What the hell is with the New South Wales government? Down here in Victoria, our state government is at least trying to grapple with serious issues like how we’re going to move ourselves around our rapidly growing state capital. Meanwhile, in New South Wales, the government seems to be far too busy fighting itself and the NSW union movement to do anything much. Not to mention backbenchers publicly slagging off the entire front bench.
About the only policy output coming out of them right now seems to be Treasurer Michael Costa running his mouth off at the Garnaut Review in The Oz. As typing is not activism points out, it’s moronic.
Is there any prospect whatsoever of the NSW Labor Party getting itself sorted out and concentrating on dealing with that state’s considerable economic and social problems at some point between now and the next election?
I would like to put on record that I didn’t vote for ‘em in March 2007. I voted Greens, Dems, some independent, Nats then ALP. And that’s the first time in my life I’ve put a Coalition party ahead of the ALP.
Costa is the most repugnant politician in the country IMO.
To answer your question – no!
carbonsink, please explain. costa looks like uncle fester, and he was nice. so what’s wrong with mr costa?
“Down here in Victoria, our state government is at least trying to grapple with serious issues like how we’re going to move ourselves around our rapidly growing state capital.”
Like building new costways, to link what were freeways, having done far too little about public transport since they have been in power? I think our Brumby is running slower and slower in the dinosaur race.
You are a brave man throwing stones northward Mr Merkel.
The Labor Party is the natural party of government in NSW. But every twenty years or so they go into severe meltdown mode, overcome by the simultaneous and often contradictory pressures of running a government, while tending to the interests and mates of the NSW Right. The combination of incompetence, corruption, mendacity and laziness that is so emblematic of NSW has become too much to bear, even for them.
The Labor Party will go down in flames at the next election and the Lib Nats will be in power for two terms, no more and no less. The current lot of worthies (sic) – Costa, Sartor, Tripodi etc – will be gone forever, but they will be replaced by the next generation of spivs and hacks. And the cycle will begin anew.
Ambi, Costa also looks like Dr Evil, and he wasn’t nice (except to his cat).
There is a push to replace Iemma, possibly before parliament resumes in September. As for Costa, some will most likely remind him that if he stays in parliament till November, he will be eligible for a parliamentary pension if he leaves (Costa is said to be considering moving on later this year or early next). So it may be in Costa’s interest to stay relatively quiet till then.
Whether a chance in the power structure of Labor will help NSW, I have no idea. Any new leader would need to clear the front bench and start afresh. As long as the likes of Costa, Tripodi, Sartor etc have a say in things not much will change.
No one in their right mind would take the poisoned chalice that is the leadership of the NSW Labor Party. Any even remotely plausible leader will take it on after the election. Now of course they will be taking on a shattered and shat on party, and the rebuilding task will be immense. But Bob Carr did it after the 1988 landslide loss, and hung on to become Premier and stay Premier for 10 years.
“The combination of incompetence, corruption, mendacity and laziness that is so emblematic of NSW has become too much to bear, even for them.”
I’ve gotten that sense from afar at least. They seem almost embarrassed to still be there.
GregM, that’s true I suppose.
I’m clinging to pleasant childhood memories of “The Addams Family”, a creepy comedy for children. The original Charles Addams cartoons in “The New Yorker” were blacker, I think.
So, GregM, is Mr Costa like Dr Evil? I mean, not just physically….
Well, Ambi, being a New South Welshperson, of course Mr Costa is not nice, not in the way that nice Mr Bracks and nice Mr Brumby of Victoria are nice. But as to whether he is truly like Dr Evil, there you’d have to ask his cat- or maybe a delegate to the NSW Labor State conference. Though they may not have shared opinions.
NSW Labor probably can’t do much to improve itself, but if it
a)abandoned its arrempts to peivatise NSW electricity
b)stopped being the various property developers’ bum-boys
c)got rid of Mad Dog Costa
d)actually did something effective to solve all the metropolitan transport problems
e) ditto for schools and hospitals
its stay in oppopsition after the next State election would be very short.
