Liberals expel court challenger Camenzuli, but power struggle will continue

The NSW Liberals have expelled Matt Camenzuli, the hard-right power broker who challenged Morrison's preselections. But it's a pyrrhic victory.

With an election to be called in days, the civil war in the NSW Liberal Party continues to haunt Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Yesterday, Matt Camenzuli, the hard-right factional warrior who launched a legal challenge against Morrison’s intervention in a protracted preselection process, was expelled from the party. At the same time, he’s trying to get that challenge (already dismissed by the NSW Court of Appeal) heard by the High Court.

Crikey understands the grounds for Camenzuli’s expulsion fall under a section of the party’s constitution allowing state director Chris Stone to dismiss a member during a campaign period for a range of transgressions, including damaging the party’s chances of electoral success. While the election hasn’t been called yet, the state director also has discretion to determine what a “campaign period” means.

But Camenzuli, who’s come this far and poured this much money into fighting the centre-right faction of Morrison and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke for control over the party’s future, isn’t going quietly. He’s expected to appeal the expulsion.

Then there’s the Hail Mary in the High Court. On Tuesday, the NSW Court of Appeal dismissed Camenzuli’s claim on the grounds that an internal dispute within the Liberal Party wasn’t justiciable, or capable of being settled by a court of law. And even if it was, the party had acted within its powers when Morrison and co had intervened to install Hawke, Environment Minister Sussan Ley and Trent Zimmerman as candidates.

After that decision, and before his expulsion, Camenzuli emailed party members, calling on them not to retreat and accusing the leadership of failing.

Tomorrow afternoon, the High Court will hold a hearing to consider whether to grant Camenzuli special leave to appeal the NSW decision. Guy Reynolds, the barrister representing Morrison and the party argued Camenzuli had no standing to bring his legal challenge because of his expulsion. Either way, none of this will be resolved before the election is called — most likely this Sunday.

Camenzuli, who made a motza by developing software for builders, has been steadily building a power base among party members in western and south-western Sydney over the past few years, and was elected to the state executive in 2019.

According to some party insiders, he’d harboured grand ambitions of becoming state director. They claim Camenzuli was frustrated with the Liberals perceived shift to the left and wanted to “Trumpify” the party.

The current legal challenges were framed by the hard right as a non-ideological attempt to democratise the party, and to push back against Morrison and Hawke’s attempts to filibuster preselections in order to get their own preferred candidates installed.

But just last year, Camenzuli spent $130,000 in legal fees intervening to stop a rank-and-file vote to pick candidates at a local election. And more recently, he voted to swiftly install Chris Rath to replace former NSW arts minister Don Harwin in the upper house, even though some in the party wanted an open preselection.

Those positions seem mutually exclusive with the right’s push to put preselections to the membership, until you remember this is about power.

Camenzuli’s expulsion, and the locking in of Morrison’s candidates, puts a temporary ceasefire on that power struggle, for the election period at least. But it’s already done irreparable damage to all involved.

The hard right suffers another blow, right after losing one of its leading figures when Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was relegated to an unwinnable spot on the Senate ticket. But Morrison is also damaged. The fallout has seen allegations resurface that the PM used racism to beat Lebanese-Australian Michael Towke for a controversial preselection in 2007. Morrison is struggling for breathing space, and all of this makes it even harder for him to win an election the polls show him losing.

Even if Morrison is able to stitch together another term, the bitterness within the NSW division won’t go away. An election win won’t change the fact that many across the party are pissed off at how he and Hawke intervened in the preselections. It won’t really boost the centre right’s limited power within the NSW party. Everyone will still be very mad. Expect a lot of ugliness.