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A senior member of Peter Dutton’s opposition has delivered an ultimatum to the Liberal Party by threatening to quit his seat if his neighbouring Tasmanian MP, Bridget Archer, is not blasted out of the party for alleged disloyalty.
Dutton already indicated that Archer made a mistake crossing the floor last week to vote against the opposition leader’s push for a royal commission into child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities. She then told Guardian Australia that Dutton was appearing to “weaponise” child sexual abuse for political advantage, an intervention some Coalition MPs believed went beyond simply voting against the party.
Tasmanian MPs Bridget Archer and Gavin Pearce.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/Dom Lorrimer
In an internal flare-up posing a new headache for Dutton, Tasmanian MP Gavin Pearce has told colleagues he is withholding his nomination for the key seat of Braddon to force the party to block Archer from running in her seat of Bass next door.
Archer is an outspoken moderate Liberal who has regularly crossed the floor and advocated for the modernisation of the Liberal Party so it can remain competitive.
The opposition leader has previously backed Archer’s right as a backbencher to oppose party policy, and in March said she was an “important part of our team”. But last week, he criticised her decision to cross the floor and said she had made a mistake.
Four Liberal Party MPs, who asked not to be named so they could discuss internal party matters, said Pearce, the shadow assistant minister for health, aged care and Indigenous health services, had held back his preselection nomination to push party officials to force out Archer.
Those MPs said Pearce, a conservative-aligned MP close to veteran former Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz, was effectively holding the party to ransom and creating a situation in which it lost either Archer or Pearce, both of whom held important seats that could be lost if the incumbent MP were not to run.
Pearce declined to comment.
Archer said she remained “a Liberal Party member and will be hopefully seeking re-election”, noting her preselection was “for our grassroots members to decide”.
“Gavin’s preselection is a matter for Gavin and his preselectors,” she said.
Bridget Archer said the decision on her preselection was for the party’s grassroots members.Credit: James Brickwood
A group of mostly conservative-aligned MPs is backing Pearce’s stance, one MP said, because they had grown increasingly frustrated with Archer’s repeated breaks with party policy that were not communicated to colleagues in advance.
A source close to Pearce, who also requested anonymity, said the Braddon MP was tired of campaigning to retain his seat – which he won off Labor in 2019 – while fielding questions from local media about Archer’s statements and policy positions that contradicted Pearce and Dutton’s.
One of the other three MPs who spoke to this masthead stressed Pearce would not back down and there was a chance party officials would side with him, but this would “probably result in [Archer] going to the crossbench and winning her seat” as an independent, causing the Coalition to lose a seat.
“He has told people he won’t be the candidate for Braddon until he knows Bridget won’t be the candidate for Bass,” the MP said.
Preselection nominations have already closed for Pearce’s seat of Braddon, while in Bass they close on Friday. However, as the sitting members, party rules allow Pearce and Archer to nominate after those dates.
A senior party source firmly rejected the prospect of Archer winning the seat as an independent, saying she stood little chance in what was a traditional Labor-Liberal contest.
Archer holds Bass on a tight 1.43 per cent margin, but received a 1.02 per cent swing toward her last election. Pearce holds his seat on an 8.03 per cent margin after a 4.94 per cent swing toward .
A second Liberal MP said Pearce’s attempt to force out Archer – who has built a profile that rivals teal and other crossbench MPs – could backfire.
“I don’t think she should go. We are trying to win seats, not lose them. From what I have seen there isn’t anyone who would beat her at preselection, let alone at a poll. I suspect if we spit her out we lose the seat,” they said.
A third MP said while Archer sometimes irritated her colleagues with her independent-minded stances, she remained welcome in the party.
“Bridget has come unstuck a couple of times in terms of how she has handled things. Unlike Warren Entsch or Russell Broadbent, she hasn’t always handled things internally,” the MP said.
The stand-off over Archer’s seat and Pearce’s withholding of his nomination represents the latest intra-party conundrum for Dutton, who is weighing up competing interests in a frontbench reshuffle.
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