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.

The Head of the Nile

Ethics classes.  It looks like the battle may finally have been won.

As I have written about previously, the Labor government introduced Ethics Classes to run in parallel with formal religious education. The Coalition initially said that they opposed the classes and would get rid of them if elected, and then backflipped to support the changes.

When I last wrote on this issue, Fred Nile (head of the Christian Democrats) was making thinly veiled threats to the O'Farrell government.  These threats appear to have been hollow.  

No surprises there.

Also unsurprisingly, Fred Nile's campaign against Ethics Classes has not abated.  His vehement opposition was pretty obvious during the speech he gave on the second reading of the bill.  It can be found here and is too long to extract here in full.  Here, however, are a few highlights:

Since then, Nile has continued his campaign against the classes.  Whether his opposition is out of a firmly held personal belief or simply pandering to his base is impossible to know for sure, but his enthusiasm cannot be doubted.

He has also persisted with the pretty offensive suggestion that the Ethics Classes preached Secular Humanism, which he insists on linking to the Nazi's. Clearly he has never heard of Reductio ad Hitlerum.

Previously, Nile has had in his corner most of the major Christian denominations.

In recent months, however, this support has slowly evaporated.  This is no doubt in part due to the churches seeing that this particular battle was lost, but may also be because the churches have realised that the "catastrophic" effects on scripture that were predicted have not really eventuated.

What may prove to the final nail in the debate was hammered in today by the Inter-Church Commission on Religious Education in Schools.  Jo Tovey wrote this piece in the Herald.

The Commission apparently "represents 80 per cent of groups that provide special religious education (SRE)." Their website can be found here. Their website defines their membership as follows:

In August 2010 the Commission released this report:

The important part of the report is below:

It appears that in the interim their view has changed, because the deputy commissioner was today quoted as follows:

I'm going to look past the rather bizarre assertion that "No government repeals legislation" and rather focus on the comment that the fight has been fought and lost.

There is little to no chance that the O'Farrell government will agree to repeal the legislation.  Certainly Labor and the Greens are not going to be interested.  Nile needs to keep his base happy (assuming, of course, that this is what his base wants) but he risks isolating himself on this issue.

It's good and well to make a stand on things you believe in, but there is also a time to concede defeat and focus on things that you are able to achieve,  This is what the Commission has done, and Nile may just do well to consider that start seeking realistic outcomes.

The CDP is a minor party, and people do expect them to fight for their core issues.   But Nile risks becoming a sort of parody of a party if he keeps flogging a dead horse

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.

Stupid is as Stupid does

If these are the people running the state, then I fear for our future. I really do.

Steve Cansdell is many things, and no doubt we are going to see an entertaining range of adjectives used in the days to come.

For me, all I can think is that he is a stupid, stupid man.

Image from abc.net.au

As a solicitor, I know that I have to value my practicing certificate.  I know that a charge of perjury (for example) can have consequences far beyond the serious criminal consequences.

People often lose their practicing certificate and are not allowed to practice again after proof of dishonesty.  Every time someone suggests that I might perhaps do something unethical, I point to my certificate on the wall and tell them that there is no way that I would risk it.

In my profession honesty is important, and dishonest acts are punished swiftly and severely.  And rightly so.

One of the few professions where this burden should weigh even more heavily is politics.  This is not only because a conviction for dishonesty would automatically leads to your expulsion from parliament as per s13A of the NSW Constitution

Even dishonesty that doesn't qualify as perjury can lead to serious consequences. Carl Scully was shown to have mislead parliament over the Cronulla riots and was forced to step down.

It was inevitable that Cansdell would be asked to stand down from parliament, and that's exactly what happened.

This threat should be especially heightened as a pollie when you consider the number of people who would RELISH the opportunity to bring you down.

Between journalists looking for a story, opposition members looking to damage your party, factional opponents looking for an advantage, not to mention all the people you have to piss off to get a seat, politicians probably have as many enemies as any other profession.

If there is a hint that you are vulnerable, people are going to seek that out.

None of the reports I've read today explain why all this has happened today, but it seems likely that someone has been looking around.  For whatever reason, Cansdell has seen the writing on the wall and jumped before the inevitable.

The fact that all the media outlets appear to have been caught by surprise suggests to me that it may not have been the media that was on the scent.  If it had been the Labor party, you can assume that they would have been better prepared to take advantage of the situation, and would have positioned him accordingly.

We may never know the full story, and it may be that someone with an interest in minimising damage to the government found out, and convinced him to leave now before someone else found out.

The dumbest thing of all is that this has all happened over what is a (comparatively) minor matter - the loss of a drivers licence.

Cansdell apparently asked another person to sign a false statutory declaration so that they could take some demerit points that should have been allocated to him.

