Author’s Note: Cross posted at Red Racing Horses. Part 1 (dealing with Labor’s electoral woes is here, recommend reading that before this) is linked here:
http://www.swingstateproject.c…
And for a good analysis about the election, including specifically what seats will be in play this election, read this page as well:
http://www.abc.net.au/election…
In the Part one of this two part diary series dealing with the New South Wales election which is to be held in less than 15 days we examined the ruling Labor Government’s imminent annihilation at the ballot box. This diary will deal with the latest developments on the campaign trail and three key issues: public transportation, corruption and power privatization, issues that have helped sink Keneally and her party’s chances of even having enough members in state parliament to form a credible opposition. If things get any worst for Kristina Keneally and NSW Labor (and they certainly still can) Keneally could become the Kim Campbell of New South Wales politics and perhaps Australian politics.
Before we start talking about the three issues I listed above, we must first start talking about the recent developments on the campaign trail. And of course as electoral junkies such as ourselves must do is read the latest polling….another disastrous poll for Labor. A poll done by Galaxy (cross tabs available here) on behalf of the conservative leaning Sydney newspaper Daily Telegraph confirms what every other poll (well there have been 3 to be exact) has found. Labor’s primary vote is stuck at 23% with the Liberal/National coalition far ahead at 50%, the Greens at 14%. And when 2PP is applied, the Liberals are at 64% with Labor at 36%. Labor’s 50 seats in state parliament would be reduced to just 16. A loss of over 68% of their seats taking with them back benchers and cabinet ministers and perhaps the premier as well.
Labor’s expensive and overwhelming ad campaign and Keneally’s stellar performances during the debates have not moved the needle enough to matter. And her appeals to not give O’Farrell and the Coalition a blank check are falling on deaf ears with 66% of voters already making up their minds. And as a sign of how much the electorate has come to despise Labor, 70% of those surveyed in the poll say O’Farrell and his party will win government only because Labor deserves to lose while only 21% believe O’Farrell deserves to be elected in his own right.
Not only that, but the Greens are expected to pick up two Labor seats, Marrickville and Balmain. Marrickville is especially heartbreaking towards Labor for the seat is held by popular MP and Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt. A recent Daily Telegraph-Galaxy poll shows Tebbutt trailing Marrickville’s Greens mayor Fiona Byrne 57-43 on a 2PP basis. Education Minister Verity Firth who occupies the seat of Balmain is expected to lose her hotly contest reelection race to Leichhardt council mayor Jamie Parker.
Transport Minister John Robertson is also in the political fight of his life as he attempts hold the usually safe Labor seat of Blacktown. Robertson has been tapped by party insiders to replace Keneally as leader after the election, but to do that he has to drop down from the upper house to parliament. But the toxic climate facing NSW Labor could be Robertson’s undoing as internal polling shows Robertson would of lost the seat two weeks ago if the election was held then. Labor is reportedly poring in money and volunteers into Blacktown in order to get Robertson elected.
But the Greens hopes of perhaps picking up some more Labor seats like Keneally’s seat of Heffron were dealt a perhaps crippling blow when the Liberal party announced they would direct their voters to preference no one except the Liberals. A similar approach was used by the Liberals during the Victorian state election last year which deprived the Greens of a chance to win a lower house seat in Melbourne. On the other hand the Greens might of dealt Labor a death blow by announcing last month they would would preference neither Labor or the Liberals, the only exception being that Greens voters will direct their preferences towards Nathan Rees as he attempts to hold his seat of Toongabbie.
Anyway, two weeks ago the Liberal Party held their campaign launch in Penrith which is in Western Sydney. Western Sydney is traditionally Labor territory, but the Liberals are poised to make major inroads in the region as Labor voters are prepared to turn on their party in droves and in the process delivering a coalition government. Also Penrith was the site of a landslide special election last year which resulted in the Liberals picking up a Western Sydney seat for the first time in 20 years. Federal Opposition leader Tony Abbott was also at the rally where he called the Keneally Labor government the worst NSW has had since Captain Bligh was deposed during the rum rebellion….in 1808. He also offered a glowing endorsement of Barry O’Farrell by telling the crowd, “He ain’t pretty, but he’s pretty effective!
