Angus Taylor calls for NSW reforms, says Liberals 'outmuscled' by Labor's grassroots ability

The Liberal Party faces "oblivion" unless its reforms its biggest state branch by taking power out of the hands of factional leaders, Government frontbencher Angus Taylor says.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night, Mr Taylor, the Assistant Minister for Cities, warned the recent election result showed the Liberal Party is being outmuscled by Labor's ability to organise grassroots supporters.

He blamed "powerbrokers" in the New South Wales branch who use arcane rules to amass voting blocks they can control, while excluding rank-and-file supporters from meaningful involvement in the party.

"We have been able to win recent state and federal elections without democratising," he said.

"I think it's going to be very difficult to continue to win elections without democratising."

He said in his electorate, many Liberal supporters are prevented from even joining the party due to branches that won't accept new members.

"Others would like to start up new branches … to get around the rejection of membership applications," he said.

"But for various reasons it's just to hard to get these new branches up and running."

Mr Taylor also spoke of "paper branches" in his speech, which are being allowed to form despite not having a direct connection to rank-and-file supporters.

"These branches are controlled by power brokers whose members rarely attend meetings, but they create voting delegates whose votes can be controlled," he said.

Mr Taylor said it is a situation which helps explain why outer-suburban voters in New South Wales abandoned the Liberal Party at the last election.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-07/liberal-party-faces-oblivion-outmuscled-by...


When will all you numbnuts from the right wake up ? Get rid of the faceless men before they get rid of all of you

juliar wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 8:50am:

John Smith wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 7:58am:

The NSW Liberals won't even consider badly-needed party reform until they get smashed at an election. The problem with the conservative mind is they are slow to change. As along as they are winning elections, they won't see the problem.

The NSW Liberals will have their day of reckoning. It is inevitable due to the endemic corruption within the party.

juliar wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 8:50am:



if you'd learnt to read you'd see it was a liberal party member who was making the claims, not me ... take Bams advice, pull your head out of your arse and try to get some fresh air.

Lord Herbert wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 9:24am:


I know how much you love me Herb but it wasn't me making the claims, it was a lib. Now do you want to comment on the actual topic or do you plan on deflecting to me all the way through?

Lord Herbert wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 9:24am:

You have missed the point. There has been a lot of dissatisfaction coming out of the NSW branch of the Liberal party for a while now. There have been many issues revealed with the NSW Liberals - over a dozen NSW Liberal MPs fronting ICAC over corruption allegations, the electoral commission withholding $4 million from the NSW Liberals because they refused to account for donations, laundering money through front companies from prohibited donors, Abbott refusing to allow a forensic audit of the books of the NSW Liberals after irregularities were found - the list of problems is quite large.

That branch is the most corrupt branch of any political party in Australia right now and it's only a matter of time before the smoke of dissatisfaction turns into a conflagration.

Now you can discuss these issues or keep posting inane deflections and personal attacks. Your choice, but remember this - if rank-and-file members of the Liberal party remain complacent and do not act on the gross mismanagement, cronyism and corruption within the NSW Liberals, the day of reckoning will come, and when it does it will be as bad for the NSW Liberals as the 2011 NSW election was for NSW Labor, or worse.

John Smith wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 9:42am:


Libs traditional voter base is RWNJs , bernadi is trying to steer the course back to their core values thus attracting the knuckle draggers back from voting for the Hanson Ala patriot parties , Turnbull would be better off being leader of Labor party with his idealogies , there is no place for a moderate in the Libs.

Bam wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 9:39am:



Excellent post. Well said.