This may well be fairly common practice in the community, but that doesn't change a thing - it is illegal and is punishable by imprisonment.  Moreover, it is potentially easy to prove, and it involves other people - essentially, too many people are going to know about this for it to stay secret forever.

The consequence of Cansdell leaving parliament is of course a by-election.  This is often a disaster for a sitting government, but should be a comparatively minor event.

Anthony Green as written an excellent blog post on this issue.

In short, the seat is held with a margin of 31.4% over Labor and 23.3% over Williamson, an independant.  Cansdell polled 62.8% on first preferences.

Taken from Green's outstanding Election Analysis

Labor are still on the nose - there will be some hangover from the Carr/Iemma/Rees/Keanelly government when we return to the polls in 2015, let alone only 6 months after O'Farrell's coronation.

There might ordinarily be a chance for an Independant to step in and sweep up some voters who are angry at having had to return to the polls so soon, but as Green notes on his blog, the seat is not far from Rob Oakeshott's seat of Lyne, and it is likely that the new National candidate will not be slow to remind the electorate.

Oakeshott's seat of Lyne

Cansdell's former seat of Clarence

So, a loss of the seat is unlikely.  What damage to the O'Farrell government?  Probably not a great deal - allegations of corruption and incompetence tend to have a cumulative and exponential effect, and Robertson's statement below is probably a bit over the top.

From SMH

The fact that the Stoner was able to announce that Cansdell was out of the parliament when the news broke meant that he could say the following:

Also from SMH

It is also interesting to note that Cansdell has already reported the matter to police, and expects to be prosecuted.  I think we can conclude from this that the person who has confronted him with the evidence has insisted he do this - otherwise surely he would have resigned to spend more time with the family (or used one of the other usual excuses).

I have no idea whether Cansdell should have been preselected in the first place.  Perhaps all this has come completely out of the blue, and Stoner truly had no reason to suspct that this kind of behaviour may have been on the cards.

But the real question I want answered is this - who pushed him?  Who had this knowledge, and insisted not only that he stand down, but also that he reveal the reason?  Who stands to gain the most from that?

Hopefully in the fullness of time we'll find out.

Donating a Heart

I just spend 2 hours crafting a great post of the changes to the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosure Act. The post did a very thorough job of walking you through the present act, the operation of the legislation and the mechanics behind it.


Blogger has seen fit delete almost the entire post, for reasons passing understanding.


So, as a woefully inadequate substitue: here are a few links.


The Act at present


A article on the changes


A post I wrote on the issue previously


These changes are good.  An expenditure cap is a good idea. Parties should have their spending limited so they need to beg for money (and make associated promises) less. 


Individuals should be able to donate and companies should have a voice - but bodies affiliated with parties should have their spending included in the total expenditure so that the expenditure caps actually have a real effect.


If we're going to ban developers and the tobacco and gambling industry from donating, in fairness we should ban all donations from non-individuals.


The new act, we have been promised by O'Farrell will do all the above. It deserves support.


It will be interesting to see if it gets it from Labor and the Greens.


That's all I have time to recount.  I'm going to go somewhere and be angry at Blogger.

A Taxing Misdirection

I've decided I'm not going to blog about the detail of the budget.

There are a few reasons for that.  First of all, I have a job and a life, and starting this blog at 9:45pm means that I don't have the energy or the time to read every page of the budget papers and provide a detailed, informative summary.

In any event, there will be plenty other pieces that cover that same ground, and I don't see any point in reinventing the wheel.

On that, I commend Ross Gittens piece to you.  The Herald had this helpful piece on the winners and losers. No doubt all the major papers will have extensive coverage on the budget tomorrow (Wednesday) if that is what you're after.

What I do want to blog about, however, if this extract from the budget speech delivered by Mike Baird:

What a load of crap.

Before I explain why, some background.

We all remember the massive controversy over the mining tax and its various incarnations.

In the end, the Federal Government signed an agreement with the biggest mining companies.  Part of that agreement was that the government would reduce the amount of mining tax payable to the Federal Government by the value of the royalties payable to the state governments.

On that - in researching this piece, I found a number of articles that suggest that under the mining tax the royalties will be deductible, whilst other articles suggested that the royalties will be refunded.

As anyone who has worked with tax goes, the difference is crucial. Something that is deductible reduces your "taxable income" - so a reduction in your taxable income of $10 might mean a net tax saving of maybe $4.

Something that is refunded, or (to use the word the income tax legislation uses, offset) against a tax reduces the tax payable by the full $10.

For present purposes, I'll rely on Mike Baird's statement in his speech that the Commonwealth has agreed to "reimburse" mining companies for any increase in royalties ie that royalties will be refunded in full by the Commonwealth.