While the rally was being held, Labor and Greens protesters were outside heckling Liberal supporters blocking the entrance. While the protesters were hoping to force Tony Abbott and Barry O’Farrell to push their way through the gauntlet of protestors, they instead slipped into the auditorium through the back entrance. Touche.
Politics in Canberra have found their way into NSW with Labor PM Julia Gillard’s recently unveiling her carbon tax proposal causing a lot of heartburn for NSW Labor at a time they don’t need anymore bad news. In fact by proposing a tax on carbon, Julia Gillard broke one of her campaign promises where she promised on TV not to push a carbon tax under her government. Though Gillard didn’t have much choice but to propose a tax on carbon because she needed secure the support of the Greens senators in the Australian senate (who will hold the balance of power in the senate come July) to help push her agenda through.
As expected, Tony Abbott is screaming bloody murder saying Gillard lied to the Australian people and demanding Gillard call an election immediately to get a mandate to impose a carbon tax. And in NSW, as expected, Barry O’Farrell and the Liberals quickly lined up against it while Keneally has being doing her best to defend Gillard’s proposal. Not only did O’Farrell say a carbon tax would raise prices on fuel, food, electricity all the usual things opponents of carbon taxes/cap & trade constantly say but in a nod towards Western Sydney, O’Farrell said that a carbon tax would force train commuters to pay more. To hammer the message home, the Liberals recent launched a mobile billboard that will “travel to those parts of the state that will be hit hardest by Labor’s carbon tax.”
With the Keneally government all but certain to go down in a crushing defeat, Labor MP’s everywhere have been doing anything they can to save themselves with Labor MP’s in marginal and in seats not super safe for the party have been accused of trying to hide the fact they are part of the Labor party. For example Roads minister David Borger who’s seat of Granville (carried by Labor by a 11% margin in 2007) is expected to change hands come March 26th was caught using post it notes to cover up his party affiliation on campaign signs at his campaign office. (Australian law requires candidates to clearly display their party affiliation in the lower right corner of their campaign posters.)
With the time running out for Labor, there are signs that even the unions (a reliable Labor constituency) have abandoned all hope of a Labor victory with a recently launched ad where one of the people in the ad tells two other people with her that, “…they reckon we’re getting a new state government.” The three people in the ad then proceed to in vague terms talk about what an O’Farrell government would mean for them. Even the person running the Labor campaign efforts and party secretary Sam Dastyari told the Daily Telegraph that it was basically all over except the screaming:
“Barry O’Farrell is going to win this thing, and he is going to win it big,” Mr Dastyari said. “But he doesn’t deserve the majority he will get.”
Keneally herself all but conceded defeat when at a campaign stop in Sydney yesterday, she delivered what could be called a doomsday speech. She warned voters to, “Take care of your neighbor because there will be fewer police to do that for you.” Keneally also warned parents to read to their children at night because a good public education would become a memory under a Coalition government because, “…our teachers join nurses on the unemployment queue.” O’Farrell was livid at Keneally’s speech calling it bizarre and called it a new low because Keneally was seeking to scare the most vulnerable in the community.
Now we will examine several key issues that have brought NSW Labor to the bring of political extinction. The first of them being power privatization.
Power privatization (You’d think the party that supports more “private sector” involvement in government would do this):
When the talk heads discuss on election night why the Keneally government went down in When the talk heads discuss on election night why the Keneally government went down in blazing defeat, they’ll probably talk mostly about corrupt MP’s and Labor’s half baked attempt to privatize the state’s electrical assets. Plans to privatize the state’s electrical assets began shortly after the Iemma Labor government was reelected in 2007. To make it clear, Labor was not reelected in 2007 because they were loved by the public, but because of hatred towards then PM John Howard (who you might remember as Bush’s loyal ally on Iraq and saying that an Obama presidency would be the best thing that ever happened to Al-Qaeda) and the fact the opposition led by Peter “Member for Vaucluse” Debnam was beyond hopeless. To prove how loathed the Iemma Labor government was already at this point, three major newspaper, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph threw their support behind the Coalition, though they indicated this was a lesser of two evils decision than anything else.
