Reesing Back in Time

So. Nathan Rees?

I've written before about how Labor should be considering whether John Robertson is the right person to lead them towards the 2015 election. In short, I don't think he is.

There is an obvious second part to that discussion though - who if not Robbo?

Yesterday I saw the first article attempting to answer that very question - kindly spread around by O'Farrell himself:

The article can be found here

It's an interesting proposition. Did Rees get a fair shake the first time round? Can a former Premier be an effective Opposition Leader? More importantly, would be wise for Labor to hark back to their time in government?

Given this is the first piece I've seen suggesting who the next Labor leader could/should be, I was interested in taking a closer look at what Anna Patty had to say on the topic.

One of the more interesting aspects of the ICAC hearings (other than a bit schadenfraude) has seen how various Labor figures have sought to propagate their own version of history. Some have been more subtle than others, but I don't doubt that most have given evidence that sought to ensure their own interests were protected - whether those interests are overtly political or not.

It's no different to what we saw after Howard lost office - people giving interviews and writing books.where they sought to advance their version of history. Of course, when it comes to ICAC one has to be careful, given the very heavy penalties that follow if one is proven to have lied.

Naturally Rees was no exception. In particular, he has been keen to remind the public that he was dumped as Labor leader shortly after sacking Tripodi and MacDonald from his cabinet.

We have also been reminded of his words on the morning he was replaced by Kristina Keneally - "I will not hand over New South Wales to Eddie Obeid or Joe Tripodi". Even more famously, he said that whoever the new Premier was that "they will be a puppet of Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid" - an accusation that dogged Keneally for her entire time in office.

That's all true. The problem has been that, for whatever reason, Robertson has not been an effective opposition leader, for the reasons I wrote about last year.

That may be true. The problem is that, along with the public being able to "see" Rees as leader, they will inevitably connect him to the Labor they kicked out so resoundingly 2 years ago.

Even if Rees is right about his record, the opportunity he had, and who is to blame for Labor's time in office - does the average voter care about that distinction? To be honest, I doubt it.

The biggest challenge for Labor in 2015 will be proving to the public that the Labor who they so hated by the end of their time in power has changed - that Labor is ready to lead again and do so well. And I am sceptical that a previous leader is the person to do that.

A State of Play

In light of the weeping and gnashing of teeth we've seen in the last 36 hours, I thought it would be interesting to glance at the NSW figures in this week's Nielsen poll.

This is the relevant part of the tables (as ever, leaked by @ghostwhovotes):

The Full Table can be seen here

This is to be compared with the results from December last year:

Full Table here

Now, there are countless problems with assuming anything as a result of a swing between one poll and another. The weaknesses in the entire polling model are well documented and a discussion for another time.

Suffice to say that the sample size for this entire poll was 1400. Focussing on NSW, and assuming that they selected respondents in proportion to the relative population of that state, this means that the NSW numbers are drawn from a sample of approximately 400 people. The SA/NT numbers are probably half that.

What I did want to think about briefly, however, are the NSW numbers, to the extent that we can be pretty sure they are just generally awful. Is there anything that NSW Labor can do to help? Moreover, would they be interested in doing so?

It has been my observation over the years that state leaders often appear ill-at-ease when purporting to support their Federal counter-parts. Either the State party is strong and therefore disinclined to support a weaker Federal campaign, or the Federal party is strong and disinclined to accept a weak state party's endorsement.

This translates to a lot of awkward photo-shoots as "worlds collide", where no one is really sure how to act and journalists unclear on how to frame the event.

My point, of course, it that Federal Labor probably doesn't really want John Robertson's help. He has no particular popularity (or even, let's be honest, profile) to draw on. His alternative government is monumentally unpopular. His presence, especially in light of the constant reminder's in the media of Labor's corruption, would almost surely do more harm than good.

As for Barry O'Farrell, what on earth does he have to gain? More importantly, he runs a major risk in being photographed with (on a personal level) the incredibly unpopular Tony Abbott. I think we can expect him to stick to voicing his support on twitter, and not a great deal more.

It's plain wrong to say that the election will be won or lost in western Sydney, except to the extent that any seats lost there will of course need to be made up somewhere else. Of course, that applies to every single seat that Labor holds, so I'm not sure it shows any great insight.

It's a pretty formidable challenge for Labor. I just hope that Gillard is not expecting any help from John Robertson, because I'm not sure he will be able to provide it.

A Bit on the Side

There are two main arguments as to why politicians should not have outside sources of income.

