Obeid Obye

Today Eddie Obeid's retirement from the Legislative Council was finally confirmed.


To be perfectly frank about it, he has been hanging round like a bad smell for some time now.

I think he can smell it too.  From SMH

In the year leading up to the 2011 election Kristina Keneally begged the "old guard" to retire and let some "flesh blood" into NSW Labor's ranks.  We saw, as a result, a mass exodus of Labor members of the Legislative Assembly and Council in what would have otherwise been described as rats deserting a sinking ship.


Obeid quite neatly summed up everything that was wrong with NSW Labor, and I have little doubt that Robertson is breathing a sigh of relief that he is to leave.


His record includes the following:


- In 2002 he was investigated and later cleared of corruption in relation to the Oasis redevelopment 
- He repeatedly failed to disclose business interests on Parliament's pecuniary interests register
- In 2004 he was censured due to his undue influence in the elections of Matrite Council
- In 2009 he made representations to NSW Minister for Roads, Michael Daley, on behalf of Mid-Western Regional Council without disclosing his business interest in the area
- In 2009 he was alleged to have links to Ron Medich and the murder of Michael McGurk


Most importantly, when Nathan Rees was dumped and replaced by Kristina Keneally, Rees famously announced that the new premier would be "a puppet of Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid."


Perhaps nothing better characterised the shambolic of Labor's governing by that stage.  In my view, it all but guaranteed Labor's loss at the next election (insofar as it was not already a sure thing).


As a final note, Obeid was the leader of the "Terrigals", a disproportionately powerful ALP subfaction. 


Of course Obeid's departure is only part of the story.  He will now have to be replaced.


As Obeid is a member of the Legislative Council, his replacement can be directly nominated by the ALP without the fuss of a by-election.


As well as Obeid, John Hatzistergos (former Attorney General) announced not long after the election that he would be retiring.


In one sense, it is surprising that so few are quitting.  Labor have been in power for a long time, and once a long reign ends there is normally a purge of the ranks as former ministers contemplate 4 years on the backbench in opposition.


That said, Keneally's plea for renewal in the year leading up to the election may have adequately depleted of the ranks of those who weren't in it for the long haul.


The word around the traps is that Obeid is to be replaced by Walter Secord, former chief of staff to Keneally, and Hatzistergos is to be replaced by former Blue Mountains Mayor Adam Searle


Unsurprisingly, some have let their displeasure be known about Sussex Street appointing the replacements, even calling for a rank and file ballot of members.


Others have suggested that those that missed out on election to the Legislative Council in 2011 (Andrew Ferguson and Natalie Bradbury) should be the replacements.  


That does make sense to some extent, but in fairness it's not as if Obeid and Hatzistergos ran intending to retire if Labor lost - both were not up for reelection round as they were continuing members elected in 2007.


It would certainly be unfortunate for Labor if the issue of Obeid and Hatzistergos' successors became the circus that Labor avoided by electing John Robertson unopposed on 31 March.


At least insofar as it avoids a drama, a quick and quiet appointment of suitable candidates would make sense.


Having said that, backroom deals are one of the prime causes of Labor's present seat-count - people tired of seeing power-brokers (like Obeid) calling the shots and disenfranchising "rank and file" members.


The point was neatly summed up on twitter by @rickeyre who tweeted today: "If Secord gets parachuted into the NSW upper house ahead of candidates who stood for election, it shows the ALP has learnt nothing."


The problem is that Labor cannot resort to a rank and file vote every time something contentious comes up - their is a time to cnsult everyone and a time to just get things done and LEAD.


This may well be one of those times.

Courting Public Opinion

Labor have been bandying about a line recently that the Coalition will close the local courts that serve our community.  Given I have a lot to do with the local court in my day job this has obviously attracted my attention, and is a perfect example of the vacuous campaigning that we, as voters, let parties get away with every election.

This is how Labor justify the line.  The Coalition have a policy headed "Complete audit of the NSW Government's Financial Position" (available here: http://bit.ly/hhgGZK).  In short, what the policy explains is that "over the last 10 years expenses have grown by 6.6%" so the Coalition government will "conduct a complete audit of the NSW government's financial position".

Now, for what it's worth, that policy sounds more like the Coalition getting ready to start giving reasons why promises can't be afforded when the ghastly true state of the budget is revealed, but we'll leave that aside for the moment.

What Labor have done with this policy is to construe it as a willingness to cut the number of local courts in NSW.  Nowhere in the Coalition policy are the courts mentioned, and there is absolutely no suggestion from anyone that the local courts are in need of a trim.

Nevertheless, on Friday Attorney General John Hatzistergos was at Windsor Local Court demanding that O'Farrell quarantine community-based local courts (whatever that means) from the audit. The news of the speech was breathlessly reported on the Labor website: http://bit.ly/gYDti8.

It seems likely that there are two reasons that the local court system was chosen to be the alleged target.  First of all, it allows Labor to trot out the line that the last Coalition government "closed 73 local courts, including 39 in just one day."

Further, no doubt some focus group or phone poll taken in Western Sydney suggested that this would be a good idea.

It is, between you and me, politics at it's absolute worst. Take a perfectly sensible and reasonable policy from the other side, misrepresent the policy to a point where it is wholly unrecognisable, and then desperately fling it at voters to try and get them scared about the other side.

The worst thing is that the Coalition can't engage on the issue because if they do, not only will it inflame the issue and make the accusation seem credible, but further any promise to actually quarantine the courts from the audit would result in "Humiliating Backdown from O'Farrell on Planned Court Closures" or something equally specious.

The Coalition hasn't it seemed, done much of this kind of campaigning this election.  That's not to suggest that they have a higher moral standing - the Federal Coalition's relentless campaign against the carbon tax is a case in point.  It's just that, in my opinion, the Coalition is not going to win any more voters off Labor - their job between now and next saturday is simply to make sure that the inevitable drift back to Labor over the course of the campaign is kept to an absolute minimum.

They can do so by being calm, sensible, and reasonable - a task they are accomplishing quite well in the face of the rising hysteria from Labor, best optimised in the disgraceful speech Keneally gave on Friday.  The text doesn't need any commentary, so I'm going to copy and paste it in below:

''Take care of your neighbours because there will be fewer police to do that for you,''

''Take care of the old, the sick and the vulnerable because when the health budget gets cut, there will be fewer nurses and there will be fewer community care workers.

''And, as grim as it is to say this: be sure to follow up on the child who has gone quiet, who is out of character, who is withdrawn, because you can no longer assume that that child is protected. Please help any family with a disability, because what is now, today, a public priority will once again become a private problem.

''And be sure to read to your children as a good public education becomes a memory as our teachers join nurses on the unemployment queue.''

A despicable low in O'Farrell's words.  I'd say he's right.