There was a fuss earlier in the year when Western Australia's Liberal government increased the royalty rate on iron ore in the knowledge that the companies affected would have the loss offset by the Federal Government.

How the news was reported by WAToday.com.au

Unsurprisingly, the Federal Government has responded by threatening to slash WA's share of the GST revenues:

From this WAToday article

As a sidenote, it is difficult to comprehend how the Federal government did not see this issue coming, especially from the states with Liberal governments.

Coming back to NSW, this new increase in royalties will apply only to those companies that are liable for the mining tax .

The NSW Liberal government has decided to increase the royalty rate on (it would seem) all minerals presently subject to the royalty regime. The justification for this increase is (apparently) the carbon tax.

Mike Baird said the following:

It may well be the case that the carbon tax will cost the NSW state budget. If NSW Treasury modelling says so then I wouldn't dare disagree.

The problem that appears to have been lost in the fuss surrounding the budget is that this loss has NOTHING to do with the mining tax.

The NSW budget will increase the royalties that it charges the companies that are "subject to the Commonwealth’s proposed Mining Resources Rent Tax."

I don't know whether any of these companies will actually have to pay the carbon tax directly, although all will pay additional power costs due to power prices rising.  This is as most, if not all, power companies with coal powered plants will incur the carbon tax.  Those of you that follow these things will know that the carbon tax (in its present form) will apply only to those companies that produce 25,000 tonnes of CO2 from any one facility.

I'm not on top of precisely how many coal mines actually produce that much CO2.  It should be noted that the tax will only be payable on a mine that produces 25,000 tonnes of CO2 getting the coal out of the ground - not on a mine that produces enough coal that, when burned, will produce 25,000 CO2.

The hysteria on various websites means that it is difficult to find any figures I feel comfortable quoting.

The point is, however, this.  The companies that pay the mining tax will be the ones subject to the additional royalties. Baird confuses the issue by calling it an "offset increase" but it is simply a tax increase.

This is being done because the NSW government is "prepared to use all means within our power to recover the costs to the state of the Gillard Government’s carbon tax."

These changes will have no net effect on the bottom line of the mining companies.  There is no connection to whether these companies will be subject to the carbon tax or not. It doesn't really matter whether they are or aren't though, because there will be no net effect on their bottom line.

The net effect is that the NSW government will pull in more royalties and the Federal government will pull in less from the mining tax. The ostensible purpose is to cover the additional cost from the carbon tax.

Moreover, judging by what Swan said about Western Australia, it seems likely that NSW will suffer a retaliatory decrease in the amount of GST returned, meaning that it is likely that NSW will pull in less GST and other states will receive more.

Net effect?  Probably minimal. 

Despite that, the most frustrating part of the whole fiasco is this.  The NSW government (like every government) grapples every year with changes to income and expenditure.  Some things go up, some things go down, some things stay the same.  If it looks like things aren't going to balance, programs are cut or taxes are raised.

At the end of the process, hopefully the budget stays more or less in balance and we get through another year.

I've blogged previously about the (in my view) disgraceful pokie tax cut.  It was announced today that new police and nurses are going to be hired, and will of course need to be paid for.  There are a number of infrastructure promises for which O'Farrell has needed to start finding dollars.

These promises all have a negative impact on the budget, and will all need to be paid for somehow.

In the same way, it appears that the Carbon Tax is going to hurt the budget's bottom line.  But why is it THIS new expenditure that is being linked to this increase in the mining royalties?

It's simple. Partisan politics.  O'Farrell is a Liberal, and the Federal government is Labor.  He's taking a shot at Gillard, knowing that Federal Labor's unpopularity and the anger at the Carbon Tax means that he won't upset too many people who would ever actually vote for him anyway.

The fact is that the Carbon Tax has nothing whatsoever to do with these royalties, and the Coalition's attempts to link the two in this speech are nothing more than misdirection.

The budget has (quite properly, I'm prepared to accept) allowed for a negative impact from the Carbon Tax.  The budget has allowed for an increase in royalties, a change the government is entitled to make.

But to link the two in the way that Baird has done in the above quotes is deceptive - nothing more, nothing less. There can be no doubt that he did so knowing that we would see statements like the below in the papers on Wednesday;

He did so knowing that the issue is probably too complicated to canvass in a newspaper's coverage of the budget, and consequently most people's understanding of the changes would start and end with the above quote.

Moreover, he did so knowing the the mining tax and the carbon tax are still to progress through the Federal parliament.  Given present circumstances, who know what kind of tax we may end up with, or whether the taxes will even make it through both houses?

Baird's speech deceptive, it is misleading, and people should be told about that.  But I'm not holding my breath.

Rolling the Dice

Politicians must surely hate the club lobby.

Many ordinary people (like me) detest them for the harm they do to the most vulnerable members of the community through their frantic lobbying for poker machines.