Federal politics came into play here. With the 2007 Federal election (which would see Kevin Rudd becoming the first Labor PM in 12 years) less than a few months away, Kevin Rudd and the National Labor party wanted Iemma to drop his plans for power privatization until after the election. Labor was running heavily against the Howard government’s “WorkChoices” legislation (think Scott Walker’s proposal to eliminate collective bargaining except on steroids) and the unions were helping Labor in this endeavor by pumping in millions of dollars in attack ads. Rudd did not want the unions in NSW to turn their attention from Howard and the Liberals to fighting Iemma’s privatization schemes.
In a secret meeting between the two, Iemma agreed to drop his power privatization scheme until after the election and Rudd would help, “…. fuck them [the unions] together.”
Iemma only kicked the can down to an epic confrontation between himself and the unions which exploded during the May 2008 party conference. There the government and the unions turned the usually grassroots like conference to a angry debate with cabinet ministers stepping up to the podium to sell the power privatization plan to a skeptical audience and various speakers coming to the podium ridiculing the plan including ALP President Bernie Riordan.
But the show was stolen by then treasurer and architect of the privatization plan Michael Costa’s newsworthy outbursts during during the conference. The first of which observers could hear Costa yelling at Premier Iemma telling him not to accept the conference’s decision if they come out against power privatization. The second outburst involved Costa angrily eviscerating the secretary of Unions NSW and future Transport Minister John Robertson with Costa telling him, “You blokes can get fucked! You’re going to look like dickheads on Monday morning!”
Then came Costa’s speech to the delegates which TV commentators would label “Mussolini-like” where Costa would berate and harangue the audience in a fit of rage:
“It is an absolute joke to come into this conference and claim and claim that prices are going up. When we are adopting a policy, the Gano policy which will increase prices by 30%. So that’s a falsehood #1!
Falsehood #2! Jobs will go offshore! Jobs will go offshore! Half the people people in this room are wearing yellow t-shirts made in China! In China! Your a joke! Your a absolute joke! You don’t care about that, you don’t care about jobs offshore, it’s convenient, it’s convenient. The reality is, the reality is, more power stations means more jobs! More power stations means more jobs! Jobs are not going offshore! We will have more jobs!”
The delegates assembled would overwhelmingly reject the Iemma government’s power privatization plan 702 to 107. A day later though, Iemma went full steam ahead with his plans, regardless of what the unions and party faithful though. In late August Parliament was reconvened in order to vote for a power privatization bill. Iemma had a problem though, he could not corral the votes needed to pass the bill on a party line vote so he turned to the Coalition for help. Unfortunately for Iemma, the Coalition declared their unanimous opposition to Labor’s efforts to privatizing power. Without the support of the Coalition and Iemma facing the humiliating sight of 14 Labor MP’s crossing over and voting against the bill, it was quickly yanked from the floor.
While Iemma began exploring alternative ways to sell the state’s power assets off without needing parliament’s okay, his deputy premier John Watkins resigned from parliament. This was the catalyst for a major cabinet reshuffle that would prove to be the end of the Iemma government. The same day Iemma sacked Michael Costa as treasurer, his cabinet choices were rejected by the party’s powerful right faction and Iemma was forced to resign from parliament. He was then replaced as premier by Nathan Rees, a freshman MP who hailed from the party’s left faction. Rees only lasted a little over a year where after angering every power broker on the NSW Labor’s right faction was canned himself and replaced by Planning Minister Kristina Keneally. Before Rees was thrown out the door he took a shot at any challenger labeling them a puppet of Eddie Obedid and Joe Tripodi, the two major power brokers in the NSW Labor’s right faction.
