A senior West Australian Liberal has expressed confidence backbench MP Ian Goodenough will remain with the party following his preselection loss.
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Mr Goodenough lost preselection for the upcoming federal election in the Perth seat of Moore on Saturday to former federal MP Vince Connelly.
Despite Opposition Leader Peter Dutton expressing support for Mr Goodenough ahead of the vote, Mr Connelly won 137 to 39.
Speculation has since swirled that Mr Goodenough will serve out the rest of his parliamentary term as an independent.
But opposition defence spokesman and fellow West Australian Liberal Andrew Hastie says he expects he will stick with the party.
"I'm confident Ian will do the right thing but we've got to allow space for the guy to be disappointed," he told Sky News on Sunday.
"He's served in the parliament for 10 years now and it's not easy when you lose an election and he lost his election yesterday."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Mr Goodenough had been discarded by the opposition.
"He's been thrown out by his own political party from endorsement, for a bloke who ran against him in pre-selection last time, wasn't successful, so shopped around for a seat," he said.
"The treatment of Mr Goodenough is a disgrace, and it's typical of the Liberal Party who are just obsessed by themselves."
Mr Goodenough was first elected to federal parliament in 2013 as part of the coalition landslide victory.
While he had comfortably retained his seat at subsequent polls, the 2022 election saw him suffer an almost 11 per cent swing, managing to hold on to the electorate by just 0.66 per cent.
Mr Connelly, Mr Moore's replacement as Liberal candidate, had previously served in federal parliament as the MP for Stirling, before the seat was abolished as part of a redistribution.
While he was preselected as the candidate for the Perth seat of Cowan, he lost the 2022 election to incumbent Labor MP Anne Aly.
Mr Hastie said the preselection loss would be a lot to process for Mr Goodenough after a long stint in parliament.
"Ian's a sensible, loyal servant of the Liberal Party, he's obviously going to be very disappointed today with the results from yesterday but this is grassroots democracy in action," he said.
"This is the way we preselect our candidates, it went to a fair vote and the other candidate won."
Australian Associated Press
