NSW Liberal Party members will vote to preselect a candidate for Scott Morrison’s safe south Sydney seat on Cook on Monday night.
The seat was put in the running following Mr Morrison’s retirement from politics, with a yet-to-be-announced by-election slated in the coming months.
About 300 members will choose between Sutherland Shire Mayor Carmelo Pesce, former McKinsey partner Simon Kennedy, Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner Gwen Cherne and army veteran Benjamin Britton.
However Mr Pesce and Mr Kennedy are believed to be the front runners.
Mr Pesce has long been touted as Mr Morrison’s successor in the electorate. He was first elected to the Sutherland Shire Council in 2012 and served as Mayor between 2015 to 2020, and was re-elected in 2022.
Mr Kennedy – who unsuccessfully ran for the northern Sydney seat of Bennelong – has been praised by party members for his corporate and consulting experience.
As observed by one senior party member: “If someone had asked a month ago, you would’ve struggled to find a single party member who believed anyone other than the mayor would even have a chance of being the candidate,” they said.
“So the fact that it’s looking close is just an incredible feat of Kennedy.”
However they said Mr Pesce’s popularity with local selectors shouldn’t be underestimated.
“Mr Kennedy’s made significant inroads, but it’s a herculean task to beat the local mayor in a plebiscite preselection of more than 300 locals during an unexpected by-election.”
While the Liberal preselection result will most likely be confirmed on Monday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Labor is yet to decide whether they will also be contesting the seat.
“Cook is not a seat that it would be expected that we would win, but we’ll wait and see,” he told ABC Sydney Breakfast on Monday.
“I noticed that the Liberal Party have the opportunity to finally select a woman candidate today for Cook, but we’ll wait and see whether they actually do or whether it’s yet another bloke sitting behind Peter Dutton just saying no to everything.”
The very safe blue seat has been held by the Liberal Party since 1975, and was won by Mr Morrison with a healthy 12.4 per cent margin in the 2022 federal election.
Despite this, then Labor candidate Simon Earle was able to achieve a 6.6 per cent swing to the Australian Labor Party.