Liberal party members calling for reform or commenting about politics on Twitter have fallen foul of the state executive
The New South Wales Liberals are seeking to gag members trying to force party reform, as well as monitoring social media and sending letters threatening expulsion to party members who tweet about politics.
This comes as the NSW division is rocked by the Independent Commission against Corruption’s (Icac) revelations and the federal party is advocating radical changes to the Racial Discrimination Act in order to protect freedom of speech.
The letters threatening expulsions for tweeting have been sent even when the tweets are innocuous, and even when the tweets are posted without mentioning any party affiliation.
Almost half of a lengthy meeting of the 22-member state executive on Friday night was spent discussing whether to expel two members who had made unauthorised public comments about party reform, including about the need to remove “in-house lobbyists” from the state executive.
Most of the messages on social media were posted on the day Barry O’Farrell resigned, and appeared to be from members aligned with his factional opponents, or who thought the pace of reform under his government had been too slow.
One of the offending tweets said: “Let’s hope the Liberal party puts up someone that isn’t the Malcolm Fraser of state governance now.”
Another simply said: “celebrating an undisclosed celebration.”
And another said: “Ding dong the Premier is dead #Icac.”