If not, it would still be reasonably short, because the self-flaggelating hair-shirt wearing fanatics in Opus Dei who run the Liberal party will probably scare the sh*t out of everybody after 2 terms.Trouble is, that’s still nearly a decade.
GregM,
do I detect irony? Do you think nice Mr Bracks was nice but ineffectual? joe2 suggests nice Mr Brumby has done too little for Victorian public transport. I must say, one can’t hail an omnibus as often as one might, and the night-soil carts going up and down the rear alleys of Fitzroy do make a frightful din. I blame the gold rush: it’s made everything just too, too easy. Though I hear that there’s some kind of trouble brewing at the diggings near Ballarat.
Nifty & even Danger Man stand like colossuses compared to the pygmies running the shop today.
Can you imagine this mob introducing legislation as ground breaking as Wran’s 1977 Anti-Discrimination Act?
Coming from NSW one is used to a certain background noise of corruption vis a vis the cops, property developers, crims etc. but this type of historical palm greasing has never prevented any NSW Government from like actually governing. Corruption is one thing, utter incompetence is another.
No irony at all Ambi. Being Victorians Mr Bracks and Mr Brumby are by definition nice. Even Jeffrey Kennett was, compared to any NSW politician you can think of, nice. The only Victorian politician I can think of who is definitely not nice is the evil Sophie Mirabella.
Trouble is, one can’t imagine thos lot doing anything different to the Libs.
Michael Kroger doesn’t seem very nice.
Kevin Andrews, Peter Costello, Michael Ronaldson … the list goes on. All Victorian Liberals, all horrible.
I think that Jeffrey Kennett would agree with you there Mark.
Rob Jolley was so nice, he reassured all the account holders that Pyramid Building Society was safe.
Noice!
“The Age” has been running a front page story this week alleging a close correlation between recent large donations to the Victorian ALP and the winning of big State-sponsored projects. Noice contract if you can get one.
cheerio
I don’t recall David Kemp being very nice either. Or Henry Bolte, come to that.
Nice?
Nice!?
NSW is the State whose Premiers have included the petty spiteful racist Henry Parkes, rat fink William Holman, Jack “Greater Than Lenin” Lang and Robin “Run Over The Bastards” Askin.
Niceness is not required.
OMG, there is no escaping inter-state rivalries. It even extends to our pollies are worse than your pollies.
Queensland wins this one though – they had Joh
Although with the don’t annoy the catholics laws NSW must be cacthing up.
State of Origin for rubbish politicians? It’s on, pollytickedoff. State against State, Labor mate against Labor mate.
I give you Rex Jackson, one-time Minister for Corrective Services, later inmate of his own Department for corrupting the early release scheme. I can top him with Thomas Ley, Minister for Murder.
Your petty perjuries of the Joh era cannot match the mighty shonkiness of NSW’s two hundred-plus years of evading propriety.
As a Sangroper I guess the best I can do is Brian Burke – who in a state of origin contest would have the advantage of having recently become untouchable!
Robert,
I think the problem the NSW ALP has is very similar to the MSM – they’re both so fixated on what is happening “internally” that they don’t really quite understand what is happening within the real world (IMHO!).
I guess it’s the end result of slavishly devoting oneself to party politics from mid-20’s until reaching this level of power at mid-40’s to 50’s. The focus is so much on maintaining “the numbers” that all else is rendered secondary.
Planning becomes a way of keeping the donors happy, big events are pushed to try and get the Circus Maximus crowd-pleaser effect and services are something that should be pushed onto the private sector no matter how viable/unviable the business prospects are.
New laws are regarded as a tool to optimise the political positives brought by talkback radio – no matter if actually getting rid of some red tape would have the same effect. Case in point – the new design for the Iron Cove bridge is amazing for it’s ability to ignore the flow-through effects on other sections of Victoria Road.
