the centre-right vote for the Coalition. Labor's candidate for Gilmore, Fiona Phillips, was preselected in March 2017 and established her campaign office in Nowra earlier this month. Meanwhile, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie ruled herself out of a tilt at the lower house seat of Indi, which will be vacated by independent MP Cathy McGowan at the election.