The Greens oppose the CPRS not because it is too weak, but because it will point Australia in the wrong direction with little prospect of turning it around in the timeframe within which emissions must peak, says Senator Christine Milne.
Time for Kevin Rudd to fix NSW
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I was talking to Luke Grant on 2HD this morning and he noted that he had banned discussion of Nathan Rees on his program today. I know the feeling. It’s like having to endure Big Brother all over again — a ubiquitous but brain-deadeningly boring production of apparently limitless interest to the media. Like BB, too, they change the cast members regularly but it’s the same dud show. The lead, the hitherto-unknown Rees, apparently can’t get “traction” with voters. Five seconds looking at the bloke when he first came on the public radar would have told you Rees was going to get all the traction of a unicyclist on ice. Neville Wran, Nick Greiner, Bob Carr … Nathan Rees? Come on. Rees has only done one thing effectively and that’s destroy the ambitions of John Robertson (remember him), whose transfer from the ALP party machine to Parliamentary politics with the goal of seizing the Premiership was the occasion for one of Paul Keating’s more brilliant sprays. Rees isn’t really the problem, in the sense that the coat of paint on the Titanic wasn’t the problem. The problem is the dysfunctional state of NSW Labor’s factions, and the political radioactivity of Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid. Those two individuals are so toxic everything they touch — everything — is tarnished. NSW Labor will not begin its recovery until Tripodi and Obeid are removed from the party. And even then, they’ll probably linger Brian Burke-like in the shadows, trading on their influence and contacts. Although both have enough sartorial sense not to wear a Panama hat. The point of factions is to enable ideological, administrative and personality issues to be channelled away from destructive internal disputation into a formalised process of spoils-sharing and compromise. For the most part they function this way in the ALP. You only have to look at the current state of the federal Liberal Party and the shenanigans inside the NSW Liberals to see what a rabble that a party without a formalised factional system can become. In NSW, however, the factions have become gridlocked and are part of the problem, especially given the fractious relationship between the party and its parliamentary representatives. On current form, the NSW ALP will be reduced to little more than a cricket team after the March 2011 election — the road to which seems like an unendurable journey of ceaseless torment to the rest of us. Losing office is bad enough, but losing the public resources that come with even just holding seats is also profoundly damaging. While the next election seems relatively straightforward for Kevin Rudd, the following may be more problematic and the lack of resources in NSW will hurt. That’s why Rudd and the federal ALP have to intervene in the NSW party to at least establish a functional party and parliamentary structure, one that can prevent a wipeout in 2011. Intervention comes with its own risks. As Colin Powell might say, if you break it, it’s yours. Rudd can maintain a safe distance from the NSW party for now, but buys a piece of it if he becomes involved. Nevertheless, something must be done about the party’s internal relationships. Who specifically is Premier doesn’t matter a great deal. Preferably someone with administrative and executive experience. That rules out Nathan Rees, Kristina Keneally, Carmel Tebbutt, John Della Bosca and, well, practically any other MPs except Frank Sartor. But that won’t make up for the lack of talent and experience available for ministerial positions. And does anyone know what NSW Labor stands for beyond wanting to be in power? Does it have an agenda for reversing what appears to be a long-term decline in the nation’s biggest economy? Or for managing the dilemma of a stagnant economy and a relentlessly expanding capital, driven by high immigration? Or for the future of the precious Sydney financial industry will be in a more regulated and more cautious post-GFC environment? Serious policy challenges await a NSW Government that is interested in anything beyond its own internal bickering. That’s another reason why Kevin Rudd needs to fix things in NSW sooner rather than later. |
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17 Comments
There is no-one in NSW Labor fit to run a bath, let alone a state. The trouble is, the Libs are no better. They make their federal counterparts look like a well-oiled machine. Pity the Commonwealth can’t do what the State wouldn’t hesitate to do with a local government that was this dysfunctional, and just appoint an administrator.
Somehow I don’t think our founding fathers though of that possibility when framing the constitution. Oh well.
Bernard Keane is so correct in this article. Frank Sartor is the ONLY ONE that will give NSW Labor ANY chance at the next election. The others are just rabble who think they are leaders.
Joe Tripodi….what a joke !
Last night’s Nine Noise with Peter Overthetop just summed it up for me. The Premier repeating like a dill the refrain “I am now and will remain Labor Leader”. Then there was reporter Kevin Wild claiming his sources about the leadership were “impeachable” (which means “able to be disputed”; he presumably meant “impeccable”). Finally, there was the story about the NSW police skimming $30 000 for infringements of a fake traffic sign. Boofhead premier, boofhead journalists, boofhead cops. From the Premier State to the Boofhead State. How to fix it? Maybe bring back Lachlan Macquarie?
