The Liberal Party is drowning. This 29-year-old ‘rebel’ wants to be its lifeboat

The new Liberal candidate for Manly, Adelaide Cuneo, does not shy away from speaking up when she thinks her own party gets it wrong. She once worried she would never become a candidate because of her staunch views on the party’s future.

Now Cuneo is hoping her outspoken nature can carry the Liberals to victory in a once-safe seat hanging in the balance amid woeful polling and a challenge from a strong community independent.

At 29 years old, the Freshwater resident has already made a name for herself in the Liberal Party as vice president of the NSW Liberal Women’s Council, backing a push to introduce gender quotas after the disastrous federal election result, and for her public comments pleading with her party not to dump a commitment to net zero by 2050.

As the electorate of Manly turns 100 next year, she’s the party’s first female candidate in the seat.

“I want to be authentic to me, which is someone who’s always stood up for what matters, and if that ruffles feathers along the way, I don’t think I’ll apologise for that,” Cuneo said.

“People have sort of said I’ve been a bit of a rebel inside of the Liberal Party and stuff, but it’s not really about that at all. It’s about having conviction and doing what’s right when it matters.”

Cuneo worked as a political staffer before training as a chef in 2023, inspired by her restaurateur parents. Cuneo now works in the energy sector, and helped the outgoing MP James Griffin with his campaign before he announced he would quit politics at the next election.

Manly is the seat of former premier Mike Baird and has remained Liberal for 20 years, with Griffin last claiming victory with a margin of 4.8 per cent. The seat stands as the last vestige of the blue-chip, inner-city seats along with Kellie Sloane’s Vaucluse.

The Liberals have lost two previously safe seats to independents in recent years: Jacqui Scruby claimed Pittwater after the resignation of Rory Amon in 2024, and former mayor Michael Regan took Wakehurst in 2023 after the political retirement of Brad Hazzard.

The Coalition’s primary vote of 24 per cent trails Labor and One Nation, according to the latest Resolve Political Monitor survey.

A challenge facing Coalition candidates will be how they convince more socially progressive voters in seats such as Manly to stick with the Liberals, while the Nationals may be tempted to pitch further to the right to stave off a One Nation wave in the regions.

Cuneo says fixing traffic congestion, sorting out the area’s unreliable bus services and fighting for a strong, small-business-friendly economy will be key issues in her campaign. She told the Herald she wants more authentic voices in state parliament, and hopes her track record of speaking up inside her own party will help convince local voters to stick with the Liberal Party.

“You think about the people that are having cut-through at the moment, and it’s David Pocock, it’s Jacqui Lambie, it’s Pauline Hanson, I don’t necessarily agree with their politics … but what I think they all have in common is the fact that they talk normally,” Cuneo said.

The Liberal Party needs to get better at communicating its core values to voters who are frustrated with the major parties, Cuneo said. As a young professional woman who believes in clean energy and gender quotas, Cuneo might more closely resemble a teal, but she insists she still believes the Liberal Party is the answer for NSW’s problems.

She believes Sloane and the state Liberals are already doing “a bloody good job”.

“I think people know that Kellie is listening. I think it’s, you know, it’s almost chalk and cheese … it’s very different at a federal level,” Cuneo said.

“I think there’s still work to be done there – obviously, some things that they’re doing are right, but that’s why I’m still so committed to sticking with the Liberal Party. I put my hand up and I’m running for a state seat, right? Because we can get things done.”

While Cuneo is hoping Manly voters will reward the Liberals for their reputation for delivering services like the B-Line buses, independent Elouise Massa is hoping the dire prospects of the Coalition forming government in March will turn voters away from backing a party almost sure to be in opposition for another four years.

Massa was inspired to run for parliament after successfully lobbying the government to scrap public-private partnerships following the death of her son Joe in September 2024.

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