NSW Liberals denied last-minute extension for local election nominations

The Liberal Party failed to submit some 150 nomination forms before the deadline in NSW's upcoming local council elections.

The NSW electoral commission confirmed it received a request from Liberal Party state president Don Harwin for the cut-off for the nomination period be extended by a week. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi

Key Points

• The NSW electoral commission denied a request by the Liberal Party for more time to submit local election candidates.
• The party failed to submit nominations for around 150 of its candidates by the deadline.
• The commission previously said it would be unable to grant an extension, and formally denied the request on Saturday.

The NSW electoral commissioner has rebuffed the Liberals' last-minute request to extend the nomination deadline for local elections after an extraordinary failure to submit forms on time.

The state electoral commission has confirmed it received a letter from party state president Don Harwin requesting the cut-off for the nomination period be extended by a week to August 21.

Acting NSW electoral commissioner Matthew Phillips considered the grounds for the request and on Saturday rejected an extension.

"He has determined not to extend the nomination period," a spokesperson said.

The commission had previously said it would be unable to grant an extension to the deadline.

The request was the latest step by the Liberals to recover after the party failed to submit up to 151 nomination forms before the deadline, leaving conservative voters with minimal options in some council elections.

The party was preparing to take court action if an extension was not granted, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

State director Richard Shields was sacked on Thursday in response to the failure, with Harwin saying the "failure to meet such a fundamental responsibility" had "rendered his position untenable".

The party on Saturday preselected Monica Tudehope, a former staffer to Dominic Perrottet, to run in the former NSW premier's northwest Sydney seat of Epping.

Election analyst Ben Raue predicted the Liberals would lose "a whole bunch of seats and go a long way backward" in some councils.

The creator of the website TallyRoom has found 44 contests involving some 135 candidates who would be affected at the 14 September elections.

Election analysts have predicted the Liberals could lose a considerable number of seats due to the failure. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi

"There's going to be a lot more councils where there's just one party that runs the show, and generally that means a lot more decisions happen behind closed doors, in private, and I think you'll see a bunch more of that," Raue told the Australian Associated Press.

"It's not very common in the big partisan urban councils that one party gets a majority." Conservatives in some councils would likely receive an inflated vote count, he said.

"There's a few ex-Liberal members or 'rebel Liberals' in places like the Blue Mountains, Hornsby and Lane Cove who will probably just get a much bigger vote than they would have gotten," he said.

"But there are other councils where there's just no real good conservative options."

More than 150 candidate forms were never submitted, leaving 281 Liberals running across 30 council areas.

A statement from the Liberal NSW party issued on Friday evening declared the stuff-up was "simply not good enough" and confirmed it would reimburse endorsed candidates who had been affected.

"To prevent this from ever happening again, we are reviewing our process to thoroughly investigate what went wrong," it read.

"We are fully committed to implementing all necessary changes to strengthen our processes … while what happened is a setback, it will not define us."