The New South Wales Liberals are facing internal pushback from senior women in the party who are furious that an upper house MP has avoided any formal sanctions despite admitting he circulated explicit photos of a female colleague.
Peter Poulos has apologised for making “a regrettable mistake” by forwarding photos of a fellow NSW Liberal party MP from a 1980s Penthouse modelling shoot during a preselection battle five years ago.
This week the premier, Dominic Perrottet, stood by Poulos, admitting his actions were “incredibly inappropriate” but that “people make mistakes”.
The female MP, who Guardian Australia has chosen not to name, said Poulos had apologised for circulating the photographs, and that she wanted to move on from something she said had been “brought up for decades now”.
“Peter rang me and personally apologised and he was very remorseful,” she said.
But as the Liberal government seeks to win a fourth term in power at the state election in March – in part by convincing female voters not to it as they did to the federal Coalition – women inside the party are furious Poulos has not faced formal sanctions.
“I’m concerned that this turn of events, if not dealt with in a timely manner, will lose us the election,” states an email sent by Vivian Hodgson, secretary of the Liberal party’s Strathfield women’s branch.
“How does a female member justify this behaviour standing on a polling booth,” Hodgson wrote in the email, seen by the Guardian and sent on Thursday to a series of high-ranking NSW Liberals, including the party’s president Maria Kovacic.
Hodgson, who is also a member of the party’s state women’s council, said the comments from Poulos were “not appropriate”.
“It was not a mistake as it was pre-meditated and was done with the intention to humiliate and undermine a female colleague,” she wrote.
“It’s also not the same as a young person making an error of judgement as this person was in his 40s and should know better … this behaviour falls well below the ethical standards expected by a member of parliament.”
In a separate email, Liana Ross, the president of the Strathfield women’s branch and a women’s council delegate, said Poulos’s actions were “entirely unacceptable”.
“His intentions were callous and sexist, and should not be tolerated,” she wrote in the message, also sent to Kovacic.
“This is not going to assist us to win votes at the upcoming state election, or help us to overcome ‘the Liberal party has a women problem’ sentiment.”
But while Kovacic said the party did not “condone the reported sharing by Mr Poulos” of “published photos from an adult magazine”, the MP in question had asked “that this matter be put to rest”.
“This is not appropriate conduct and it is right that he has apologised for those actions,” Kovacic said.
“The person whose images were shared has asked, publicly and privately, that this matter be put to rest. Her wishes and her agency in this matter need to be respected.”
The explicit photos emerged when the then candidate contested a bitter preselection in the seat of Hawkesbury.
The Daily Telegraph revealed this week that an email from a “Peter John Poulos” was sent to a fellow Liberal party member in the lead-up to the contest.
It contained the subject “Treasurer’s Pet” and the message “Enjoy” and “please clean up pdf”.
The female MP, a member of the party’s hard-right faction, had been endorsed by Perrottet, who was then the treasurer.
Poulos was not an MP at the time, but worked as a political staffer. He is also a former staffer for the current treasurer, Matt Kean.
The lack of sanction against Poulos prompted an angry outburst from the former Liberal party upper house MP Catherine Cusack, who said the treatment of Poulos by the leadership “goes to the heart” of Perrottet and Kean’s “views on helping women”.
“This just reflects business as usual inside the Liberal party,” she said.
“These behaviours come from the top down, not the bottom up.”
Cusack, who quit the party and parliament last year after a series of internal fights including over funding for flood-affected regions, said the party “need voters to help them get out of the hole they have fallen in”.
“If I thought it could be fixed, I wouldn’t have quit,” she said.
Polous and the NSW Liberal party were approached for comment.
