A prime minister's seat up for grabs, the backlash after the battle for Cook

Carmelo Pesce, Simon Kennedy, Gwen Cherne and Benjamin Britton were all nominated for Liberal preselection in Cook.  (ABC News: David Sciasci)

In 2021, former prime minister Scott Morrison said he wanted a woman to succeed him in the Liberal stronghold of Cook.

After a series of public gaffes by Mr Morrison in the fallout from Brittany Higgins’s rape allegations, A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw was pressing him hard on female representation in the Liberal Party.

Mr Morrison tried to take a positive line.

“Someone made a very good suggestion just in our party room discussion this week — I would love to see a woman follow me as the member for Cook when I choose to retire from politics.”

Two months on from Mr Morrison leaving parliament, former home affairs minister and one of the Liberal Party’s most senior female members, Karen Andrews, is also preparing to exit federal politics.

In the three years since Mr Morrison made those comments, she hasn’t seen any evidence of the party making any progress towards preselecting more women, including in Cook and in her Queensland seat of McPherson.

In Cook, the successful male candidate was given access to contact details that may have meant a head start over the competition.

‘Blatant, arrogant, overt’

What happened in the former prime minister’s seat of Cook, described as “blatant, arrogant and overt” by one Liberal hopeful, was a concerted campaign driven by some of the country’s most influential figures.

Simon Kennedy moved to the Shire after losing the northern Sydney seat of Bennelong in the 2022 election, during which time he lived in the city’s eastern suburbs.

Mr Kennedy’s list of references for preselection boasted Liberal party giants, from former party executive Nick Greiner and former prime minister Tony Abbott to heavyweights Angus Taylor and Greg Hunt.

His resume included previous work for consulting firm McKinsey at the same time as shadow treasurer Mr Taylor’s brother Charlie Taylor, and a stint advising the Morrison government on its COVID-19 response.

Liberals in Cook, and more widely in NSW, noted to the ABC that Mr Kennedy seemed to be more connected to the upper echelons of the Liberal Party than the other candidates.

But one of his competitors and the only female candidate, Gwen Cherne, also had some impressive backers. She was supported by the likes of West Australian Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds and Victorian Nationals MP Darren Chester and received an endorsement from former prime minister John Howard.

‘Preselection is all stitched up anyway’

Ms Andrews campaigned for almost a year to get a woman to nominate for preselection in her seat, but four men eventually contested the preselection.

When Ms Andrews spoke to women to try to convince them to run, she said they would give a range of reasons such as: “Two individuals had the numbers to win so why bother” and “Preselection is all stitched up anyway”.

She says those comments, from female hopefuls, stem from perceptions and realities around the preselection battle.

She believes women, who are often juggling the responsibility of their families and careers, don’t get the same opportunities as the male branch members who might spend years in the party grassroots, nominating for executive positions and building contacts who might eventually vote for them.

“You’ve got an imbalance there,” Ms Andrews says.

“Often you’ll find that men in particular … will come in, they will take on party positions, they will have access to membership lists, and they will work the numbers for quite some time.”

There is a list of contacts for branch members that candidates only get access to after they’ve been officially nominated.

Ms Andrews says she knows some candidates are getting access to those contact lists earlier than others, which brings a big advantage.

‘Beggared belief’

With Cook one of the safest seats in the country, like McPherson, there was no shortage of enthusiastic Liberal candidates lining up for preselection when Mr Morrison retired in January.

Carmelo Pesce, the Sutherland Shire mayor, had longed to replace Mr Morrison.

He was a long-time Liberal party member and local business owner with plenty of friends in the area, and had been waiting in the wings for an opportunity.

Local branch members – who vote in party preselections — were confident at first that he had the numbers to win.

Also local to the area was Ms Cherne, a former veteran family advocate commissioner, widower and domestic violence advocate, who planned to nominate.

Ms Cherne’s CV highlighted her work as an ambassador for the Invictus Games, as an aid worker in Afghanistan and as a council member for the Australian War Memorial.

Former United Australia Party candidate, cyber security specialist and veteran Benjamin Britton threw his hat in the ring too.

With 158 votes, Mr Kennedy won preselection by a mile. Cr Pesce followed behind with 90 votes, Ms Cherne 35 and Mr Britton 13.

One senior Liberal, who has been a member of the party for decades and has worked on multiple election campaigns, state and federal, said it “beggared belief” that Mr Kennedy was “welcomed with open arms” in Cook after previously losing Bennelong.

