Georgia Ryburn to be Liberals Candidate in Pittwater By-election
Balgowlah resident and former Northern Beaches Council deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn has been preselected as the Liberal candidate for Pittwater in the October 19 by-election.
Ms Ryburn beat fellow Northern Beaches Council councillor Michael Gencher 48 votes to 38 in the final voting round of the preselection on Wednesday night, paving the way for a contest with Independent candidate Jacqui Scruby.
Ms Scruby narrowly missed out on claiming the seat in the March 2023 election.
Ms Ryburn is a fourth-generation peninsula local. Her great-grandfather purchased a house in bushland Balgowlah in 1940. Her dad, Dr Peter Downey, author of the 1994 released best-selling book, So You’re Going to be a Dad, is a former deputy principal at St Luke’s.
Raised in Balgowlah, Ms. Ryburn attended Balgowlah Heights Primary and then St Luke’s Grammar School, Dee Why.
Ms Ryburn, née Downey, and her husband of eight years welcomed their second baby in June 2023.
Pittwater was forced to a by-election after former sitting MP Rory Amon’s resignation from parliament on August 30, hours after NSW Police brought child abuse charges against him.
Police have charged Mr. Amon with 10 offences including five counts of having sexual intercourse with a male between the ages of 10 and 14. Mr. Amon has denied the charges.
See: Rory Amon charged with 10 alleged child sex offences - resigns from Office of MP for Pittwater
Four Liberal candidates nominated for preselection, including Ms Ryburn, lawyer Claire Longley, Mr. Gencher and another Northern Beaches councillor Bianca Crvelin.
Northern Beaches Council was formed after the forced amalgamation of Pittwater, Manly and Warringah Councils by the former state Liberal Government when led by former Manly State MP Mike Baird.
Senior Liberals expect the seat will be difficult to retain regardless of the candidate, with party insiders expecting voter backlash over the council paperwork nominations fiasco, the taint the alleged child abuse charges brings, and with an ongoing campaign by Pittwater residents to restore Pittwater Council after the forced amalgamation and loss of what Pittwater residents state is ‘local democracy’.
See: Proposal to Reinstate Pittwater Council on its former boundaries: revised s215 document
The Local Government Elections was left without any State-level endorsed Liberal candidates ahead of this weekend’s local government elections, apart from Mandeep Singh, who submitted his own paperwork in 2023. Ms Ryburn was among the 140 candidates that had been endorsed by the state executive but is off the ballot due to the paperwork stuff-up.
The debacle caused the federal arm of the party to step in and take control of the NSW division for 10 months leading into the 2025 federal elections, including the appointment of a three-man committee to oversee the party, to ensure the same does not recur in 2025.
Two Victorian Liberals, former senator Richard Alston and ex-state treasurer Alan Stockdale, were announced as part of a three-person committee delegated to ‘manage’ the NSW Liberals. Former NSW Minister Rob Stokes was also named as a committee member, but turned down the role due to commitments elsewhere.
Mr. Stokes stated on ABC Morning radio as news of the Amon charges broke it is time for someone else to have a turn and he will not be standing.
Mr. Stokes is supporting the former Manly ward councillor and Deputy Mayor of Northern Beaches Council Georgia Ryburn.
See: Jacqui Scruby Confirms Candidature for October 2024 Pittwater By-election
On Tuesday evening the NSW state executive met to discuss the federal intervention. Opposition Leader Mark Speakman told party members he refused to accept the committee of “two elderly men” was merit-based and presented “terrible optics” to the electorate.
Mr. Speakman insisted there should be female representation on the committee.
“We can debate the merits of federal intervention or not, but it’s best that we all unite and get behind it anyway and all of us do our best to win the upcoming elections, federal, state by-election and local. However, I don’t think it’s the right thing to have the committee dominated by two elderly men from Victoria,” Speakman told Tuesday’s meeting.
“This isn’t about wokeism or quotas; we need women on this because we need a merit-based committee. I refuse to accept that a committee dominated by elderly men from Victoria is a merit-based committee … It’s terrible optics, when women are half the voters, not to have women on the committee.”
The meeting resolved to appoint two women, former Lindsay MP Fiona Scott and ex NSW MP Peta Seaton.
Ms Ryburn is a management consultant at PwC, the company at the centre of the scandal involving a partner leaking secret Australian government tax policy information to other personnel in PwC, which was then used to market the firm’s services. PwC then separately designed and sold a tax structure that side-stepped new tax laws it was helping the government design.
In late August PwC Australia refused to give a parliamentary inquiry the service agreement between local CEO Kevin Burrowes and PwC International, citing “confidentiality arrangements”.
The firm also refused to supply minutes detailing discussions by its governance board about Mr Burrowes’ role, and again said it could not provide the report into actions by overseas partners concerning the firm’s tax leaks scandal.
But PwC Australia confirmed that PwC International was first told the Tax Practitioners Board was investigating a potential confidentiality breach at the firm in May 2021, a full year before the local governance board was given its own “substantive update” on the investigation.
The new information is contained in 17 responses to questions on notice for PwC stemming from the ongoing joint parliamentary inquiry into the structure of the big four consulting firms. The responses record that while the local firm has made sweeping reforms to its governance structure, it is still refusing to answer what the inquiry states are critical questions about the tax leaks matter and its operations.
Labor senator Deborah O’Neill, who chairs the inquiry, said PwC continued to “obstruct the work of the parliament by failing to provide information requested both in parliamentary hearings and in questions on notice”.
In August 2024 PwC confirmed the sale of its government consulting arm to Allegro Funds and a general government reluctance to use the firm contributed to a drop in revenue.
Ms Ryburn is currently working on educational policy reform and states she is passionate about workplace transformation and driving system-wide change to best prepare and equip people with industry-relevant and future-ready skills for the tomorrow’s workplace.
Previously, Ms Ryburn completed her Masters of Management in 2017, with a Professional Leadership Scholarship and Dean of Business School Academic Scholar award for placing in the top 6 positions out of all postgraduate students at the Sydney Business School in 2017.
Ms Ryburn completed her Bachelors of Arts (Media and Communications) on a full merit scholarship for academic and leadership achievement.
On her LinkedIn webpage Ms Ryburn states:
‘I am part of the PwC’s Management Consulting Skills for Australia team. I am passionate about education reform and driving system-wide change for students and employers to best prepare for the tomorrow’s workplace.’
The seat of Pittwater is considered a blue-ribbon Liberal seat.