Ben Mizzi Ben Mizzi

Downfall

The Liberal Party’s failure at the recent NSW state election has been a long time in the works and is due to a collection of mistakes not previously seen in modern political history. With a mixture of incompetence and arrogance displayed by those with their hands on the wheel, this latest shambolic outcome is more like a failed coup than an innocent mishap or well-intentioned misstep.

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Ben Mizzi Ben Mizzi

Liberals accuse each other's factions of 'thuggish behaviour' and being 'a cancer that's infected the party'

Recriminations over the Coalition's federal election loss have boiled over spectacularly, with senior Liberal Party figures engaging in a vicious blame game over the impact of factional infighting on the result.

Four Corners has spoken to dozens of Liberal Party members about the Coalition's devastating loss, which has been blamed in part on the failure to preselect candidates in more than a dozen NSW seats until weeks before the election date.

The situation was further inflamed when a NSW party official, businessman Matthew Camenzuli, took the Liberal Party to court in a failed bid to force preselection votes for ordinary branch members.

Speaking for the first time about his actions Mr Camenzuli launched a broadside at former prime minister Scott Morrison's representative in NSW, rival faction leader and then-cabinet minister Alex Hawke.

"I think the guy's a cancer," he told Four Corners. "I think Alex and the movement that he's built is a cancer that has infected the party … and it needs to be excised. This cancer needs to be cut out."

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Ben Mizzi Ben Mizzi

A factional warrior goes nuclear: who is Matt Camenzuli?

Matt Camenzuli is going nuclear. The little-known member of the NSW Liberal state executive is shaping up as one of the most influential forces in the 2022 election cycle by continuing his campaign of factional lawfare against Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Camenzuli’s lawyers are in court, effectively trying to overrule Morrison’s intervention to save Environment Minister Sussan Ley, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman from a rank-and-file preselection battle that could threaten their political futures.

With the NSW Court of Appeal set to deliver judgment this afternoon, Camenzuli sought an injunction to block the preselection of nine Liberal candidates over the weekend, which would bar the party from printing their names on the ballot paper.

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Ben Mizzi Ben Mizzi

Who is Matthew Camenzuli?

It’s not often the prime minister gets taken to the NSW supreme court, especially by a member of his own party.

But such is the vehemence of some NSW Liberal party members’ views towards the party’s internal preselection processes, that it has come to this.

The challenge is the second legal action launched in recent weeks against the Liberal hierarchy by little-known 43-year-old businessman Matthew Camenzuli.

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Ben Mizzi Ben Mizzi

Court settles stoush between Liberal Party NSW and federal executives

A stoush between NSW branch of the Liberal Party and federal executives has been settled by the Supreme Court.

NSW member Matthew Camenzuli sought an urgent declaration that members of the state executive could continue in office beyond Monday, after they missed an annual general meeting (AGM) to select new office holders because of COVID-19 – a meeting they were formally obliged to hold.

The federal executive had given them Monday as a deadline, after which it would step in to choose candidates for the federal election.

However Mr Camenzuli on Friday claimed a Supreme Court victory that will allow the state executive to stay in office after Monday — the day office holders' term ends.

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