One year from the NSW election, there’s an elephant in the Liberal party room

March 12, 2026 — 5:00am

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If it were not so serious, one of the enduring tales from the final weeks of the last state election campaign would make a perfect comedy sketch. It was the ultimate game of political cat and mouse, with parliamentary staff scouring the state searching for four missing NSW Liberals – including a councillor and two of then-premier Dominic Perrottet’s brothers.

The staff members were armed with summonses to force the four to front a parliamentary inquiry into an alleged Liberal branch-stacking scandal, but despite their best efforts, the four were not found. Professional document-servers were even called on to locate Jean-Claude and Charles Perrottet, former Liberal state executive member Christian Ellis and his mother, Virginia, a former Hills Shire councillor and an electorate officer to Hawkesbury MP Robyn Preston. No luck finding them, either.

Dominic Perrottet lost the election a couple of weeks later, the Liberals slumped into opposition licking their wounds, and NSW Labor got on with governing the state for the first time in 12 years.

Friday marks one year until the next election. There is a new Liberal leader in Kellie Sloane, who has solid support within her ranks and a Coalition in far better shape than its........

© The Sydney Morning Herald