Second Case (albeit earlier vintage) – forcing councils to behave like businesses and almagamating them if they don’t pony up and do whatever the state ALP wants (Parry shire council and Tamworth city council several years ago).
I could go on ad nauseum, ad infinitum but the list would be massive
Australia, we (Victorians) gift to you the very nice Mr Steve Fielding. Please, take him.
How on earth does someone like Milton Orkopolis manage to get so far up the greasy pole? I’ve not followed that one very closely, it seems too tabloid ick for me, but it seems just extraordinary.
I’ll see your Steve Fielding and raise you Fred Nile and the Festival of Light, wilful.
i think there is actually an option for Iemma to save his position – that would be to abandon the pitifully shortsighted selling off of further public assets and instead get rid of Costa for his utter incompetence – as treasurer, as a supposed ALP candidate, and as a human.
There would be a statewide sigh of relief to see at least one of the goons out the backdoor. But ultimately there is a distinct lack of talent now in the very obviously inbred NSW Labor Party. The only reason that they weren’t sacked at last year’s election was because apart from being Liberals and equally incompetent, the Opposition seemed even more out of touch.
Since then, however, Iemma’s mob have utterly outdone themselves, to such a degree that their current level of ineptitude if left unchecked/unsacked will be perhaps the greatest threat in Australia to Kevin Rudd’s second term. Even long term left, Green, and Labor supporters now seem prepared to put up with 4 years of a clueless sociopathic Church-sponsored Lib/Nat government in NSW. The State ALP seems too self-absorbed to get the point without getting completely ejected.
But the office water cooler would make a more visionary and charismatic Premier than Iemma or Watkins.
Remember folks, Victoria has the rising star of Stephen Newnham, State secretary and campaign director of the Labor party…dirty deeds done dirt cheap!
http://castironbalcony.media2.org/?p=542#comments
Pah, joe2, I’ll see your Newnham and raise you Graham Richardson, if we’re including coaches in our Origin sides. (I also expect the Libs to see my Richo, lift a rock, and raise me whoever crawls out from underneath it).
Victoria? Nice!?!
I’m sorry — here in Adelaide, WE are Teh Nice!
Our political history includes Premier Don Dunstan, who wore pink shorts to parliament, and wrote cookbooks, and worked for multi-culturalism and gay rights and womens’ lib and political correctness decades before these terms had even been invented.
Even the Liberals here are nice. Dunstan’s predecessor was a humble orchardist by the name of Tom Playford who seems to have offended no one during 27 (!) continuous years as Premier, and was good mates with many Labor pollies.
If niceness were a football team, SA would be Geelong.
“Australia, we (Victorians) gift to you the very nice Mr Steve Fielding. Please, take him.”
Look, you already got rid of Pell and lumbered us with him. We aren’t taking Fielding as well.
Well,
a. they’re only in power because the Libs ran an absolute pillock
b. the state treasurer has to be the biggest tool in the whole ALP
c. Bizzarely, they didnt get the clear-as-day message from all over the country that state utility privatisations were on the nose, from about 96 onwards.
However, given d. the utterly risible, chaos-ridden, F-grade shambles known as ’state oppositions’ – I’d cut Iemma 50/50 to sneak home next time.
“Pah, joe2, I’ll see your Newnham and raise you Graham Richardson, if we’re including coaches in our Origin sides.”
Let’s go further.
Liam and all, who was the behind the scenes Labor hero/underling that worked out the deal that gave Steve Fielding his Senate job, through a dodgy preference deal, that looks like creating complete overall Australian political chaos for years?
One thing is for sure, he was a Victorian.
joe2,
and boy were a lot of the vote-above-the-line Victorian ALP voters p*ssed off when they learnt some of their prefs had gone to nice Mr Fielding.
