Liberal party members have voted to dump incumbent federal MP Ian Goodenough in a hotly contested pre-selection battle for the seat of Moore at the next election.

Party members gathered on Saturday to select their candidate for the seat at the next federal election, picking former member for Stirling Vince Connelly as their choice. The decision will need to be ratified by the party’s governing body to become a done deal.

Connely previous represented the seat of Stirling from 2019 until the seat’s abolition at the 2022 election. He previously unsuccessfully attempted to unseat Goodenough ahead of the 2022 election, later going to run for the seat of Cowan where he was unable to unseat Labor’s Anne Aly.

Goodenough, a member of the conservative side of the Liberal party, was first elected to parliament in 2013 and he has been returned in 2016, 2019 and 2022.

During his time in parliament Goodenough has been an opponent of marriage equality and a supporter of religious discrimination laws. In 2016 he authored an article that was published in The West Australian saying same-sex marriage would bring “an enormous cost to society in terms of dealing with social dysfunction, psychological and mental health issues”, implying the children of same-sex couples would have mental health problems.

When the public shared their thoughts on marriage equality via the 2017 postal survey, 68 per cent of people in the Division of Moore said they supported allowing same-sex couple being able to wed.

The MP hit another patch of controversy when leaked texts showed he was a member of a group dubbed The Clan alongside former senator Mathias Cormann, and state MPs Nick Goiran and Peter Collier. The messages from the quartet showed how they legally stacked branches with loyal supporters, pushed their preferred candidates for selection and made mocking comments of women in the party.

Goodenough has said that dumping him as a candidate could spark a “civil war” in the party, and he has not ruled out running as an independent at the next election.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commented on the decision to dump Ian Goodenough during an appearance on Sky News on Sunday.

“I think the treatment of Mr Goodenough is a disgrace and it’s typical of the Liberal Party, who are just obsessed by themselves,” he said.

“Labor will be running a strong campaign in Moore because we know that the Liberal Party are too busy fighting each other to fight for the interests of the people of Moore.”

OIP Staff

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