Anyone who wears aPanama hat in West Oz is subject to the new burkey laws.
Not so much. Frank Sartor has consistently polled well below Nathan Rees and even Kristina Keneally. He was frittered away what goodwill he did have on entering Parliament by his arrogant behaviour and developer-friendly policy decisions as Minister for Planning. The Part 3A sledgehammer was his baby.
The lamentable extent of the decay and debasement of government policy development and delivery in NSW is outlined by Beverley Kingston in an opinion piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. Anyone who has been involved in a community campaign, or followed an issue closely in the media, can vouch for everything Beverley Kingston writes.
And contra Bernard Keene, the experience in NSW is that a party in power federally, does just fine with the other party in power in NSW. Most recently, the Greiner/Fahey coalition government in NSW overlapped with the Hawke/Keating government. While the Bob Carr ALP era overlapped with the Howard ascendancy federally.
The further that Kevin Rudd distances himself and the federal ALP from the NSW ALP, the more successful he will be.
Apologies Bernard, I should have written “contra Bernard Keane”.
“The Premier repeating like a dill the refrain “I am now and will remain Labor Leader”.”
The guy is an automaton programmed by Labor HQ. I wrote him off ages ago when he said that if he knew that his former boss, Milton the Octopus, was engaging in acts of pedophilia he would have “frog marched him to the nearest police station”.
Sure Nathan, that’s exactly what Labor “advisers” do.
NSW Labor is now beyond a joke. They are the rancid remains of a government that was already on the nose when Carr smelled the wind and shot through.
I’m not saying that the Libs have any talent, but they will know how to open the windows and pump the stink current out. Another familiar stink will naturally arise over time, but I would love a year or two without it.
The NSW government is getting to the point where it could take guidance from internationally failed states on governance. The level of corruption, the brazen indifference to the needs of constituents and a severe lack of talent have left NSW the laughing stock of the nation.
If I were Kevin Rudd, I’d head into NSW Labor HQ with a large batch of chloroform and have the whole lot (except for perhaps Carmel Tebbutt) shipped off quietly into the night to be never heard of again. I’d then stick a tie on Australia’s first cat Jasper, and call a press conference announcing the new Premier, because I can guarantee Jasper would probably do a better job, and get more votes than Labor or Liberal put together.
It’s always ironic too to hear Bob Carr spruiking the agenda of the increasingly right wingnut Australian newspaper to put the kibosh on a federal charter of rights, with the assurance that our democracy and elected representatives are there to serve and protect their rights and interests.
Ummm. Taking one look at NSW, I don’t think I need to expend the energy to debunk that argument.
“Pity the Commonwealth can’t do what the State wouldn’t hesitate to do with a local government that was this dysfunctional, and just appoint an administrator.”
Who did you have in mind? Max the Axe?
Can someone explain to me why we have such a bunch of talentless losers for politicians in NSW? I’m not being partisan; the ALP has the toxic brothers Obeid and Tripodi, the scheming Sartor and Della Bosca, the Libs have Barry O’Farrell desperately trying to keep a lid on the KKK-types, we’ve got Lee Rhiannon who’s just a little bit crazy, and then there’s the Shooters Party and Fred Nile. I could understand Tassie or the NT having politicians like this; they are small states with small economies dominated by a couple of commodities. But NSW is big, powerful, diverse (culturally and economically) and we have these slimy, muck-raking, self-interested turds running the place.
I don’t get it.
This is an indulgent and yes shallow piece.
It joins the dots of big media coverage but way not sufficient too. Last week’s tendentious leadership fantasy play in the big media put’s that in perspective.
Where to start on this self basting Canberra condescension/patronising superiority clagged full of federal tax dollars on the big drip?
1. Rees didn’t come from nowhere. Policy adviser in Carr’s office, stood up to Laurie Ferguson factionalism to take Toongabbie, delivered an broadly unpopular but business union favoured $2B desal plant. And no I don’t vote Labor!
Having buried that nonesense what’s next?
2. In a system of rule of law, Orkopolous matter is over. The rest like most of the article and the comments is gratuitious calculated to achieve not very much.