The first is corruption - certainly a touchy topic in NSW politics at the moment. If a politicians stands to benefit financially by a decision he or she is making, then there is, at the very least, an apprehension of bias.

In a time where cynicism of politicians is probably as great as it has ever been, this should not be tolerated. This is notwithstanding the fact that political parties almost uniformly vote as a bloc, meaning that anyone who stood to gain personally would have to get their entire party on board.

Many politicians start in politics with significant wealth from their pre-politics careers, and nothing is wrong with that in and of itself. And I don't think that anyone is suggesting that politicians should have to take a vow of poverty before they are allowed to sit in parliament.

But their investment portfolios should be placed into blind trusts, to ensure that there cannot be even the suggestion that their decisions are being influenced by the prospect of personal gain. We can't take away their money, but we can ensure that their votes and/or the decisions they make are in no way coloured by the potential of financial gain.

This is something that, I suspect, few could complain about.

There is, however, a more complicated argument against outside income. And it's one that we've already had to deal with in NSW.

This argument relates the politicians who are effectively "part-time" - they have outside sources of income that are not returns on capital but rather returns on labour.

Clover Moore was an obvious example. She was both the Lord Mayor of Sydney and the Local Member for the State electorate of Sydney. In 2012 there were changes made meaning that she was no longer permitted to serve as both a Mayor and a state member, and she (and a large number of other member who were still serving on local councils) had to give it up.

I wrote about the changes here

In fairness to Clover, she donated her mayoral salary to the Lord Mayor Salary Trust, so there could not be any suggestion that she had both jobs for financial gain.

That change in law was, the government claimed, about ensuring that members did not land themselves in a conflict of interest, where their duties as a councillor conflicted with their duties as a local member or member of the Legislative Council.

That's good and well, but my view at the time (and still today) is that if the voters don't care (and clearly they didn't) it was unnecessary to make it law. There was of course also the fact that the change was a fairly transparent attack on Clover.

It's also a more sensitive topic that someone who has quite literally kept their old job after being elected, like Adam Searle:

From the State Chambers website

From the NSW Parliament website

Personally I think it ridiculous that the parties think that it is appropriate for a member to have a significant job outside their parliamentary duties. Regardless of whether the voters don't care, the parties should require a higher standard from those they put forward for election.

It's also more than a little concerning that the Shadow Minster for Industrial Affairs thinks it is appropriate that he keeps accepting briefs when he is a barrister working in Industrial Law.

This is why Robertson is going about this the right way:

From the SMH

I'm not so sure it's fair to change the rules on Searle now - he should never have been allowed to keep practicing and be a MLC in the first place. But of course that's not the point.

People who are elected to the MLC should not have significant paid employment on the side. That shouldn't be law - the parties should have standards about who they put forward for election. Robertson should be forcing people to chose between their old life and their new one, because anything else suggests that being a MLA or MLC is an easy gig you can do on the side.

There is no doubt, however, those who benefit from the present arrangements are going to make this very difficult for him. And, if Robertson pursues this, his sway with the Labor caucus is going to be sorely tested.

Robbo in Charge

Recently a read an excellent piece about how far back the preparations for Obama's 2012 campaign dated.

According to the piece (which, typically, I now cannot find), the campaign staff took off the day after election day 2008, no doubt to sleep off hangovers and general exhaustion. The very next day, they arrived, at the office, put up an Obama 2012 poster, and got to work.

Even if I have remembered the story correctly, it may be apocryphal. Either way, I love the idea that 4 years minus 1 day is the perfect time to start preparing for the next election.

That's not to say I tolerate politicians who feel the need to filter every decision through the "Will This Help Us Next Election" filter. Those are the worst kind of politician - they either have no personal sense of what is right or good, or ignore it in favour of the latest polling data.

What I mean is that it is thoroughly appropriate that a section of the party devote themselves to maintaining a long-term focus. That may mean expanding and encouraging party membership, or cementing loyalty from those that just voted for you for the first time, or encouraging voter registration (essential in the US, but important here too, especially if you work for the Left).

That does not mean, however, that it is appropriate or, for that matter, productive, to spend every minute in campaign mode. Tony Abbott's present predicament has demonstrated for us that, eventually, compulsive campaigning runs out of steam.

Rather, it is important to "play the long game". This is particularly so in a jurisdiction like NSW with fixed 4 year terms and no prospect of circumstances requiring an early election.

