A Paper War

I posted a little while ago about this document from Labor.

Since then I've had no luck getting any references from Labor. I've been told that people employed by the two major parties read this blog - if that is true, the Labor-employed ones have been keeping mum.

I've sent several tweets the way of @NSWLabor and even direct to @jrobertsonmp without success. One shadow minister who promised to chase it up for me then failed to do so.

You can make of that what you will.

In the interim, I contacted O'Farrell's office and asked if they had a response. I was, within a matter of minutes, graced with this document:

I still hope to come back to Labor's document and invigilate it thoroughly - but, for the moment, time forbids. What I can do, however, is weigh the two documents against each other and see if one comes up trumps.

For the moment, I am going to leave aside any issues that are only covered by one of the pamphlets. I'm a little more interested in the divergence between the two pamphlets on issues they both see fit to trumpet.

Workers Comp

Labor

Coalition:

The divergence is clear. The Coalition's changes hurt injured workers, but resulted in (potentially) reduced workers comp premiums. The position you take on that is essentially an ideological one - although it is worth noting that the Coalition has been unable to communicate the positive on this change, perhaps having adjudged that it will never be popular politically.

Homes

Labor:

Coalition:

Yes. Well. This is a difficult one. There is a great deal of opinion out there that suggests that money spent on first home buyers grants and the like is simply wasted, delivering no actual benefit excepting that it relieves many buyers from the burden of saving for a deposit. I am skeptical that Labor could in any way justify the claim that first home buyers are in any way "locked out" of the market.

It is certainly true that pure supply and demand mismatch is one of the major causes of Sydney's brutal property prices - whether new approvals and land releases will have a material effect on price (as the Coalition begs you to infer) is a difficult to say.

At the end of the day, there is no one right way to deal with the issue. I don't believe that Labor's criticism carries any real weight, but equally I don't think that the Coalition can prove that their approach will have a material effect either. Further, there are negative consequences that flow from land releases that complicate the issue.

Public Transport

Labor:

Coalition:

I'm going to put aside some pretty serious problems I have with Labor's statistics here. What is clear for the two documents is the Labor is saying "More Expensive!" whilst the Coalition is claiming "Better." There's no way to resolve that definitively.

Health

Labor:

Coalition:

This is a difficult one. Both parties are guilty of not providing references, and both rely heavily on anecdotes. Labor focusses on overall budget, Coalition focusses on staffing numbers. Which one means better health-care? Who knows.

Budget

This one is a little funny.

Labor:

Coalition:

First of all, Labor is using exactly the same spurious accusation that has been used to such effect by the Federal Coalition.

What I really like is this: the Coalition concedes that the budget position has deteriorated - but their response is "We may be in deficit, but we're in EXACTLY AS MUCH DEFICIT AS WE SAID."

Yeah no.

Environment

Labor:

Coalition:

Both entirely anecdotal. Both prove nothing at all.

So what?

It's impossible to compare the two pamphlets properly. Without references (from either side) I can't check the reliability of the claims. Assuming both tell the truth, each pamphlet simply seems spins the data the way they want.

So we're left with empty assertions and no real evidence. If only we had journalists who had the time and resources to chase up all the details. If only.

Fishing for Votes

*apologies for the lack of visuals.  Once again, Blogger is not co-operating*

The events surrounding the closure of the Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre are a odd and rather disconcerting example of the inner workings of the NSW Government today. It was politics, pure and simple - the ugly underbelly that they would rather you not see.

By way of background - the Coalition recently announced that the centre would be closed.  

I don't want to discuss the decision itself - what I am more interested in is the actions of Mark Speakman, Lee Evans, Graham Annesley and Mark Coure.

The above are all Liberal members, and as such you would ordinarily expect them to be prompty falling into line behind their leader's decision.

Not so.

These four Liberal MP's have "broken ranks" in the full knowledge that their actions would attract media attention.

Why have they done this, and who was it that said it would be OK? That is a difficult question to answer.

On one hand, the powers that be know that these four votes are hardly going to swing any decision.  The majority commanded by the Coalition is such that they could suffer three times as many deserters and still not be in any danger of a loss.

Moreover, this may be one of the few issues where the deserters don't do any real damage.

The Cronulla Fisheries Research Centre is aomething that 99% of the state did not even know existed.  Certainly unless you lived in the Cronulla area or were directly engaged in the work the centre was doing, it is unlikely that you would have any clue about the Centre's existence, let along care enough to take notice of this decision.

The four MP's who have been opposing the decision are, as you might expect, four MP's whose electorates are in close prosimity to the Centre.

Now, it goes without saying that I have no idea what discussions may have taken place between these MP's and O'Farrell's office.  Suffice to say, we can assume that these MP's have expressed concern abou their job security if the closure was to proceed.

