The Newcastle Liberal Party starved its federal candidate of much-needed funding during the recent election campaign in an extraordinary display of infighting between local Liberals.
While Liberal campaigns in surrounding seats were well supported by volunteers at polling booths, Katrina Wark's campaign was largely devoid of on-the-ground support.
Meanwhile, the city's three Liberal councillors have struggled to work as a team and the divide has spilled into the public arena with questions over allegiance to the party and words like 'crazy' and 'ambush' hurled.
The incidents lift the lid on a culture of factional in-fighting and dysfunction that have plagued the Newcastle conference in recent years.
"It's certainly the worst I have seen in my time; I have never seen this sort of behaviour before in any of the branches I have been involved in," party veteran and former Newcastle City Councillor Brad Luke told the Newcastle Herald.
The Liberals failed to win a single booth even its traditional stronghold of Merewether.
Liberal Party headquarters argued the result should be taken in the context of a broader swing against the Coalition government - the party suffered a 0.7 per cent swing away from it in Shortland while it recorded a 1.9 per cent swing towards it in Paterson.
However, the Newcastle result is well down on what the party achieved in Newcastle less than a decade ago.
In the 2013 federal election the Liberal's Newcastle candidate Jaimie Abbott recorded a primary vote of 34 per cent and a two party preferred vote of 40 per cent. The party's primary vote presently sits at 24 per cent and 30 per cent on a two party preferred basis.
"We have lost a third of our primary vote in Newcastle. That's a hell of a lot of votes that we have lost in just under a decade," a long-time party member said.
Even the party's arch-rivals Labor and the Greens expressed dismay at the party's poor federal campaign.
"People were literally coming up to me to ask where the Liberal how to votes were," Labor MP Sharon Claydon said on the day following the election.
Perhaps of deeper concern is the fact that demographic changes that have occurred across Newcastle in the past decade suggest the party's vote should be increasing.
"The fact is the federal seat is an incredibly difficult seat to win. But without a doubt the demographic changes that are happening in Newcastle mean that we should be doing better than we used to," the member said.
Traditionally unaligned members blame the rise of factionalism for the Newcastle conference's problems.
Tensions came to a head in the lead up to the recent federal election when the Young Liberals and other members supported a motion put by Newcastle councillor Callum Pull to freeze campaign funds to Ms Wark.
Mr Luke confirmed he chaired the May 2 meeting but said he was unable to comment on internal party business. Likewise, Cr Pull said he was unable to discuss what transpired at the meeting. Cr Wark was also unavailable for comment.
Fellow Liberal councillor Jenny Barrie, who is vice president of the Newcastle Liberal branch and ran in the 2019 state election, said that "any Liberal should not stop another Liberal from progressing in an election".
"There should be no jumping through hoops just to get your own team to support you. We've got to support each other regardless of who the candidate is," she said.
"It's a hard task. I'm so proud of [other Coalition candidates] Nell and Brooke and James but I'm proud of Katrina too. She put her hand up through a very difficult election."
Mr Luke retired from the council at December's local government elections and was replaced by Cr Pull, Cr Wark and Cr Barrie.
The trio's political alliance was short lived. Within weeks Cr Pull said of Cr Barrie: "you wonder if she's in the right party" and labelled an amendment from Cr Wark as "crazy" before retracting it due to a Labor councillor's point of order.
The divide became abundantly clear when Cr Pull put up a motion calling for council to show support for a nuclear submarines base in Newcastle.
Cr Pull claimed his fellow Liberal councillors 'ambushed' him by not supporting it, while Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter Taylor Martin also changed a speech he made in NSW Parliament about the issue after the council vote.
Mr Martin got up and said councillors needed to "stick to knitting" and stay out of the federal issue. But a speech he prepared prior said Labor and the Greens were expected to oppose the motion and called on the Prime Minister not to take the Labor lord mayor's comments against the idea as representative of the region.
Mr Martin said he stood by the comments.
Cr Barrie said she believed the disharmony among the Liberal group was mainly to do with "life and experience" and that "it's really promising that 99 per cent of the councillors can get along".
"[The Liberals] have two mature aged females who are mothers, who have been in the workforce, are ratepayers and have life experience. We as women think differently to men," she said.
But she acknowledged more unity was needed.
"We need to work as a team for the betterment of the city. I'm excited to be able to work with all councillors," she said.
"I think there needs to be more respect for the entire council process and a difference of opinion whether it's in the same political party or other parties.
"People need to be more bipartisan and if someone wants to change their mind at the last minute that's their right to do so. I'd hate to see the divide that happened in the last council."
Cr Pull said he had "a lot of respect" for his Liberal council colleagues.
"I'm sure that as a group we will make a positive contribution to Newcastle," he said.
Cr Barrie inadvertently forwarded an email exchange between herself and Mr Luke to the Herald following the election.
In the exchange Cr Barrie expressed her dismay at issues that had impacted on the Liberals campaign.
"It seems there is so much hatred, division and gossip, I just feel after the Liberals have lost Government to Albanese, are we really all worried about one person and their behaviour?," she wrote.
"I hope the recruitment drive that both Blake and Suzie are working on will build the branch and we can all be on one team."
Mr Luke described his relationship with Ms Barrie as respectful, however, he was disappointed the exchange had become public.
"It's pretty obvious from the emails that there are issues and animosity in the party," he said.
"I am absolutely stunned Cr Barrie forwarded a trail of emails to the Herald. This means that an elected councillor has forwarded a reply email from a private citizen. It's a pity it wasn't kept private and I'm very concerned about it."