With Keneally firmly in control of the reins now, Labor would go past the point of now return on power privatization. And on December 15th, 2010, Treasurer Eric Roozendaal announced the sale of state owned power companies Country Energy and Integral Energy were sold with the output of the power generator Eraring sold to Origin Energy, all for $5.3 billion. Two private companies, TRUenergy and Origin now had a duopoly over 85% of the state’s energy market.
The opposition quickly blasted Labor saying they basically gave away the electricity assets to the private sector and analysis concluded that power costs would rise for many people. Also lending credit to the opposition’s attacks were the fact 8 out 11 board members on the state owned companies of Eraring and Delta Electricity resigned before the sale announced forcing Roozendaal replace them so the sale could go ahead. It would be revealed a month later the government only pocked $3.27 billion from the sale. An attempt to offload the rest of the state owned power assets would fail when the political climate became too toxic to even think of buying the rest of the state’s assets.
And in a move labeled as the “trashing of democracy” by O’Farrell, Keneally ordered parliament to be shut down days after the sale in order to prevent an inquiry into the merits of the deal as confirmed by papers acquired by the Coalition a few weeks ago. An inquiry into the deal happened anyway and they came to the conclusion the sell off was a fiscal disaster. Keneally and Roozendaal blasted the report as a political cheap shot while O’Farrell reveled in the findings. Unfortunately if the state government were to backtrack on the deal, they would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, something no one is in the mood for.
1. Cherie Burton: Loses driving license for a year after being convicted of drunk driving. (Expected to lose reelection.)
2. David Campbell: Caught leaving a gay sex club. Forced to resign as Transport Minister. (Retiring, Labor should be able hold his seat if only barely.)
3. Angela D’Amore: ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) found D’Amore guilty of giving her staff kickbacks. She was canned immediately as parliamentary secretary for police by Keneally herself. Facing criminal charges. (Barred from running again, Labor expected to lose her seat.)
4. Karyn Paluzzano: Caught LYING to ICAC about giving her staff kickbacks. Quickly resigned from parliament over the matter. (Labor lost her seat of Penrith in a landslide special election.)
5. Milton Orkopoulous: Resigned from parliament over charges he raped several young boys. Subsequently convicted on 28 charges including 8 for having sex with a minor, 13 counts of supplying weed, four counts of supply heroin and three counts of indecent assault on a minor. (Labor held his seat easily in the 2007 election.)
6. Matt Brown: Resigns as police minister after a few days on the job after being caught having a wild night at a party which included him dancing in his underwear and simulating a sex act on a fellow MP, while telling the MP’s daughter who was watching the affair in probably horror he was, “titty fucking” her mother. (Expected to lose reelection.)
7. Tony Stewart: Sacked as small business minister after Rees found out he bulled a female staffer. (Retiring, Labor should be able to his seat of Bankstown.)
8. John Della Bosca: Resigned as Health Minister after caught having an affair with a 26 year old woman. He was 28 years her senior.
9. Ian MacDonald: Sacked as state development Minister after caught misusing taxpayer funds to pay for a trip to the Middle East. (Resigned his seat in the upper house on June 7th, 2010 and replaced by Luke Foley.)
10. Paul McLeay: Resigned as Ports and Waterways Minister after caught and admitting to using parliamentary computers to access porn and online gambling websites. Days later the search was deemed illegal and not accurate but the damage was already done. (Expected to lose reelection.)
Unlike in this country where spending money on public transportation specifically passenger rail is considered wasting good money that can be used to build highways and roads, passenger rail is very important in Australia. Case in point, one of the reasons why the Brumby Labor government went down in Victoria last year was because voters were angry at how the rail system in Melbourne and the suburbs continued to be in poor shape. And in NSW, the Keneally government has been dogged repeatedly over the state of Sydney’s commuter rail system named CityRail, or as the locals like to derogatorily call it, ShityRail.
And for good reason. With hundreds of thousands of Sydney commuters using CityRail daily, the system is plagued by frequent overcrowding and many of the older trains don’t even have air conditioning with the train cars supposed to replace them having been delayed over and over again. (They still haven’t been put into service.) In addition CityRail is a favorite of vandals who often tag the trains, some even brazen enough to film their exploits in broad daylight.