For a politician, the club lobby is a disproportionately powerful lobby that wields huge power over politicians. Federally we are presently seeing the level of public outrage that the clubs are able to incite over Mandatory Pre-Commitment.

In NSW, lobbying is a particularly sensitive area for O'Farrell, for two reasons.

First, he will remember that the level of corruption (perceived or otherwise) that NSW Labor demonstrated was a major part of their downfall.

Moreover, there are already unhealthy links between the Liberal party and lobbyists.  I wrote here about Michael Photios, Vice-President of the Liberal State Executive by day and a hotel lobbyist by night.

There is now another line of attack on the government, although whether they deserve this attack is less clear.

There are two pieces presently available on the Herald website: here and here.

In short, the articles say the following:

• Brian Ross is a former head of the Australian Hotels Association
• He has known O'Farrell for 20 years
• Along with the NSW head of the AHA he met with O'Farrell on 17 June to voice concerns about the "three strikes and you're out" policy.
• On 21 June he applied to sit on the Casino, Liquor and Gaming Control Authority
• His appointment was approved by Cabinet on 24 August
• Sometime between 24 August and 1 September, the Herald started making enquiries about his appointment
• On 1 September he resigned for "health reasons"
• On 3 September John Robertson called for ICAC to investigate

A few further facts.  First of all, Ross stepped down from the AHA in 2008. He's hardly stepped straight into a new position.

Having said that, it is a little hard to perceive what his involvement with the AHA was after he stepped down as its head.

The Herald describes him as a "paid lobbyist".  Sky News calls Ross a "lobbyist from the Australian Hotels Association" whilst this article says that he "was still on its payroll as a lobbyist."

And, of course, he was at this meeting with O'Farrell on 17 June.

I also found this quote from the relevant minister, George Souris, on Ross's appointment

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I don't see any reason to doubt this to be a fair assessment.

To my mind, there are two issues here. The first is his background and therefore his suitability for the role, and the second is whether there has been "corrupt conduct".

On the first issue, the Herald describes the appointment of a person with a background in the Hotel industry to the role as being "unprecedented".

The Authority describes itself as follows:

I've tried to find out the backgrounds of the other members.

Chris Sidoti, the Chairman, was previously the federal human rights commissioner. David Armati is a magistrate who has long experience as chairman of the NSW Liquor Administration Board.

Sharryn Brownlee is President of the Central Coast P&C Association. Ken Brown AM was formally Director-General of the Department of Gaming and Racing. David Greenhouse, as Chief Executive, appears as best I can tell to have been promoted from within the organisation.

The fact that the organisation is new means that there is little history to draw on to work out whether the appointment is in fact unprecedented.

It is especially worth noting that the Authority is responsible for the regulation of Star City, not hotels or clubs.  I've seen nothing to suggest that there is a explicit conflict of interest.

In short - I've found nothing that suggests that Brian Ross was not a suitable person for appointment to the board.  Indeed, his experience suggests that he may in fact be highly suited.

In fairness, I don't think anyone has explicitly suggested that he was not, and the article from the Herald only implied it.

The real issue is whether there has been corrupt conduct.  Robertson has "called on" ICAC to investigate the matter, so it's clear that either he thinks there has been corrupt conduct or he wants everybody to believe that there was.

As best I can tell, the reasons that there has apparently been corrupt conduct are as follows

• Brian Ross is a former head of the Australian Hotels Association as is therefore apparently manifestly unsuited to the role
• He has "known" O'Farrell for 20 years
• He met with O'Farrell on 17 June and applied to sit on the board 4 days later
• When enquiries were made, he quit

To me, that seems pretty thin grounds for an allegation of corruption.

Robertson was quoted as follows:

From here

For me, O'Farrell is free to encourage anyone he wants to apply for a job, or to say that he thinks that someone has a good chance.  As long as he is in no way involved in the selection process, then what could possibly be wrong with that?

Where is no evidence that there has been any wrong-doing by O'Farrell (other than an apparently spurious allegation of unsuitability, a suggestion of a long-standing relationship and a potentially coincidental timing) then it is irresponsible of Robertson to call on ICAC to investigate.

Unless Robertson has some actual evidence of wrong-doing, then all he is doing is flinging some mud at O'Farrell and Brian Ross, in much the same way as I suggested he was doing with Andrew Stoner.

The saddest thing of all (assuming that everything O'Farrell has done has indeed been kosher) is that Brian Ross has now resigned his seat.  Maybe he was pushed by a nervy government.  Maybe he saw what was about to happen. Or maybe he really does have health issues that need to be addressed.

I have no idea whether he was a good appointment, but assuming he was, NSW may have lost a fine appointee who would have served the state well.

It's a tough game, politics.