Paulus, Mr Playford might have been nice, but wasn’t there a gerrymander too? I mean, 27 years….!! (I thought that was one of nice Mr Dunstan’s first achievements, to win and then to abolish – or dilute – the gerrymander, innit?)
How does South Australian ‘niceness’ match up with your drowning of teh gays in Torrens River, and bodies-in-the-barrels, etc?
I have to say: Arthur Rylah (off sider to Henry Bolte) was NOT nice.
Are you being rude about South Australia, Ambigulous? That’s not nice.
I once met a man who was rude about South Australia. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
We may be mother-rapers and father-rapers, but at least we are not river-murderers.
Don’t forget the same geniuses that gave us Fielding, in their attempts to screw the Greens, also got the DLP back into Victorian parliament. A friend who’s an ALP member told me the branch meetings after that election were pretty lively.
But the NSW ALP, to return to the topic at hand. My gods they’re scum. It’s not just the one thing, either. It’s the corruption, the arrogance, and the complete and utter inability to actually get a damn thing done.
The problem is that as bad as they are, the Libs will be so much worse. But until the ALP gets their arses handed to them, they won’t get any better. Pity the rest of us are going to get equally screwed over by the Libs in the meantime.
Also, Costa needs to be buried at sea. I know he’s not dead yet, but I’m prepared to cut that corner.
Paulus, what about former PM John Olsen? A dark cloud quietly hangs over his reputation.
s/PM/Premier that is
Sir, I will not have you speak ill of the man! He has been faithfully serving Australia for several years in a diplomatic hardship post: our Consul-General in New York.
Paulus,
In this race to the bottom we have to own up that we produce the worst.
Alexander Downer, Nick Minchin, Christopher Pyne, Amanada Vanstone, Dean Brown, Mick Atkinson (could even make an argument for Brendan Nelson).
In other words: F__k you world!
Corruption in NSW pollies is utterly unremarkable; the alliance with bent coppers and greedy developers was cemented 200 years ago in the Rum Rebellion. But this lot are remarkably incompetent as well.
But most of those interstaters can’t hold a candle to Robert Askin, who declared “the public can rest assured we have organised crime in NSW completely under control” (and we all knew whose control that was).
Though Sir Arthur Rylah is stiff competition. As a lad I remember his crusade as Attorney-General against “filth”, which was marked by press conferences where he would lovingly display confiscated items of said filth in a manner that led some to question his professional detachment …
I find your argument persuasive, Jacques, but not convincing. Your examples have annoyance value, but not the utter malignancy that is Sydney’s trademark.
In further recruitment to the NSW side: Lyenko Urbancic.
Hi! sdyrj xdesm biuid uexeq
Paulus and P’s C
Not rude about SA, just recalling what came out over the drowning of Dr Duncan in the early 70’s. I think the coppers used to bash gaypersons in parks. Or outsource it to hearty young men out for some weekend fun.
Why should I be rude about SA? You gave Melb the Grand Pricks: thanks, chaps! Your wines excel; your Festival shines; Don’s pink clobber was a beacon for the nation, though the Al Grasby variant took flamboyance to a new low. Then there are the grisly murders…. again, your State excels. Nation’s best practice, in all likelihood.
I have to admit that Melb recently had a river murder too: a coupla young chaps chased from South Yarra with machetes, jumped in the Yarra and drowned to death.
As to murdering the Murray, well Victoria does like to help out on a national basis; we do our bit. It’s not all down to Cubby Station.
Knock the South Australians all you like Ambi, but Grassby’s suits deserve better. He didn’t have conventional fashion sense, but he had his own unambiguous style.
Other states have river murderers, but only Queensland has lesbian vampire river murderers. So there.
I was going to say ‘Oh come on they’re not as malignant as some of the East Coast dudes’ (as per Liam @45), but mention of Minchin stayed my hand. Downer and Pyne are mere buffoons, Vanstone is at least clever and funny, Atkinson is at least on the correct side (and anyway, he just does what he’s told, and yes I know it’s the Nuremberg defence)* and Brown always seemed fairly harmless to me, but Minchin, yes, well.
