There is major confusion this afternoon surrounding the nomination of Liberal Party candidates for the upcoming Local Government Election.
Local residents will go to the polls on September 14 for the Council elections.
But in what appears to be an extraordinary blunder by the party’s head office, it seems many Council areas will not have Liberal candidates to vote for.
And the confusion extends to Penrith, where only North Ward Councillor Ross Fowler’s ticket appears on the candidate list.
At this stage no Liberal candidates appear on the candidate list for South Ward or East Ward.
Mark Davies was expected to lead the Liberal ticket in South Ward, while Marlene Shipley was expected to lead the Liberal ticket in East Ward.
Unless something dramatic happens in the next 24 hours, Penrith could face the extraordinary situation of not having Liberal candidates in those wards.
Anthony Roberts has demanded a party room meeting of the NSW Parliamentary Liberal Party. He wants answers and resignations on how the state division missed the deadline for council elections, leaving many areas without Liberals to vote for.
— Chris O’Keefe (@cokeefe9) August 14, 2024
And in an even more unexpected situation, Labor’s Todd Carney appears to be the only candidate in East Ward. If that holds, it will see all five people on Labor’s ticket be election to Council – enough to ensure the Council is Labor-led.
It is understood Liberal HQ is in chaos this afternoon as it tries to assess the fallout and work out why nomination paperwork was not filed in time.
Liberal State Director Richard Shields said “secretariat resources” were behind the blunder.
“With the secretariat resources that we had available, unfortunately, we were unable to nominate in all of the local government areas that were put forward by the state executive,” he said in a statement.
“The status of nominated Liberal candidates will be communicated upon confirmation from the NSW Electoral Commission. On behalf of the secretariat, I would like to apologise to Liberal-endorsed councillors that were not nominated and to the party membership more broadly.”
There are already calls for Shields to resign.
The blunder will change the face of Penrith Council should Liberal candidates not run in South and East Ward.
At the last election, two Liberal candidates in each ward were successful in earning spots on Council.
In South Ward, it could open the door for Independent Sue Day to get at least another candidate on her ticket across the line.
The Libertarian Party is also running a ticket in South Ward.
Troy Dodds
Troy Dodds is the Weekender's Managing Editor and Breaking News Reporter. He has more than 20 years experience as a journalist, working with some of Australia's leading media organisations. In 2023, he was named Editor of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.