Canberra Liberals president and GoBoat Australia founder Nick Tyrrell says unity and learning the lessons of the election loss are vital. Photo: GoBoat Australia.
Fears of a factional brawl at Monday night’s Canberra Liberals AGM proved unfounded apart from a single protest speech about goings on in the Ginninderra branch and the disendorsement and expulsion of Elizabeth Kickett.
John Evans had self-nominated himself to oppose sitting president and Go Boat founder Nick Tyrrell but only used it as a platform to make a speech before withdrawing.
The meeting, attended by a couple of hundred members, saw minimal changes to the management committee, with Karen Walsh, a candidate in Murrumbidgee in October, being elected vice-president and Peter Peppas beating Michael Keating for the finance position.
Ms Walsh grew up on the family farm at Taralga and led sustainable agriculture programs in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry before joining Landcare Australia.
Mr Peppas is the founder and managing director of property firm Kora and has been a non-executive director of EPC Solar and the Hellenic Club.
Jimmy Kiploks stays as treasurer, and Patrick Fazzone was re-elected as the policy chair.
It was a far cry from the ill-tempered, infamous empty chair meeting a year ago when members would not support John Cziesla as president despite him being the sole candidate after Mr Tyrrell had to withdraw due to a family emergency.
Mr Tyrrell later went on to take the presidency against Arthur Potter in a second vote in February. That and other changes sealed a shift away from the old-guard hard-right faction that had dominated the party for many years.
After the election loss and the dumping of moderate leader Elizabeth Lee in favour of Leanne Castley and the re-emergence of conservative Jeremy Hanson as her deputy, speculation had mounted that the right would re-assert itself on Monday.
But Ms Castley’s call for unity and stability appears to have been heeded.
New Canberra Liberals vice-president Karen Walsh. Photo: Facebook.
Mr Tyrrell said both the party room leadership and the management committee had made it known that further upheaval was not in the party’s interests.
“Setting that expectation early led to a pretty painless outcome and some clear air,” Mr Tyrrell said.
He said it was a good meeting, and people needed an opportunity to have their say, including Mr Evans.
The party needed to have release valves to cope with conflicts.
“We need to find ways of having sensible grown-up conversations in the party that don’t make it look like we can’t manage ourselves because we’ve got to be able to manage ourselves to manage a government,” Mr Tyrrell.
Other priorities included making the case for government across the full term, better fundraising and keeping members more in the loop.
Mr Tyrrell said learning the lessons of last term, staying unified and supporting candidates was imperative.
The election review is due to be completed in the first quarter of 2025.
Mr Tyrrell said the party wanted it done sooner rather than later so it could get on with things.
“Last time, it took more than a year, but this time, we want to get it done fairly quickly,” he said.
“Give everyone the opportunity to have a say; we’ll feed the polling into it, everything.”
Mr Tyrrell urged members to be “frank and forthright and brutal”.
He said there would be an implementation plan for the recommendations with clear reporting against them.
“We need to be accountable to the membership,” Mr Tyrell said.
“We owe it to them to be transparent and deliver on the recommendations that flow out of the review.”
Mr Tyrrell said the first year after an election loss was the time to have difficult conversations and set the expectations for the rest of the term with really clear goals.
“I’m excited about the calibre of some of the people that have come onto the management committee, and I think they’ll certainly help drive that focus,” he said.
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