As of right now, it is 2 years and 3 months til the next election. That is too soon for Labour to begin campaigning, but this last year should have been spent positioning Labor for the next election.

Policies should have been formulated. Positions should have been taken. Labor should be shoring up those who voted for them last time and working out how to draw back others into the fold.

In 2007, NSW Labor won the election. It's hardly like there are not people out there willing to vote for them - Labor should be (at the very least implicitly) courting those and trying to bring back those who deserted them in 2011.

This is part of the reason why, when John Robertson ascended to the leadership of the ALP after Kristina Keneally stepped down, I (and almost everyone else) thought it was a pretty dumb idea.

Photo from a News website

At the time I wrote a post about it. Rereading it now, it is a pretty awful piece of writing, so I'm not going to link to it. Suffice to say that my view at the time was that Robertson was, at best, a short term solution, and certainly not someone that Labor should be looking to to lead them out of the wilderness.

First, some history. Robertson started his career as an electrician. He soon became involved in the Union movement, ascending through the Electrical Trades Union and Labor Council of NSW to become Secretary of Unions NSW and Vice-President of the ACTU.

That's all good and well. The issue is that, in his time involved in the Union movement, Robertson cultivated a reputation as a "Union headkicker".

That's not to say that the work of the Union movement is illegitimate or somehow disrespectful. It's just that modern professional politics requires a certain subtlety, a sense for the mood of an electorate that can often be absent, whether one hails from the Right of the Left.

Robertson demonstrated as much when he spearheaded the union campaign against Morris Iemma's plan to privatise the power network. Such a political view was entirely valid, but the manner in which it was carried out led to the downfall of a Labor Premier and the beginning of the revolving door that characterised the Labor leadership up until the 2011 election.

As Labor tried to mop up the mess caused by the internal defeat of the power privatisation policy, Michael Costa (then Treasurer) resigned his cabinet spot as well as his seat in the Upper House, and Robertson was appointed to fill the seat in October 2008.

There he stayed until the 2011 election, when he ran for the Lower House seat of Blacktown. Despite some momentary excitement from some in the lead-up to the election that he might not win the seat, he eventually won with a margin of over 7%:

People had been suggesting that Robertson could take over as leader since Nathan Rees was Premier - and it seemed somewhat inevitable that he would be the one to take over when Keneally stood down.

Naturally, that was exactly what has happened, and he has been in charge ever since.

Remarkably, he has barely managed to make a dent in the O'Farrell government's lead in the polls since that time.

That is worth nothing - in that time, O'Farrell has done a great deal to infuriate the left. Whether it was draconian budget cuts, outrageous changes in the Criminal Justice system, or the fiddling with the plans for the North West Rail Link, he has given Robertson plenty material.

And yet, somewhat remarkably, Labor has made almost no progress at all.

How can that be? A few reasons spring to mind.

Firstly, as one Labor insider said to me recently, he is "entirely devoid of personality". It's a little hard to connect with an electorate and convince them of the merits of your argument if you cannot convince them that you are worth listening to.

More importantly, however, Robertson hasn't managed to tell the electorate what he about, or for that matter what he says the government is about.

Much as I abhor the word "branding", it is an essential part of professional politics today. The public needs to be able to easily understand what you are on about and how you are different to the opposition.

It doesn't need to be complicated. Federally, the Liberals have branded Gillard as a liar. Everything she does is now viewed, by many, through that prism.

By the same token, ever since Gillard's speech on the Peter Slipper affair, Labor has successfully cast Abbott as a misogynist.

Have any of the attacks on O'Farrell stuck? Does anyone really think less of him than they did before after his first 18 months in office?

I doubt it. And a big part of the reason for that is the failure of Robertson to connect with the electorate.

Think about Kevin Rudd in the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election. He was young (or, at least, he looked young). He was forward thinking. He was economically responsible but still progressive. He was anti-WorkChoices. He has a name that fitted on a t-shirt and rhymed with the year. He had been on TV. People liked him.

Now try and imagine a positive message for Labor in the lead-up to an election. Sure, it would be easy to criticise O'Farrell and tell the public about the bad things he had done.

But what could Robertson say about himself, about Labor under his leadership?

Much as with Tony Abbott, an opposition cannot (in ordinary circumstances) be little more than "the other guys". There needs to be a positive message about why they are better. That message can sometimes be little more than "all the bad things they have done, we would do them this way" - but it needs to be something.

And if Robertson cannot find a way to start selling a positive message, then Labor's numbers are not going to improve.

