Liberal senator Dave Sharma says the party will lock in democratically preselected candidates in the Hunter well before the federal election after learning lessons from the 2022 vote.
Mr Sharma visited Newcastle on Friday to support fellow Liberal Melody Harding's campaign for the Lake Macquarie mayoralty at next month's local government election.
The Liberals have run several underwhelming Hunter state and federal campaigns in the past two election cycles, but a boundary redraw in Paterson and the Country Liberal Party's landslide win in the Northern Territory election last weekend have buoyed the party's hopes of springing an upset in the region.
The party faithful are scheduled to preselect a Paterson candidate from four contenders, Housing Industry Association operations manager Laurence Antcliff, doctor Owen Boyd, Maitland councillor Sally Halliday and small business operator Assari McPhee, next week.
The Australian Electoral Commission's draft boundary redraw for Paterson removes Kurri Kurri from the electorate, cutting Labor MP Meryl Swanson's nominal margin to less than 3 per cent.
The Coalition has belatedly endorsed several young Hunter candidates in recent years and prevented them from talking to the media, but Mr Sharma said this would change.
"I think we recognise that at the last election we failed to preselect candidates in a timely enough fashion," he said.
"We didn't go through the democratic preselection processes we should have.
"This time around ... a lot of NSW we've done already.
"We learnt some lessons from the 2022 election result."
He said the party would look for a diverse range of candidates with "maturity, life experience and professional expertise".
Some in the party are also eyeing off cabinet minister Pat Conroy's Shortland seat, which Labor holds with a 5.8-point margin.
Mr Sharma said the Liberals' campaign talking points about inflation and cost of living would appeal to voters in the Hunter, which had a "high proportion" of households with children and mortgages.
"We see these areas as being concerned about ongoing inflationary pressures, increases in the cost of living ... affordability of housing is a big issue as well," he said.
Ms Harding, who lives at New Lambton Heights, lost a narrow preselection contest 19-16 against incumbent west ward candidate Jason Pauling last month.
She was then preselected unopposed as the party's first female mayoral candidate in Lake Macquarie.
Cr Nick Jones, who was sacked in February for failing to turn up to three council meetings in a row, lost the lead position in east ward to Charlestown branch president Matt Schultz 21-12.
Some in the party have blamed factional infighting for the NSW Liberals' disastrous failure to lodge 140 candidate nominations in time for the September 14 council election.
Factionalism has been growing in Newcastle Liberal circles, but Ms Harding denied her challenge on Cr Pauling in Lake Macquarie was factionally driven.
"I believe we offered the residents of west ward two high-quality candidates, and so they were spoilt for choice," she said.
"Jason has a lot of experience as a councillor, and I think that's probably what nipped it in the end.
"But it wasn't a factional thing; it wasn't a personal thing."
Cr Pauling disagreed, characterising the challenges as a "coordinated attempt to unseat current Liberal councillors".
"For a while, everywhere I went someone pulled me aside and said, 'Look out. They're coming,'" he said.
Mr Sharma said the party was a "competitive political system" in which "no one owns a position".
Former federal Liberal director Brian Loughnane is preparing a report on the nominations fiasco for Opposition leader Peter Dutton and his NSW counterpart, Mark Speakman, by early next week.