3. The fact Rees is Premier from the Left is not chaotic happenstance. A fair degree of it revolves around Tebbut declining the job - and why: The (far) Right are set on a $5B truck tunnel from Port Botany to M4 East. The smog stacks for that will be …. in Marrickville/Grayndler (state/federal respectively). Tebbutt will lose her seat to the Greens.
In effect Rees is there because of The Greens. Tebbutt is not too because of The Greens. God bless them. I lived 4 years just within the 400 m of the M5 East cancer smog stack and am still recovering my health it seems 3 years later. The GFC has made Tripodi and Right wing mega port visision a tragic joke, and exposed their woeful planning of urban transport portage which according to all decent logic should be out of the main city - Freemantle is to Perth anyone? Port Kembla? Newcastle?
Now Rees is back into the fray in the face of News Corp wet lettuce dressed up as page 1 blow torch (thankyou fractured web media age) he appears to have thrown a dogs a bone - pushing for M4 East again.
So here we go again - another NSW Inc classic - feed the business/union crocodiles our tax dollars to keep your govt job. And against Rees’s own generational instincts. Only he is an ambitious type, and as your story and comments indicate ‘power corrupts’. And NSW is corrupt.
No wonder Dempster is girding his ex Joh Fitzgerald rhetorical loins on Stateline recently. The thing about political corruption - it’s hard to believe until you actually see in front of your face. It’s quite a shock. Even worse when it infects your own social networks say in lefty areas of the inner west or green movement.
Not to be spoken of, god forbid. And on it goes, but Rees is tough, that much is clear.
“While the next election seems relatively straightforward for Kevin Rudd, the following may be more problematic and the lack of resources in NSW will hurt. That’s why Rudd and the federal ALP have to intervene in the NSW party to at least establish a functional party and parliamentary structure, one that can prevent a wipeout in 2011”.
Interesting Bernard,
You seem to see everything through a prism of the Canberra Press gallery and your own personal political biases. perhaps you should try looking at the big picture here.
Its not about getting Rudd re-elected, nor about salvaging the NSW Labour party, which is truly beyond rescue.
It is about replacing the current group of inept party hacks and getting the nation’s largest and most populous state back to where it should be, which is delivering the contribution to the national economy that it is capable of.
NSW has a contribution to national GDP larger than SA, Tasmania and the NT combined, in fact Western Sydney alone is a bugger contributor to the Nation’s wealth than South Australia. The contribution by NSW should be even greater, but for a generation of squandered wealth and opportunity under the current incumbents.
The NSW Liberal-National coalition may not be the best alternative government available, but they will come in with a pile of goodwill to try and fix things, and deserve that opportunity.
The Labour party in NSW deserves the opprobrium that is coming its way. Similar to what was doled out to to Keating at his last election but on a much larger (but equally much more personal) scale, the electorate is desperately looking forward to taking the baseball bats to this hopelessly inept government, delivering a god-almighty mugging for the damage done to this state.
If the current opposition under O’Farrell screws things up, then the electorate will be equally savage on them as well, but the current incumbents in Governor Macquarie Tower need to be shown the door, and I am sure that Rudd , a canny politician, wants nothing associating his name with the long-anticipated train wreck that will arrive in 2011.
^ “I am sure that Rudd , a canny politician, wants nothing associating his name with the long-anticipated train wreck that will arrive in 2011.”
Can that train wreck be brought forward? Perhaps a Railcorp employee can arrange it … for the right “fee”, of course.
is anyone else familar with the term “dead man walking…”?, perhaps it should be “dead government walking….”? Rudd is absolutely right to distance himself from NSW, as should other federal ALP representatives - there is nothing to gain, only lose.
There is nothing that can be said to defend this government. Ree’s and his government are an embarassment and a basket case and should do the right thing and hold an election so somebody can get on with the job of governing the biggest state in Australia.
I am not a Sydneysider nor a resident from the NSW but it is appalling to watch.
as bad as the ALP is, i fear the Libs would be worse - Nick Greiner was a good Liberal person as was hewson
Where is the State Govenor Marie Bashir? Does she have any constitutional rights to dissolve this rabble of a parliament. Or is she just paid to cut ribbons and attend morning teas? The sooner Rees and his misfits are fired from a cannon the better. Rudd should have had a quiet word with Brendan about leading the Liberals in NSW….probably did and Brendan smartly said I’ll take the Brussels job thanks.
Hey mr Israel - the govenor just can’t dissolve parliament on a whim - we have fixed terms and my understanding is that unless the govt was to lose a vote of no-cofidence it has to stay in until election day.