Labor are already in a tough position as they plan for 2015. Unless they make some changes at the top, it's only going to get worse. And it will be up to the Labor caucus to have the courage to make a change.

New Hope for Newcastle?

It's a little hard to immediately know what to make of O'Farrell's plans to remove from service part of the Newcastle train line.

On one hand, for a government that has made all sorts of commitments to build infrastructure and, in particular, train lines, the decision would seem an odd one. The government is planning to spend billions and billions building the North-West Rail link just so that people don't have to get buses any more.

So why on earth are they eliminating that part of the line? Have a look at this map:

Full size map here

You can see the rail line running along the Northern part of the CBD, just the other side of Hunter St.

The plan is to truncate the line at Wickham and have commuters hop on a bus to get into the CBD:

There has been a great deal of writing recently about Hunter St and the attempts to revitalise it. There is a great document here that speaks about the problems the street has at the moment and the plans to fix it.

The short-term plans include beauties like this:

Renew Newcastle as is brilliant new initiative:

But they are both short-term solutions.

One of the biggest problems in the Newcastle CBD, in short, is that there is a great big bloody rail line in the way.

True it is that Sydney copes with a great big massive train station in the middle of it. The difference is that in the main commercial section of Sydney the train lines are hidden underground - Central Station is actually a fair way outside the main commercial centre.  Town Hall and the other City Circle stations deliver most people to their jobs in the CBD.

CBD is under the "A", Central Station bottom middle, blue squares all underground stations except for Circular  Quay at the top.

Moreover, Sydney has more room to move - as the map shows, the Newcastle CBD is in what must now seem like a pretty dumb spot, hemmed in by water as it is.

The ideal solution would be to rebuild the line and the station underground - but I think it is safe to assume that the cost is well beyond what the government can possibly justify (or, for that matter, afford).

In recent years multiple developments have been stymied because developers claimed that the train line was in the way.

A few days ago the ABC reported these plans for the area:

Presumably the idea is that the new crossings will greatly assist the flow of cars and pedestrians around the city. It may be the case that developers will now be able to build closer to the train line, opening up new opportunities.

Naturally enough, Robertson has jumped all over the plan to rip up the line. Yesterday he caught a train from Maitland to Wickenham, and then a bus to Newcastle. Presumably his point was "How impossible is THIS?", the fact that he was quite easily accomplishing the task being an unimportant detail.

Full story from the ABC

What he may have forgotten (or not realised?) is that Labor once had a plan to tear up the line. It had the enthusiastic support of Michael Costa, then Minister for the Hunter and the Independent Mayor of Newcastle John Tate.

Unsurprisingly, the plan was shelved in 2006 by Morris Iemma after the predictable public outrage, notwithstanding independent reports that supported the change.

It's obvious why the locals in Newcastle may not like the idea. If they are travelling into the CBD for work, this will lengthen their trip.

I'll leave it for others to speculate as to whether it will actually have a positive effect on the Newcastle CBD itself. If it means that the area is opened up, traffic can move around more easily and new and exciting developments can go ahead, then it may be a good idea.

The fact that the Coalition will be expecting to still win easily in 2015 also means that the project will likely not be cancelled due to short-term fears of imminent defeat.

Whether they will be able to get the Novocastrians on board remains to be seen.

Speaking to the Choir

As most of you would know, NSW Labor held their NSW State conference at the Sydney Town Hall over the weekend.

These conferences are important - not just because they are a time to for delegates to come together and vote on policy, but also because they are a time for a party to refocus. There are big speeches from leaders, and maybe a change in an important policy - but most importantly the media's attention is on that particular party for a weekend.

Leaders have the chance to give over-arching, wide reaching speeches about what the party believes and stands for. Inevitably, when deserved, the media may be distracted by a particular vote (as it was after the Queensland LNP conference), but if managed well conferences can almost hit a "reset button".

In those circumstances, I thought it would be instructive to have a look at Robertson's speech to the NSW conference to see what we could glean about what he sees as being the big issues.

The full speech can be seen here on the NSW Labor website. It's a long speech, so I'm not going to extract the whole thing here - please have a read of the full version if you get the chance.

In fairness, I should acknowledge that this is a speech to the party faithful, not a televised address.  Some level of "positive reinforcement" should therefore be tolerated in a way that might not otherwise if the audience was more general.