And you think this practice was confined to SA??!!!111!!1
*Does this call for the application of Godwin’s Law?
Lesbian vampire river murderers, hey that’s not bad DAOoSG.
You can’t beat tea and cakes for sheer terror though: we’ve got Aunt Thally, the star of the Sydney Thallium Enthusiasm.*
*Say it five times fast
“Does this call for the application of Godwin’s Law?”
No, you get a free pass, you’ve racked up more than enough frequent-integrity miles to get away with it. Well, this time.
But don’t let me catch you here again. Now run along, I think Uncle Charlie’s cooked up something grand in the kitchen for us…
P’sC
Of course the SA coppers weren’t alone in that, but in how many other states did the bashee die in a nearby river???//???
P’s C: congrats for naming and shaming a CURRENT pollie, Nick the Munchkin; it’s all very well to recall Bolte, Rylah, Joh, Askin, Rum Rebellion etc.
Liam: we used to laugh at Al Grassby’s suits and ties, but more recent stories of Griffith and Trimbole etc. have wiped the shine off the comedy – just a tad – they who pay the piper expect a pretty fair rendition, on cue.
mille grazie
As a Victorian-born immigrant to Brisbane, I feel that this thread needs reminding of the existence of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Russ Hinze, Terry Lewis, Don Lane, Jack Herbert, Keith Wright, Bill D’Arcy, Mike Kaiser, John Budd, Jim Elder, Lee Bermingham, Dave Barbagallo, Grant Musgrove (even though, like Belinda Neal, Grant has always been nice to me personally), Leon Bertrand and doubtless others whose names currently escape me.
And I cannot forebear to remind the Tasmanians of former Premiers such as Bethune and Bingham (I think) who had their prints on the Lake Pedder Dam, everyone in the Labor government in the early 1980s who shafted Doug Lowe because he wanted to compromise on the Franklin Dam issue which would have saved most of the World Heritage area, Robin Grey and everyone else who had to be overruled by Bob Hawke in order to eventually save the whole World Heritage Area, Edmund Rouse (who got done for trying to bribe a Labor MP), Scott McLean, Pol Lenin and everyone else who sabotaged Federal Labor over the forests issue in 2004, Eric Abetz and everyone else in the Tasmanian Liberal Party who shares his prejudices towards Bob Brown, and every other political patron of the Hydro-Electric Commission and Gunns Ltd.
Only the tip of the iceberg!
And off the record, Milton is not the only one that has slid up that greasy pole.
Ultimate power ultimately ..
The Greens make a big song and dance about keeping the Government honest, representing the community and protecting the environment but when it comes to the crunch / elections they acquiesce. Political expediency is no doubt touted as a virtue to Green supporters, for the “greater good” of extending their influence and facilitating social reform on the “Green” model. Of late they’ve spent more time obsessing over the alleged evils of the christian religion, running anti-christian forums at Parliament and attacking various christian churches than worrying about much else.
As for the Libs and Nats being in the pocket of the “clueless sociopathic Church-sponsored” group, don’t believe the hype.
The accusations made by the former MLC Patricia Forsythe, that the Libs had been taken over by a horde of deranged religious fanatics and clandestine Opes Dei operatives were merely a knee jerk reaction to her loosing pre-selection and her comfy Upper House seat that she had held for 15 years. It was one of the worse public dummy spits I’ve seen to date, happily reported as fact by a vested interest within the ABC. The only thing that had changed was that the “conservatives” / right were actually having a say after 30+ years of complete dominance by the “moderates” / left.
The reality is that the Liberal Party is still firmly in the grasp of the “Moderate” / Left faction. There is only a handful persons supporting the “Conservatives” / right, one of which is an Opes Dei adherent (David Clarke MLC). Of course if you chose to doubt my words, check the recent voting patterns of the Coalition on legislation like the Same-Sex Parenting Bill.