“I was disappointed they voted for someone from outside so strongly despite three good local candidates, because the Shire is such a parochial area,” they said.

But it’s not unusual for parties to parachute candidates into seats, even if they have lost previous elections. Mr Morrison himself was parachuted into Cook in 2007.

The contacts

Each preselection candidate is given a contact list of party members who are eligible to vote for them, but only once they are formally selected.

According to Liberals in Cook and across the state, Mr Kennedy was given access to the contact details of potential preselectors well before he publicly became a candidate on February 19.

Not only do they say he had access to the details of Cook branch members, but that he contacted them before being officially selected.

In emails to the NSW Liberal Executive, seen by the ABC, Cook branch members asked how Mr Kennedy had obtained their contact details. In one email, they complained that Mr Kennedy had contacted their elderly parents multiple times.

“I do not believe that it is appropriate that Mr Kennedy has and is using my, and my family’s, contact details,” the email said.

In the emails to NSW Liberal Executive Richard Shields, branch members asked if it was fair that Mr Kennedy had been contacting them before being formally selected.

One member said they were now “very concerned” about sharing their contact details with the Liberal Party.

Mr Shields emailed preselection nominees a warning not to contact anyone until they had been formally signed off as candidates.

“None of you can use contact lists obtained through past or present office-bearer positions within bodies of the division, or other sources, to contact potential selectors in Cook.

“You are not yet a candidate and are, as such, barred from making this contact with any member that you do not know on a personal and familial basis.”

Mr Shields went on to say that the use of contact information that nominees weren’t entitled to possess could amount to a breach of the party’s Code of Practice for the Use and Provision of Contact Lists.

“I remind you that such a breach may result in disciplinary action taken by me or the state executive,” Mr Shields said.

Nominees for preselection are also required to sign an agreement that they won’t campaign before being nominated as a candidate, which could look like meeting with or calling people who might vote for them for preselection.

Ms Andrews says anyone with access to membership lists would have a significant advantage over someone coming in “relatively late in the process” that were looking to win the “hearts and minds” of existing members.

‘Intimidating thing for a man, let alone a woman’

One Liberal hopeful told the ABC there was a gender-based double standard in the party.

“[Nominating and campaigning] is an intimidating thing for a man, let alone a woman,” they said.

While it wasn’t surprising to see high-profile Liberals support Mr Kennedy for the nomination, it was unexpected “how blatantly, arrogantly and overtly” some of his backers went about ensuring their candidate prevailed, they said.

On all accounts, Mr Kennedy was provided support months prior to being formally voted in, using connections that spanned the country.

As another younger Liberal branch member, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution within the party, said, “Gwen didn’t have that luxury”.

“It makes it very difficult for women who have not put in the years of being part of branches and building a support base within the branches,” Ms Andrews says.

“It’s very difficult for them to come in, irrespective of how talented they are, and what their prospects are of ever moving on to the front bench. It’s extraordinarily difficult.”

One local Liberal member mused that while Ms Cherne was an impressive nominee, she could have “done more sooner,” having only gotten in contact with them two days before the preselection vote to promote herself.

Andrews says mandates might be fix

Women make up just nine of the 37 Liberal members of the House of Representatives, the lowest number of women in the Liberals’ parliamentary ranks since 1993.

In a 2022 review of the Liberal Party’s election loss, Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume and former federal director Brian Loughnane recommended boosting the number of women in the party at all levels.

Ms Andrews’s two cents? She’d like to see the Liberal Party ensure that a man and a woman both stand for pre-selection as a mandated requirement before a pre-selection can be held.

She doesn’t think the Australian voter has an issue electing women, either.

“If you actually look at the independents that came in at the last election, all women, all aged in their 40s 50s and 60s.

“Their communities had no issues with their gender, or with their age.”

A Liberal Party spokesperson said the NSW Liberal party has a “robust and democratic process” for selecting its candidates.

“The preselection was conducted in full accordance with Liberal Party rules. All candidates received the list of preselectors at the same time,” it said.

The ABC contacted all the nominees for comment on the preselection process.

Two of the nominees, Mr Britton and Cr Pesce, responded to questions about accessing contact lists to say they hadn’t received anything before the official list.

Ms Cherne and Mr Kennedy did not respond.

“I want to see my party do better,” Ms Andrews says.

“It’s very important to me”.