That said, BS is BS wherever it is said. [It has been drawn to my attention that it sounds like I am suggesting that Robertson's acknowledgement of the traditional owners is BS. I should clarify that the   BS comment refers to some of what comes later on - not the acknowledgement. I included the first paragraph just because it was necessary so that you can see his whole photo, and as an intro to what follows.] But more about that later.

I've written about the up-coming by-election here - Keneally has already stepped down, so we can expect that it will be soon. As I have said, the Labor candidate shouldn't be to troubled by the opposition.

It is interesting that Robertson would talk about a mandate. A lot of the talk since the last election (including on this blog) has been about what kind of mandate O'Farrell has. He has done a lot of things that he "neglected to mention" during the campaign - but many of those things were no less than you would expect from a Coalition government.

Unless we are talking about outright deception, I'd don't have too much of a problem with that. Election are all about accentuate the positive, and Labor can't pretend they didn't do the same thing.

But the reason the word "mandate" caught my eye was because so much has been said about O'Farrell's "blank cheque" and about precisely what kind of mandate the election win gave him.  The recognition of this mandate in Robertson's speech is, in that context, a little confusing.

Sadly for Robertson, however, his assertion about the public caring about what O'Farrell does isn't really borne out. The polls have barely moved an inch since the election.

I've speculated about why that might be here. True it is that there have been protests and petitions - but it seems that the vast majority of the people upset by O'Farrell's action were always in the ALP/Greens column. Either that or, despite everything what has happened, they still see O'Farrell as being better than the alternative.

Of course that's all 100% true. The problem is that O'Farrell was never boxed into making that a promise. Labor's ineptitude in the months and years leading up to the election meant that O'Farrell could get away with vague, non-specific statements such as the one quoted above.

Not that he has shown any reluctance to break actual promises when needed - but Robertson should perhaps have a look at his own party and wonder why performed so poorly that the voters were willing to elect someone who so obviously dodged actually promising to do anything.

Speaking of broken promises:

Now, in fairness, the gaol isn't "closing' per se - but what has happened (a massive reduction in inmate and staffing numbers) is certainly outside the "spirit" of the promise.

The issue was not helped, in my view, by the clumsy way that the matter was handled by the local member, Chris Gulaptis.

The only thing I would like to say is that I always find it a little distasteful when politicians go on site and sympathise with people - standing on a picket-line and purporting to be "worried about what would become of their town" - but maybe I'm just letting my cynicism show.

Tough to argue with any of that - except to say that he hasn't actually broken a promise yet, and selling the retailers was Labor's idea first.

Promises about the cost of living have always been, and remain, pretty stupid promises to make. In the first place, there is not as great deal that politicians (especially state politicians) can do to reduce the cost of living.

Second of all, Australians have a truly remarkable to whine about how expensive everything has gotten when in fact no such thing has occurred. You're on a hiding to nothing if you promise to keep cost of living low, as Kevin Rudd learned when he was Prime Minister.

There is a long (and slightly over-dramatic) bit here about what has happened with the National Parks (as I have written about here), but suffice to say it is a fair criticism and one we will, I am sure, be hearing a lot more about in the years to come.

Naturally Robertson is right to recognize that Labor has a pretty poor record of late when it comes to the honesty and trustworthiness of the people Labor has entrusted with power. It is strange to see him bring it up, however, until he continues:

This is a good idea - it's such a good idea it is a little baffling that this wasn't the policy in the first place.

Two things I want to say about it. Firstly, it is naive to think that all undesirable candidates will be excluded because of this process. Dishonest people don't wear a sign around their neck, and this "Committee of Party Elders" will, I am sure, not be immune to the temptation to approve candidates because they can win, rather than because they are the kind of people Labor want going forward.

Second of all, this sits at odds with the direct election of the party leader that has been bandied about of late. Either Labor trusts its members to choose the right person, or it does not - I don't really care either way, but to pretend you can have both at once is a little silly.

This is a good policy, although precisely what it is that announcing a policy two and a half years out from an election (and six and a half years out from a winnable election) proves is a little beyond me. But I can't fault the policy, even if it is just for show.

This is something we had better get used to - because we are going to be hearing a lot more of it.

The biggest political problem for O'Farrell with his changes to the Worker's Comp laws is that it is just so darn easy for Labor to hit the emotions of the electorate.

Between now and the next election there will no doubt be thousands of people whose treatment at the hands of the Worker's Comp laws will, at least intuitively, seem unfair. Whether it is or isn't of course is not the point - injured workers will be paraded before the electorate to demonstrate what O'Farrell's changes mean for the worker. It is easy, it is effective, and it's going to go on and on.

