Senior Liberals leaders are upset after the party failed to nominate more than 130 candidates for next month's council elections. The opposition leader demands the party's state director resign over the blunder which has caused embarrassment from Macquarie Street in Sydney to Canberra.
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00:00Plenty of Liberals were lost for words today, but the Opposition Leader did his best to
00:06sum up the full spectrum of their surprise.
00:09From the mildly horrified...
00:11Look, it's a setback.
00:12It is a stuff-up.
00:13This is an extraordinary and unexpected event.
00:16To the downright furious.
00:18This is a stuff-up.
00:19This is a fiasco.
00:21This is a debacle.
00:22There's no other way to describe it.
00:24Liberal Party headquarters missed a deadline to nominate close to 140 candidates.
00:29As a result, there are no Liberals running in Blue Mountains, Campbelltown, Cessnock,
00:33Lane Cove, Maitland, Northern Beaches, Shoalhaven or Wollongong.
00:37There are also missing nominations in Bayside, Camden, Canterbury-Bankstown, Central Coast,
00:43Georges River, Hornsby, Newcastle, North Sydney, Penrith and Queenbeyan-Palorane.
00:49State Director Richard Shields has blamed a lack of resources.
00:52If you don't think you've got enough resources, then you put on more resources, including
00:56volunteers.
00:57And if you still don't think you've got enough to run a centralised process, you tell the
01:01candidates that they need to lodge their nominations themselves.
01:04The State Director has to fall on his sword.
01:07For what it's worth, Mr Speaker, I think Richard Shields is doing a great job.
01:11This evening Richard Shields fronted the cameras, saying he was focused on the federal election
01:16and the local government contest was being overseen by State President Don Harwin.
01:21Calls for my resignation are premature, as there must be a proper review of the nomination
01:28process to establish the full facts.
01:31Paul Ell was expecting to run for Mayor of Shoalhaven.
01:34Now he and his Liberal team will be left on the sidelines.
01:38We did everything that we were required to do.
01:40We followed all of the steps that were put before us.
01:43We submitted all of the paperwork that was necessary.
01:45No one put in their nomination.
01:46They could have done it themselves.
01:47You could have done it yourself.
01:48In fact, if you did do it yourself, the party of self-reliance, Mr Speaker, if you actually
01:55bothered to put in your own nomination, you could have run.
01:57While it might be local candidates missing out, this could be a costly mistake for party
02:02morale in the lead up to a federal election and Labor is already taking its campaign of
02:06mockery to the national stage.
02:09It's odd people thinking they can be in charge of national security when they can't even
02:12nominate for local government.
02:13We do know that those opposite couldn't organise a barbecue at Bunnings, Mr Speaker.
02:17The opposition leader says the Liberals will dust themselves off and move on, but the bruises
02:22from this bust up will take a long time to heal.