Chris O'Keefe calls for resignations after Liberal party misses paperwork deadline 05:04

Now I broke this story with Michael McLaren earlier, but the New South Wales Liberal Party really has jumped the shark for incompetence. This is one of the worst cases of incompetence I've seen in politics, and that's a very high bar to jump over. So State Director Richard Shields and the Liberal Party's New South Wales President, former Minister Don Harwin, really, neither of them should survive this.

It is just amateur beyond belief. Now, the council elections are coming up in September, right? The deadline for nominations, so each party, they get a deadline for when they've got to put their nominations in, and that was midday today. And that is a hard deadline set by the New South Wales Electoral Commission. But guess what? The Liberal Party missed the deadline.

Yep, and they're home working a little late. So dozens and dozens and dozens of candidates will not be eligible to run at council elections. Now, I'm told this impacts Canterbury Bankstown, Camden, George's River, Shoalhaven, Lane Cove, Northern Beaches, Burwood, Canada Bay and Strathfield. Now, some, well, are just a few sort of wards in these councils where there will not be Liberal candidates.

Others, the entire local government area, like Camden. If you live in Camden, you can't vote for a Liberal in the September council elections. So you will not have a Liberal mayor for the next four years. It's not possible. And in many cases, you won't be able to vote for a Liberal at all. You can't have a Liberal mayor because even if they've nominated in a couple of wards, they won't have enough people on council to be able to get the mayoralty. It is insane.

And I'm told that there were people from the New South Wales Liberal Party running around at 2am this morning trying to find JPs to sign the nomination forms. Now, can I just remind everybody and all those listening at William Street right now in the Liberal Party, the date of the council election was set four years ago. It's not a surprise, ladies and gentlemen. Nominations closed four weeks ago.

And they were warned about it 12 months ago at State Executive, yet internal factional deals, you had people taking out Carmelo Pesci in the Sutherland Shire, Philip Ruddick in Hornsby, and they were doing what the Liberal Party always does, stuffs around with itself. And while they were doing that, they missed the deadline to put the bloody forms in.

Now, some may survive because the forms were put in so late that they will take some time for the Electoral Commission to ratify them. But still, this hardly fills anyone with confidence, does it? If you are waiting until the deadline to submit your paperwork, surely you are not up to the job. Surely. This is a Liberal Party in New South Wales who wants to run the state again, who wants to help run the country again.

Yet they can't get their forms in on time. Now, I've reached out to Don Harwin, Richard Shields and Mark Speakman. They're all running around like headless chooks. But I've heard back from Mr Shields, who's the boss of the New South Wales Liberal Party, as well as Mark Speakman, who, of course, is the New South Wales opposition leader. But I'll read you Richard Shields' statement, right? That's what it says, quote, With the secretariat resources that we had available...

Unfortunately, we were unable to nominate in all of the local government areas that were put forward by the state executive. Close to 300 Liberal candidates were nominated with the New South Wales Electoral Commission, including in areas like Parramatta, Strathfield, Blacktown, Inner West and Bayside, where we did not run in 2021. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, Richard. The status of nominated Liberal candidates will be communicated upon confirmation from the New South Wales Electoral Commission on behalf of the Secretariat is the important bit.

I would like to apologise to Liberal-endorsed councillors that were not nominated and to the party membership more broadly. Richard, I think the next part would be your resignation, unfortunately. And I've just got a statement here too from Mark Speakman. He says that submitting local council nominations is a matter for the State Director and his Secretariat.

And not a matter for the New South Wales or Federal Parliamentary Party, except you're there at their behest, Mr. Speakman. The State Director will need to explain what has occurred and why. Yeah, well, how did he not put the forms in, seriously? 131873, I'll speak to Carmelo Pesci. He's currently the Mayor of the Southerland Shire Council, but he is now running as an independent because he's been badly done over by the Liberal Party. I reckon he's got some thoughts.