The Clan (Liberal Party of Australia)
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The Clan was a WhatsApp chat group involving members of the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party, which was active between 2016 and 2021 and was used to coordinate activities within the Liberal Party. The group was revealed in 2021 after its contents were leaked to the media. Prominent members included former Western Australian senator Mathias Cormann and Legislative Council members Peter Collier and Nick Goiran.
Members in the chat group included:[1][2]
- Senator Mathias Cormann
- Legislative Council member Peter Collier
- Legislative Council member Nick Goiran
- House of Representatives member Ian Goodenough
- Senator Slade Brockman
- Legislative Assembly member Tony Krsticevic
- Liberal Party State Treasurer Aiden Depiazzi
- Liberal Party State President Fay Duda[3]
WhatsApp messages leak
The chat was revealed with a leak of 700 pages of messages in August 2021. Amongst these pages, some members of the chat group discussed or joked about branch stacking. The leaked messages show that the group was primarily used to coordinate voting at internal party meetings within the organisational wing of the WA Liberal Party.[1][2]
Influence
Australia's longest-serving Finance Minister, Mathias Cormann, was a member of the chat group.[4] Liberal Party State President Fay Duda was also in the group.[3]
Ahead of the 2017 state election, Goiran's preferred candidate for the re-drawn seat of Bateman, backbench MP Matt Taylor, lost the preselection to then-minister Dean Nalder in a 69 to 50 vote of State Council.[5] Nalder then went on to launch an unsuccessful leadership challenge against then-Premier and leader of the Liberal Party, Colin Barnett.[6]
Brockman received support from members of the group when he stood for preselection to the Senate in 2017.[1]
During preselection for the 2018 Cottesloe state by-election, Collier, a member of the WhatsApp group, unsuccessfully backed BHP lawyer Emma Roberts over David Honey, who eventually won preselection.[1]
The 2020 Western Australian Liberal Party leadership election was influenced by two of the chat group's members, Collier and Goiran, who backed Zak Kirkup over Dean Nalder. In a statement made by Nalder upon his retirement announcement a week later, he criticised the factional forces within the Liberal Party, who backed Kirkup over himself. He said that he could never become leader in the future as he could not secure the majority support of the party room without Collier and Goiran.[7][8] Days later, he quit his shadow cabinet roles, including shadow treasurer.[9][10]