It may be a few years until we have an election, but it looks like Robertson has already started campaigning. Whether he is still there for the actual campaign remains to be seen.

A New (England) Beginning

It's hard to know what to make of Richard Torbay's recruitment into the Nationals.

In the Speacker's chair. Photo from here

On one hand, the "traditional" direction is the reverse - Robert Oakeshott and Tony Windsor were both Nationals before defecting.

Tony Windsor was elected as an independent in the state seat of Tamworth in 1991, having orignally sought pre-selection as a National. He eventually ran against the National candidate in the 2001 Federal election and was successful.

Rob Oakeshott was actually endorsed as a Nationals candidate and elected in 1998 in Port Macquarie. After disagreements on policy he resigned from the Nationals (thus losing a shadow-ministry) in 2002. When Mark Vaile resigned his Federal seat of Lyne in 2008 he ran as an Independant and won convincingly.

So Torbay certainly wouldn't be the first. But what chance does he have of suceeding?

Mumbletwits has written a great piece on that issue, and I'm not going to repeat what he has said. Read it.

The really interesting part (for me) is going to be the result of the consequent by-election in Torbay's seat of Northern Tablelands.

At the 2011 election, the results were as follows:

From Wikipedia

Those results were hardly an outlier:

Also Wikipedia

So we can rest assured that the Nationals should quite easily gain the seat. Given the general damage being done (rightly or wrongly) to the independent brand, there seems to be little prospect that some unknown independent could come from nowhere to take the seat.

It will be interesting to see what is made of the results. Given that the past results were skewed by an independant who had been sitting as a speaker from 2007 to 2011, Labor's vote (3.4%) could hardly be seen to be a fair reflection of their support in the region.

That said, if the ALP thinks they have a chance of winning the seat then they are hopelessly delusional. According to every poll since the election, their vote is still abysmally low. Labor's woes Federally are not going to do the State party any favours, and the Nationals will win the seat at a cantor.

Is there any way the Labor party can sell a result as a win? Sure. Their vote will increase to (at least) double figures - a farily pathetic achievement, but one that may wash with the less observant among us.

That said, one has to wonder whether any Labor members are starting to grumble about the astonishing lack of impact that Robertson is making on the electorate. Labor's numbers are not moving, he has zero profile, and despite O'Farrell making a number of unpopular decisions, no one seem to be moving out of the Coalition column.

Opposition Leader. No, seriously! Photo from here

I wonder whether the by-election (whenever that eventuates) may just be a momentum that is needed to replace Robertson with someone who can actually start winning back some voters from O'Farrell.

What is a Real Job Even?

I sometimes wonder if politicians ever really listen to what they are saying.

Today Robertson spoke at the Police Association Conference.  First he said this:

And then 5 minutes later followed it up with this:

Thing is, the comment about having had a real job was a cheap shot, and one of the worst kinds.

To give you some context, this is O'Farrell's employment history:

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Robertson's:

From the NSW Labor website

Now, who is Robertson to say that O'Farrell's employment is not a "real job"?  Moreover, who is he to say that it means O'Farrell is less fit to govern? That's clearly his implication - O'Farrell's history is deficient in some way that means he is not equipped for the role he fills, or is not equipped to truly understand what real workers (in this case police) want and need.

To me, a career in politics makes one ideally suited to his role.  What better preparation for the decisions he has to make as a Premier (priorities, budgets, infrastructure and the like) than years advising and assisting in those roles?

Robertson spent some of those working a tradie, and the rest mostly as a union official.  Now, tradies and union officials do important work, and I don't intend to disparage them - but how does that make Robertson BETTER equipped to be Premier?

Is it because he "better understands the needs of the common man"? What rubbish. Firstly, tradies and union officials earn a pretty decent income, and staffers generally don't, what with being public servants and all. Police (the audience in this case) are quite well paid.  They certainly deserve that pay - but I'd wager the average cop earns more than the average political staffer.

Staffers still ride public transport, go to hospitals, have kids that go to school, and live in the community. Their employment makes them just as well equipped as any other for a career in politics, if not more so.

My real problem with Robertson's comment is that it is just what he says he doesn't do - it's a cheap shot.  It's a fairly transparent attempt to make O'Farrell look elitist and to make the audience think "I'm better than him."

