Senior party official Rochelle Flood denounces two members who launched legal action demanding a recount of preselection votes for the upper house ticket

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A senior Greens New South Wales party official has accused two members of trying to “wreck” the election campaign after the pair launched legal action over the upper house ticket just weeks from polling day.

In a rare public rebuke, Greens NSW co-convenor Rochelle Flood denounced the action as a “last-ditch” attempt to “derail” the campaign, and said the time and money spent on the internal dispute would have been better spent trying to oust the Coalition state government.

The action comes only months after a long-running schism in the NSW branch of the party exploded into public view, with two MPs warning the party was on the verge of an “irrevocable split”.

NSW Greens members plan legal action over upper-house ticket Read more

On Wednesday, former City of Sydney lord mayoral candidate Lindsay Johnston and former councillor Chris Harris filed legal action in the NSW supreme court to demand a recount of preselection votes for the upper house ticket. Supporters of the recount hope it will see the candidate currently in the third spot – MLC Dawn Walker – elevated into the more likely winnable second position.

Flood condemned the legal action but said Greens NSW would defend it in court.

“These individuals have had ample opportunities, over several months, to put the case for a recount,” she said, adding they had declined to take a proposal to last weekend’s state delegates council, and also could have taken legal action at any time since last year.

“Instead, they have waited until the stroke of midnight, with nominations to the electoral commission already open and due in a matter of days.

“So we can only conclude that this is simply an attempt to wreck the party’s campaign … The time, money and energy spent on this matter would have been better devoted to throwing out this dreadful government.”

Harris said members had been taking action inside the party since December 2018 and that the matter could be resolved by the court before the ticket was due on 6 March.

“The group of people who run Greens NSW, who belong to a single faction, are the ones who make all these decisions, and we’ve failed to persuade them to be reasonable,” he said.

“The matter is before the court [Thursday], we’ll be seeking a hearing either Friday or Monday. It will be half-day matter. That will give the Greens plenty of time to lodge an upper house ticket, and any suggestion we are derailing the process is false.”

Calls for a recount were first made public last year after former Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham was ousted from the ticket, which had already been decided by a members’ ballot. Buckingham was formally asked to step aside in December, following accusations of sexual misconduct from a former Greens staffer, which he denied.

His allies in the party – including MLCs Cate Faehrmann, Justin Field and Walker herself – have repeatedly called for a recount.

The preselection was decided by a members’ vote in 2018, with incumbent MLC David Shoebridge, from the party’s left, receiving the most first preference votes (1,161), followed by Buckingham (780). Due to the party’s affirmative action rules, two men cannot occupy the first and second spots, so Abigail Boyd was placed second on the ballot after the distribution of preferences, Buckingham was placed third and Walker fourth.

Harris said grassroots democracy was one of the four pillars of the Greens, and that principle was at stake in this dispute.

“What we have here is a situation where in a preselection ballot, which is the ultimate expression of grassroots democracy, 780 members, representing 30% of the vote, have been completely disenfranchised,” he said.

A party spokesman confirmed they were served papers on Wednesday evening.

Buckingham is contesting the state election, to be held on 23 March, as an independent candidate.