As far as the Nats are concerned, they recently fired their State Director because he was allegedly too religious.
All is not what is seems my friends.
my2bob
Dave
Office of Rev Hon Fred Nile MLC
Wait. What?
Don’t get me wrong, there are many capable, admirable and dare I say noble men and women on both sides of politics that serve us as Legislators in this great state of NSW, but some …you wouldn’t trust your dog to.
Unfortunately, cream is not the only substance to float to the top.
my2bob
Dave
“The Greens make a big song and dance about keeping the Government honest……..”
Dave, as a paid researcher /publicity consultant for Fred Nile I would have thought you would have known that the slogan you mention actually emanates from The Democrats.
I suspect all that passion against the godless Greens has blurred your Friday afternoon vision.
Well yes. No argument there.
I was kinda drawing your attention to the now-permanent record of your off-the-record comment. I think I see what you did there.
I’ll take you up on one bit though:
Oh man, as a Labor Left stooge, I only *wish* that were true.
Back to John Olsen … even my uncle who has vote Lib all his life reckons Olsen is a crook. I believe, before entering politics, he was a used car (or perhaps tractor) salesman.
However, Minchin (may he rot in hell) is only South Australian by adoption. I think he originally hails from NSW.
Gday joe. Just to clarify a few points:
I’m actually employed and paid by the NSW Parliament. Regarding the ‘Democrat’ response, you’ve obviously missed the ‘new’ policital positioning.
But my dear sir, it is only Thursday!! (Yes I too can play the tongue in cheek ..overlook the obvious and infer ignorance game)
I apologise if I’ve offended your political sensibilities. I figured everyone else here appeared happy with others speaking their mind…
Take care
Dave
lol ..Ah yes, sorry. Though I guess what I was trying to communicate was that I’m constrained by what I can and can’t say at this juncture.
my2bob
Dave
“I apologise if I’ve offended your political sensibilities.”
Not at all David Copeland.
I would just hope that you continue to visit my favourite blog site and let us all know how you honestly see things. In particular, reminding me what day it is.
Ps.. How is Fred going with the papal visit? Providing spare rooms for pilgrims, I would imagine. In the spirit of Ecumentalism and that kind of thing.
Cheers.
No, Robert. You are just looking at an exhausted government. You seemed quite pleased with such an outcome last year. There is no “if only”, only decline and fall.
It is a little-known fact that Morris Iemma is not of woman born. Graham Richardson and Michael Egan found some old ALP how-to-votes and Bill Hayden placards and sculpted him from papier-mache. The alternative is more of the same – tonight on the news, supposed breaths of fresh air Verity Firth and Kristina Kenneally with that silly half-smile rictus that treats new roads and cancelled trains equally, and the little hand movements of the confirmed muppet.
Costa will be put down once he bites someone, but he is much less noxious than the president of the public transport union – a life support system for a cardigan, someone who genuinely believes public transport workers should be paid as much as possible for doing as little as possible, and to hell with infrastructure spending because that is the devil’s work. The press gallery will piss and moan about how much it misses Costa once he goes, because they will be beset by these muppets who stand in front of decaying infrastructure with those silly half-smiles and muppet hand-movements and who assure them that Labor is all about working families.
It really is time for a Liberal government in NSW. Barry O’Farrell is not such a bad bloke. It really could not get any worse. Any Labor person with any brains would rather vacuum the carpet in Federal Parliament than be a staffer in the NSW State Parliament.
NSW was the first of the nu-Labor governments in 1995, and it is leading the way in showing how the coast-to-coast Labor experiment has largely been squandered. Smart Labor people will learn and stop any signs of this behaviour in their own backyards. For starters: if your local preselection panel is presented with a prospective muppet, come armed.
Good to hear joe2
No he’s actually taking some time out to tend to his ill wife.
my2bob
Dave