It's an particularly ridiculous thing to say when you consider that the "career politician" tag is one usually aimed at Labor politicians.  Traditionally, Liberal candidates came from the business sector, whilst Labor drew their candidates from the Union movement.

That's precisely what happened to Robertson: he was an organizer for the Electrical Trades Union, and then worked for the Labor Council of New South Wales. He became Secretary of Unions NSW and has held senior roles in the Labor party.

I'm not sure which of those jobs he would regard as being a "real job".

His comment wasn't the lynchpin of an election advertising campaign - it was just a throw-away line at a conference that no one would have heard if @KevinWIlde hadn't chosen to tweet it.

But it is sad example of the way that politicians (of both sides) use the elitist tag, explicitly or otherwise.

It's a cheap shot.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Too stupid to think?

Sometimes it seems like politicians spend their days doing little more than trying to pull the wool over our eyes.


"The public are uninformed and disengaged - I can spout any nonsense I like and those that notice will probably believe it."


No doubt you have your own view as to whether that is a fair comment - but some days it's hard to believe anything else.


Why? Stuff like this:


“This is a project that’s feeding into Sydney’s water supplies. And it is a contractual matter that will see the desalination plant continue operate. It’s a matter for the O’Farrell Government to deal with. Clearly, when the dam is full there are reasons the desalination plant should be given some consideration for shutdown.”


John Robertson as his finest. 


The desalination plant was built by Labor.  Opinions will differ as to whether it was an essential investment in Sydney's water security, or an extravagant boondoggle, but that's not what I want to write about.

Photo from here

What I want to write about is Robertson's suggestion that consideration to the plant being shut down.


The Labor government signed a contract that, amongst other things, required that the plant run at full capacity for a two year period. If the plant was not run for the full two year period, then it appears that the government essentially "voids the warrantee" and will be responsible for any problems with the plant.


I'm no engineer, so I can't give an opinion as to whether that was a good idea or not, but it was the contract that Labor signed.


The Herald wrote this on the topic:

The "90 million litres a day" is already reduced from the full capacity of the plant, which is some 90 billion litres per year, three times the present production.


It goes without saying that Robertson knew very well why the plant cannot be switched off.  He wasn't in parliament when the decision was made, but his predecessors were, and to try and suggest that the Coalition should be investigating shutting the plant down is downright ridiculous.


Will the public be fooled? Probably not, because O'Farrell gave the media a handy quote about the contract that was signed by Labor being "stupid".  This blogpost is delayed by a day because I couldn't track down confirmation of Robertson's quote yesterday - it may be that someone in Labor was smart enough to shut down the line of argument.


But it goes to show a certain arrogance, and maybe even a belief (misguided or not) that the media is too stupid or lazy to point this kind of lazy argument out.


In the event, it doesn't appear that the media picked up on the comment - so the people listening to 2SM would have heard the comment entirely unchallenged.


Hopefully most of them were too smart to believe it.

A New Start?

I hate "Year in Review" articles.

This time of year, it's just about all that journos seem to write.  That said, it's hard to blame them - they need to produce copy, but there isn't much going on - so I suppose the obvious thing to do is to write about things you've already written about before.

The problem for me is that whilst I don't have deadlines, I do have a hard an fast "once a week rule", and there is nothing happening.

Well, Peter Phelps is still around:

But the thing that has intrigued me most this year is the perception of NSW Labor, and in particular the contrast between performance at the Federal and State levels.

I've written before about how reviled Labor are in NSW.  Their defeat was not only resounding but also record breaking.

Federally, Labor are not doing so well either. The interesting part is that the reasons are so fundamentally different.

In NSW, Labor are still paying the price for their atrocious final term.  They are not only seen as being incapable of delivering on promises, but also corrupt.  The number of Labor members being investigated or prosecuted for corrupt conduct continues to grow, and it seems likely that this will persist for some time.

The fact that John Robertson has been practically hiding out has not helped their cause.  When something happens he occasionally rolls the arm over and issues a press release, but over 6 months after he took charge I'd wager that most of NSW couldn't pick him out of a line-up.

That may all be deliberate.  Since Labor's numbers are likely to be abysmal no matter what he does, why put himself out there and risk damaging his brand for no gain? His policy may be to lay low and ride out the storm.

Federally, Labor have a very different set of problems.  The Carbon Tax remains unpopular, the pokie lobby is still hammering away, and the Kevin Rudd issue won't rest.

Tony Abbott is proving incredibly effective, and Labor are under siege, and will be til (at the very earliest) the Carbon Tax commences.

