Wagga’s Liberal Party branch president is planning to propose a motion to formally relieve his party of its obligation to support the National Party candidate at the March state election.
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Colin Taggart has told Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack that he will put the motion to his party later this month in response to what he called their “backstabbing” during the September byelection.
Mr Taggart said the anger was “palpable” during the Liberals’ last branch meeting after Nationals took to social media to criticise Julia Ham before the byelection.
“The Coalition agreement clearly states that there’s an obligation on Coalition members to support Coalition candidates,” he said.
“Julian McLaren and Wes Fang sucked the oxygen out of our byelection campaign, criticised our candidate, and no action has been taken against them.”
Mr Taggart registered a formal complaint about that behaviour to the National Party last month.
However, come Friday, Mr Taggart said he never received a response to his complaint, and likened the rapidly deteriorating Coalition relationship to an “abusive domestic relationship”
“The Nats simply aren’t our friends, they don’t represent Liberal values, they don’t represent Coalition values, they don’t represent conservative values, so we’re not going to reward treachery by voting for them,” he said.
“We have our state council on the 23rd of this month, and I will be proposing the motion that they have unilaterally broken the Coalition agreement, so there’s therefore no obligation upon us to vote for them.”
A Nationals spokesman confirmed the party had received Mr Taggart’s formal complaint.
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