This is the kind of "local issue" that can sink a local member - communities have a habit of remembering this kind of betrayal for years, and executing revenge that the next election.

Further, it seems likely that these members were given permission to oppose the reforms publically.  It would seem odd that they were acting off their own bat, in defiance of their leader.

Thing is, with the enormous majority that the Coalition has, they can afford to lose a few votes each time round.  Obviously it is not advisable that it occur too often, and the Coalition would want to ensure that it does not become endemic. But in circumstances such as these where the decision is such that severe consequences could flow for the local member, it may well be in the best interests of the party as a whole to allow the affected local members to "defy" the party.

Obviously there is no danger of the Coalition losing the vote.  The local member gets to make a big show of standing up for their local area, and will be picked up in the local press (such as the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader).  And only politics nerds like myself actually notice the way the vote actually goes in parliament.

Now, at the time of writing I don't know whether a vote on the substantive issues has been moved.  I also don't know how these 4 members voted.  

But the odd situation is that almost no one would notice how they voted.  At best there might be a story or two about how they defied their party - which is just fine for the Coalition given that they will not lose any votes, but may well give those members something to defend themselves with next time they visit their electorate. 

No journalist is likely to write a story about how these members voted in actuality, because if one was to follow the media reports you could be forgiven for thinking that i am the only person in the state who ever reads the Hansard reports.

Apparently it is possible to have your cake and eat it too.

Broken Promise, Broken Heart

I came across a very interesting document today.

Full document here

Interestingly, the document does not appear to have any attribution on it.  There is no party logo and no mention of someone taking responsibility for the political comment.


The website itself suggests that the document was uploaded by NSW Labor, which may be enough to satisfy the lawyers.


A press release from Labor announces the document, so it is fair to assume that Labor has put it together.


In any event.


The list makes for very interesting reading.  Some of it is a little stupid and more than a little unfair, but a lot of what is said is damaging for the coaltion.


Starting first with the stupid.  

You can't count the promise to keep promises as a broken promise in a pretty average attempt to get the total into 3 figures.


While we're on desperate attempts to get the total to 100, there are a number of "promises" where the content is reused. For example, 

A large number of "promises" were in fact nothing of the sort.  The pamphlet quotes a number of "motherhood" statements and claims that the standard reached does not comply with the guarantee given.  For example:

A number of the promises are alleged to be broken when nothing of the sort has happened, and the writer has either twisted the words of the promise or simply drawn an impossibly long bow.

Some of the promises were made with a longer term view or in a general sense, meaning that any allegation that they had been "broken" is pretty unfair.

Several of the alleged promises were statements that the Coalition "had no plans" to do something.  It may well have been a lie, but it isn't a broken promise.

There are still other cases where no promise was made at all, or where the alleged "breaking" in fact had nothing to do with the promise that was made.  

Other allegations of broken promises are in fact plain distortions of the truth.

I think those are fair criticisms of the pamphlet.  The writer(s) of the document have made that far too common mistake of over-reaching - rather than having 50 perfectly valid, defensible criticisms, they go for 100 criticisms where half are confusing, deceptive, tricky, or just outright lies.


This is important because there are actually a lot of places O'Farrell can and should be criticised when it comes to broken promises.


The first category is infrastructure promised but not yet budgeted for, or where no progress has been made in the promised timeframe.  The list is long:

There are also a number of other areas where O'Farrell has gone back on his word that deserve further attention:

Why Labor had to overreach and make a whole bunch of allegations that were not reasonable when there were so many perfectly good options available remains a mystery to me.


As I was mulling this piece earlier today, I sent a tween O'Farrell's way asking his view.  He responded (read bottom to top):

He's probably right in terms of forcing good governance, but when it comes to showing up a government for its weaknesses, Labor are probably on the ball here. O'Farrell has broken a lot of promises, and no doubt there is a small but growing discontent.


This may well end up being the issue that makes the next election more competitive than it really should be.  If Labor can continue hammering the "Promise-breaker" line then people may start to switch off from the Coalition.


WIll it be enough to win back government?  On its own, probably not.  But by reneging, delaying and obfuscating the O'Farrell government is giving Labor an "in" they don't really deserve.


A final point - I don't know what the purpose of this document is, or how it is planned to be distributed.  I came across because of a tweet I randomly happened to notice (and now can't find).


As I have said above, I am not sure if the document is "legal" in its present form.


I found this press release on the NSW Labor website which draws attention to the broken promises and provides a link to the pamphlet, but it is hard to imagine that many people other than Labor loyalists and political wonks would ever visit their site at this point in an election cycle.


Exactly why a journalist would write about this is also a little unclear to me.


In any event, there it will sit and probably not be read by many people. An example of a government not keeping a promises and an opposition overreaching in trying to criticise the government.


Not a great pamphlet for either side, really.