In many ways, all that NSW Labor and Federal Labor have in common is bad numbers. But what I wonder is whether Federal Labor's problems are pushing the NSW numbers even further down.

NSW Labor's problems are structural.  People hate them because of what they have done.  Once the public start to forget that and focus more of the Coalition's failings, the disaffected voters will start to come back. Certainly there are already reasons for the public to be angry with O'Farrell and his government.

Federally, the problems are very different.  The Pokie and Climate Tax issue will go away when the changes are made and no one really notices.  The Kevin Rudd issue a different one, but suffice to say Labor can fix it easily, if so motivated.

Really, the two have nothing to do with each other - but I suspect that the poor Federal numbers are still having a negative effect.

We won't be able to get much of an idea until some more polls are taken in NSW, and we are unlikely to see much of that for some time yet.

Luckily for Robertson it seems that his party is willing to give him time, and there no suggestion that he is in danger if the next poll is not an improvement.  But it remains to be seen how long Labor will let it ride - when the last election was this bad, the numbers won't shoot up overnight.

A First Impression

The first NSW Newspoll since the election.  It ain't pretty reading for Labor.

Labor primary is at 22%.  Twenty-two percent!

That is 3.5% less than what they polled at the election. Looking at the numbers before the election makes it even more striking.

Shamelessly nicked from Newspoll and The Australian

From the 2007 election the number slowly trended downwards from 39% to 23% shortly before the election.  It may be that the 23% just before the election and the 22% now are both an underestimate, and the true figure is 25% they polled at the election, but either way, the numbers are still subterranean.

The TPP has deteriorated too: down marginally from 36% to 34%.

There are a few things I should say at this point, in fairness.  First of all, the next election is 42 months away.  Whilst the Clarence election is next weekend, the polling numbers are not actually going to "matter" for some time yet.

Further, voting intentions at a time well outside the lead-up to an election are not worth much because people aren't in a place where who they might vote for enters their mind, not to mention that the parties are not in anything resembling campaign mode.

That said, polls do give politicians an idea of how they are tracking.  I firmly believe that any politician who claims that they don't read polls is a liar - polls matter, and for better or worse they motivate a great deal of what our politicians do.

Labor will be disappointed with these numbers.  They have to be.

In saying that, I note what The Poll Bludger has had to say today:

Respectfully, I disagree.  Regular readers (yes! Both of you!) will know that I have had a great deal to say about how Barry O'Farrell has, to be frank, pissed a lot of people off since his election: solar panel owners, public service unions and Green voters.  We've had a minister resign in disgrace, another minister (as yet unnamed, publically at least) accused of a public sex act, and an administration whose gloss (it has seemed to me, at least) has started to wear off.

And yet the Coalition's numbers are BETTER than at the election?

It seems that the voters must still be hanging onto their revulsion at the thought of a Labor government.  It is the only reason I can think of why there has not been a leakage of "Close you eyes and think of England" Coalition voters back to Labor.

Additionally, John Robertson has remained fairly anonymous outside of the BearPit, to the extent that Kristina Keneally, just about the only non-freshman Labor member without a shadow ministry, has a bigger profile than him.

That explains, I think, his incredibly low approval rating.

 

People don't know him and can't think of something positive he has done, and are therefore unlikely to approve of his performance.

It's early.  And this poll doesn't actually make any difference to anything other than the Clarence by-election, which is already in the bag for the Nationals.  But if you think there are no Labor members concerned about this, you're kidding yourself.

Sean Nichols article in the Herald today took a very different tack.  Besides a brief opening about Robertson's very low approval, the article focussed on the halving of the National's support, and questioned whether the Coal Seam Gas issue is to blame.

On this issue, I think that the Poll Bludger is most likely right.

The Liberals' primary is up 6%, and I fancy that the vast majority of those that have left the Nationals' column have ended up in the Liberals'.  If not, what other explanation is there for the Liberals' numbers going up at the same time as the Nationals' numbers go down? At the very least you would expect the Liberals' numbers to stay steady.

These numbers are unlikely to have any real world implications.  No one will be suggesting that Robertson's time is up - he will be given years (not months) to get Labor into a position where 2015 is winnable.  Even if he doesn't manage that, most people expect that the Coalition will have 8 years (at least) and the expectation may merely be that he gets them close enough to have decent shot (with a more viable candidate) in 2019.

But that doesn't mean they are going to like being where they are at.  Not one bit.