A Promise from the Heart IV

[If this post appears poorly formatted on your screen, I can assure that it has everything to do with a small disagreement that my router and Blogger appear to be having.  Apologies.  Hopefully they will work it out soon.]


In the first year or two of a new government, often all the talk can be about mandates and political capital.


There are two ways to burn political capital: by doing good but unpopular stuff, and by screwing up.  O'Farrell is doing plenty of the former, but the latter is starting to eat away at his capital.  After all, he did promise this in his Contract with NSW:

I've written previously about what kind of mandate the O'Farrell government has.  In short, given that the Coalition was elected after making precious few promises (as Labor's "Don't give them a blank cheque" campaign tried to convince us), it is my view that O'Farrell has a mandate to do pretty much whatever he wants, given that the voters didn't seem worried about his vague and often threadbare promises.

The issue of political capital is a more subtle one, and it all relates to the next election. 


Any politician who gets elected to any office has their eye on the next election. Depending on the quantum of the victory, there may be an opportunity to do some actual good, despite it being unpopular or politically inexpedient, and not risk a backlash big enough to lose the next time round.


It goes without saying that the bigger the margin of victory, the bigger the capital to "spend".


In the US, Obama has spent most of his political capital on health reform - and, given the history of health reform in the US, it is difficult to imagine a more deserving target.  He has copped an absolute hammering for it, but the size of his win in 2008 as well as the enduring goodwill towards him should be enough to see him comfortably reelected later this year, economic woes notwithstanding.


One of the (many) reasons that Gillard has struggled so in the polls federally is that she did not really have the political capital to push through a reform as inevitably unpopular as a Carbon Price.  The issue is far more complicated than that, but suffice to say that if she has won the 2010 election by 40 seats she could have easily sailed a Carbon Price through the parliament safe in the knowledge that she had the buffer to withstand the resultant attacks.


As it is, she sits on a 27% primary vote, due in no small part to a reform she didn't really have the capital to pursue.


In Queensland, Newman has been swept to power with an eye-popping majority,  He has the capital to do pretty much whatever he wants - although at the moment he seems content to use it to piss of writers for no good reason.


O'Farrell won the last election big - big enough that all he needs to do is stay upright and he will have 8 years.  Imagine what he could achieve in 8 years?  Imagine knowing that you have that amount of time to reform a state and to be remembered as a great leader in this state's history?


He has started a number of infrastructure projects that were long overdue.  Those projects will cost a lot of money, and (on balance) he will probably have to wear some hurt for that.


He has given Greg Smith (the Attorney General) the freedom to pursue a thoroughly excellent agenda of reforming our Laura Norda policies and undo some of the damage done by decades of competition to prove who was toughest on crime.


These steps are thoroughly respectable and excellent uses of the political capital he has accumulated. But the media in NSW is far too used to writing nsw political scandal, and Robertson has been all too eager to stoke to fire, even when it was thoroughly unjustified.


In fact, I've written previously about perceived scandals that were pure confection:

- Stoner and the solar panels (100% smoke and mirrors)

- Cansdell and the drink drive (immediately diffused by his ignoble resignation)

- a nameless minister accused of a sex offence



The Grimshaw debacle is the first mud to really stick though.  And it all arises out of O'Farrell's failure to take decisive action.



I've written about the issue previously.  Suffice to say, given what we now know (and what O'Farrell must have known and therefore expected to be revealed for some time) it seems inevitable that Grimshaw could never be allowed to return to work in O'Farrell's office.



Maybe it was loyalty that stayed O'Farrell's hand until now. Maybe it was arrogance. I don't know, but either way the drama has givent the Terror a reason to write this editorial.



It is more than a little hysterical, but these paragraphs are going to ring true:

I usually try and avoid quoting The West Wing on this blog, because it seems a little naff - but in this context, it's hard to go past this quote:

Quite.

Sex in the Inner-City

I was going to write about Steve Cansdell tonight.

There were stories published in the last few days that indicated that the person who had forced his hand was the ex-staffer who had signed the stat-dec which helped him to escape the speeding fine.

This surprised me.  The person who signed the stat dec was always the one in the most legal trouble - signing a false stat dec is a very serious criminal offence.

But, it appears, this person revealed all because he was 'jolted into action by the MPs appointment as the Parliamentary Secretary for Police."

In any event, those plans were cast aside when I read this tweet:

Thanks to the fact that I was still at work at 6, I didn't see Channel 9 news, but as best I can tell there were no shocking revelations.  Experience tells us that this was probably the result of threats from the relevant parties as to what would occur if the story was broadcast.

I've just run a few carefully worded Google News searches, and came up with an SMH story that says the following:

The interesting part is that the SMH story goes on to provide the following detail:

Having read innumerable police statements over the years, I can tell you that the information about the alleged perpetrator's age is par for the course. Police will usually reveal the perpetrator's name and often even their suburb of residence.

I don't know how it was that it came to light that the alleged offender was a NSW minister, but one way or another, it did. And, of course, when you are dealing with as small a group as Coalition ministry, how many 62 year old men could there be?

Just one.

Now, the Herald has declined to name the minister, despite giving anyone with access to Wikipedia everything they need to find out who it is. Presumably they have done so on the advice of lawyers.

I'm not going to name the minister - if it's good enough for the Herald then it's good enough for me. 

That said, at least one twitter account has already named the alleged perpetrator, tweeting:

I've blocked out the name they happily provided because I don't want to get sued. It appears that @vexnews is happy to prioritise a cheap laugh over a little prudence. Time will tell if they end up paying for that (literally!).

In any event, without saying who it is and without knowing any details it is difficult to say very much about what is happening.  

What is clear is that this not only comes at an awful time for O'Farrell and his government, but seems to be the start of a worrying trend.

The Cansdell matter was dealt with (to the Coalition's credit) promptly.  Cansdell was out the door before the story broke, meaning that O'Farrell and Stoner could stay in front of the story.

It wasn't good, and no doubt as the story continues to develop there will be further pain for the Coalition, but at least every story is headed with words to the effect of "Ex-NSW MP Steve Cansdell".

The seniority of the person involved in this new matter is going to cause more problems - it is easy to tip out a lowly backbencher, but a "senior minister" (to use the Herald's term) can not be disposed of without fuss.

There can be no doubt that O'Farrell knows who the perpetrator is.  I don't doubt that by mid-morning tomorrow pretty much everyone else will know too.

He's in this picture...

If the 62 year old minister does not throw in the towel immediately (and I mean, before lunch) then every single story will be about how the O'Farrell government is starting to look very much like the Labor governments that preceded it.

Winning a 2nd term really should not be hard for the Coalition.  They are competing against a Labor party that is still reeling from the demolition job the electorate did on them in March.

Labor are low on numbers, have a leader renowned as a head-kicker who has barely said "Boo" since his elevation, and an ex-leader actively raising her profile without revealing what her goal is.

Stuff like this is going to move people away from deriding Labor towards deriding NSW politicians generally. It may mean that O'Farrell will lose his best campaign theme come 2015 - "Better than the last lot!"

The 62 year old needs to turfed out, and it needs to be done before the evening news tomorrow (Friday).  This story is going to be big no matter what O'Farrell does, and he needs to decide whether he wants the headline to be "O'Farrell stands by minister accused of public sex act" or "Minister accused of public sex act quits in disgrace".

The ball's in O'Farrell's court.  He better do something or else the media is going to do it for him.