But that’s not where the juicy stuff lies. Unlike in this country, the argument is not over if money needs to be spent on brand new rail lines, but where the money should be spent. And at the heart of the argument lies a promise Gillard made during the Federal campaign last year.
In an effort to hold the marginal seat of Bennalong which was taken from the Liberals when Maxine McKew defeated PM John Howard in 2007, Gillard promise the Federal government would
earmark $2 billion dollars towards the Epping to Parramatta rail link (EPRL). The Carr Labor government had actually began construction of the EPRL years ago, but the line was truncated to the half way point at Chatswood after costs blew out. (The scaled back rail link still managed to come several years late and way over budget.) Of course this announcement came out of nowhere, the state government had no plans to finish the rail link until Gillard coughed up the funding to do it. And Labor boss Karl Bitar would later admit Gillard should of never promised to help finish the rail link. The Liberals seized upon the announcement and labeled it as pure pork barreling and aired attack ads criticizing the deal. And even the locals were skeptical that the line would be built this time.
And to top it all off, Maxine McKew lost her reelection fight to Liberal candidate John Alexander. But after her concession speech, Maxine McKew was more than happy to vent her anger of Labor’s national campaign that led it to the lowest percentage of the vote since the 40’s.
Even though construction of the rail link is scheduled to start next year, the Coalition has vowed to put the project on the back burner for the foreseeable future in favor for the North West and South West rail links (South West rail link is already under construction). While Labor is committed to building the EPRL, Western Express and finishing the South West rail link. The Coalition has also vowed to forced Canberra to divert the federal money earmarked for the EPRL to the North West rail link which Gillard has flatly out refused to do.
Unfortunately for the Keneally government, internal documents leaked to the Daily Telegraph this week revealed that the EPRL will be opened a year behind schedule and over budget. This is all if the the rail link is even built which the Coalition has pledged not to.
Further down the weeds, Barry O’Farrell has pledged to add 135 CityRail express trains a week for commuters in Western Sydney and the Central Coast. Both regions are must win areas for the Coalition. While Keneally has promised free wifi for all CityRail commuters if they win the election.
Two weeks ago Keneally gave her constituents a “Please keep me in office” gift by slashing train fares at two stations in her district, which went into effect a few days after the announcement. The Coalition pledged to support the plan, but they blasted it as pork barreling noting the timing was very convenient and it directly benefited her constituents.
Well if you managed to read through this diary I congratulate you. This diary took me a week to write but I assure you it was fun to right.
Now you maybe wondering what will this mean for Federal Labor and where will Labor suffer another loss. In the short term losing control of another state will be bad for the Gillard government. Especially since O’Farrell as indicated he will cause endless grief for her especially over the carbon tax proposal. But in the long run it might be better for the Julia Gillard to let NSW Labor go down in a flaming defeat. And it also might be good for Gillard to watch the Bligh government in Queensland go down in defeat next year as well. One of the reasons why NSW Labor is in for an electoral wipeout come the 26th is that they really wore out their welcome. It would of been better for the party to lose in 2007 in order to dissipate the anger building up against the party for years. NSW Labor also didn’t help itself by members in the party acting like buffoons and throwing good ethics into the garbage.
Both the Keneally and Bligh governments have become increasingly toxic and weighed down Federal Labor in recent years. The Liberal Party last election aired attack ads tying Gillard to Keneally and Bligh. And especially in Queensland where both the state and Federal Liberal parties worked overtime to tie Gillard to the unpopular Bligh government. And it worked with the bulk of Labor’s loses coming from Queensland.
Is it the Left or Right faction that will take most of the kicking, or will it be fairly evenly spread?
Got to say that I would love Labor Right to be annihilated. Their whole selling-point is that by being more conservative they win extra votes, but they’re completely hopeless even at that. They need to crash and burn and the Left have a chance to build something that doesn’t sicken everybody right across the political spectrum.
I’m surprised the Aussies don’t use the British spelling.