Two prominent West Australian Liberal elders have written to the party’s entire membership base urging them to “take back control” from powerbrokers or face a bleak future.

The letter, by members of the recently formed “Liberal Reform Coalition” Norman Moore and former Barnett government treasurer Mike Nahan, urged inactive party members to stand up and vote for powerbroker-busting reforms at the WA Liberals’ state conference at the end of the month.

WA Liberal Party veterans Mike Nahan and Norman Moore have urged the party to embark on reforms to remove the influence of powerbrokers.Credit:Trevor Collens/Getty Images

However, it has further inflamed tension within the party base, with one senior figure describing the LRC as “Moore-ons”.

Moore, a former Liberal Party president, and Nahan urged “true Liberals” within the party to remove members of the alliance of powerbrokers known as “The Clan” from office-bearing positions and adopt reforms that prevent branch stacking.

“To those members of the Party who are not always active in the Organisational affairs of the Party, we say to you – tell your delegates, be they Branch or Divisional, that enough is enough!” they said.

“We want real reform – not half-baked reform that will leave the Party in the hands of the Clan and on the path to further humiliating electoral defeats.

“[Branch stacking and bombing] are the instruments which have been used to manipulate pre-selections and have Liberal candidates for Parliament effectively selected by politicians and the Clan – not by the broad membership of the Party – or in many cases, on the basis of merit.”

The letter signals a win for Moore who requested the party hand over a list of contact details of more than 6000 members under the WA Associations Incorporations Act to campaign for constitutional reforms.

Moore threatened to take the party to the State Administrative Tribunal if it refused to give him the list but WAtoday understands a compromise was recently reached where the party agreed to send his email verbatim to all members.

The Clan is a group of factional heavyweights, including state upper house MPs Peter Collier and Nick Goiran as well as the now-retired WA senator Mathias Cormann. A tranche of WhatsApp messages from the group that were leaked last year revealed how The Clan used its influence to get friendly party members in office-bearing positions.

The letter said the WA Liberals were the party that had started the great mining, energy and agricultural developments in the state, as well as Optus Stadium, but had been decimated after two huge election losses to Labor at both state and federal level.

“But look at us now!” it said.

“At present, we have a virtual ‘One Party State’ in WA. This must not be allowed to continue and it is only the Liberal Party that can put an end to this precarious situation.

“That is why reform of our Party is so vital so that we can again win the confidence of the Western Australian community.”

The letter also criticised the party’s constitutional and drafting committee, which is in charge of preparing reforms, for its slowness to act on recommendations from the Road to Reform report into the party’s 2021 state election loss.

The party will consider several constitutional changes being championed by party president Richard Wilson at the state conference, including candidate selection plebiscites.

However, some party elders such as Moore don’t believe they go far enough.

The letter has inflamed tensions between the membership base ahead of the state conference.

A senior Clan-linked party member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the LRC was just softening the ground to vote against reform themselves.

“The so-called Liberal Reform Coalition should rename themselves the Moore-ons, because they’ve allowed their agenda to be hijacked by two senile and utterly selfish former MPs,” they said.

“LRC have known for months the former so-called ‘Clan’ leadership are all supporting Richard Wilson’s plebiscite reform.

“What has come to light in recent weeks is that many of the same LRC leaders who have been vocally calling for reform will actually vote it down and they can because reform needs ‘Clan’ and LRC votes to reach 75 per cent.”

The party member said the LRC actually benefitted from furore around the Clan as it strengthened their position to take control of the party.

“LRC judge that if reform passes and media scrutiny of the ‘Clan’ subsides they will be undermining their ultimate objective which is to assume control of the Party and handpick their mates for seats in parliament like they did for David Honey in Cottesloe,” they said.

“LRC think it’s better for reform to fail expecting it’s the ‘Clan’ who will cop the brunt of the blame from the media.”

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