The only question is why it took Morris Iemma so long to see what everyone else could see plainly. Apparently Paul Keating had a hand in the decision.
Update: Trevor Cook:
Costa is a loud-mouth political bully who screams and screeches like a two-year old when he doesn’t get his way. He held several portfolios without distinction. He is basically a blow-hard and ineffective politician who has spent his miserable career doing damage to the union movement, the NSW Government and the people of this state.
Update: Via Amanda in comments, there’s speculation that Iemma will be toppled too when caucus meets.
Update [dk.au]: Iemma resigns. Daily Telegraph
Update: Trevor Cook:
“Stand by for more fireworks. All I can say.”
Wow, is Morry gunna sack himself?
I must be the only person in NSW who has some regard for Michael Costa. After he told Virginia Trioli where to go and how to get there, I’ve always thought that he can’t be all bad.
“Stand by for more fireworks. All I can say.”
Tripodi for Treasurer ?
Sarah Palin has more executive experience than Nathan Rees!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24298014-5001021,00.html
If Iemma, Costa, Roozendaal, Tripodi, Sartor, etc. can be booted off the front bench, the ALP stand a reasonable chance of getting elected in 2011. At worst, it’ll allow them to ditch their problem ministers and hopefully get them to resign at the next election so the new batch of ALP members can get ready for the 2015 election.
Iemma is gorn!
Does this mean the electricity privatisation is dead?
From SMH online:
“The pressure intensified after outgoing Treasurer Michael Costa set off a series of bombs at his press conference earlier this morning.”
I know that NSW politics can get a little heated, but isn’t this going a little too far?
Looks like Iemma’s gone too!
…
Damn you, Shaun. :/
YYYYAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!
I don’t live in NSW, don’t much like the place (no pubs, no live music), but even from my safe remove I couldn’t escape the stench of that rotting corpse of a government.
So now we all crowd around poking it till someone gets out the defibrillator and yells “CLEAR”, right?
Woohoo!
But why is Carmel Trebutt being spoken of as Deputy? I thought she chose a while back to cut her hours down?
The hard part will be finding someone who has not had their greasy hand in the till, for treasurer, I would have thought.
It’s August 2005 all over again.
As an ex-member of a particularly loud, aggressive and militant union (NSWTF)… I think it’s time that someone told the Unions a little bit of where to stuff it. I’m not “pro-big-business”. I’m all for unions who actually REPRESENT me, rather than use me as some kind of additional weight behind their own outdated punches.
Costa may not have been brilliant (few politicians seem to be), but he could do at least one thing well - do the numbers on the state cheque-book.
Privatising power may not have found much love with the union, like the new ideas Rudd is kicking around to do with teaching, but it was smart for our future. It lost because for some crazy reason, the pro-privatisation Liberals decided to get into bed with the Electricity Unions and tell business to get into bed with Labor. What kind of Frankenstein Monster/Chimera is that???
Hopefully Rees (or whoever else may get tossed in as the compromise candidate) will tell the unions to shut up and get on with the job of providing a future for NSW; hopefully one that isn’t $25billion worse off and might have the chance of building something new or upgrading something old. (Cough, TRAINLINES, cough, schools, cough, hospitals, cough, cough)
“Costa may not have been brilliant (few politicians seem to be), but he could do at least one thing well - do
the numbersa number on the state cheque-book.”SDIN, what do you understand the word ‘militant’ to mean?
Nathan Rees has shot less moose than Sarah Palin so he’s clearly unqualified.
A moose once bit my sister.
Once I killed a gopher with a stick.
Despite not having shot and skinned a moose Nathan Rees is ready to lead NSW, the population of Toongabbie is over 12,000, more than Wasilla Alaska.
farewell Uncle Festa
Too much to hope that Sator be re-zoned into non-minsterial territory.
OTOH, the brown paper bag role I ’spose is one that NSW Labor will cling to with cold dead fingers, no matter who the incumbent.
I suspect that Sartor is making use of his Part 3A powers to develop himself a nice promotion, much to the chagrin of the sentient human beings that continue to reside in NSW.
As for Carmel, well, I read yesterday that she was considering top job (or something near it), so the ball was already rolling (think ALP headkickers, Albanese and other friends toying with sharp daggers).
I’m not quite sure what SDIN is talking about, or which particular parallel universe version of NSW they are living in, but it wasn’t just the unions against the sell-off - it was something like 85% of the population of NSW. So it looks like they ARE representing their members (maybe not SDIN), as well as a whole lot more besides.
The rally against the sell-off is still going ahead on September 20, by the way, pending any change in policy. http://socialistalliancensw.blogspot.com/2008/09/nsw-power-sell-off-iemma-costa-dumped.html
Oh this is just fantastic news.
On ABC radio “World Today” they had a Crikey journalist, who opined that Uncle Festa may open a coffee shop.
Advice for you, Festa:
i) pay someone else to serve the customers;
ii) you stay out in the kitchen heating the coffee. Recommend inductive heating, it’s cheaper. Remember how you once lit light bulbs between your teeth? Get a metal coffee pot and clench that firmly between locked jaws.
iii) It’ll stop you talking? Yes, Festa: that’s part of the advice.
Rees to be sworn in this afternoon.
I wonder, in the spirit of Superman v. Godzilla pissing contests, whether Iemma has a shot at worst NSW Premier evah.
And yes, I’m looking at you, Liam.
Stuff via this morning’s print SMH: Carmel Tebbutt is from the Left faction, which traditionally appoints the deputy. She doesn’t stink, so they begged her to take the spot. Rumour was this morning that Sartor was to be given the push along with Costa, Meagher and some other under-performers.
If Rees has half a chance the ALP might actually come out very well — the Right faction seems to be in chaos, and as they supplied most of the nongs to the front bench and kept them there, locking out fresh talent and making the voters more and more angry, chaos must be good. If Rees has a fairly free hand to pick talent, there is enough time to turn things around before the next election. O’Farrell has no innate appeal to the voters and hasn’t had any traction despite the shemozzle in our government.
Mention of Costa’s Cafe in NSW invariably elicits the line, “Here’s yer #$%&@#$ coffee!”
And John Watkins’ revenge is probably a bit sweeter than he ever hoped!
Apparently Rees was a member of the Parramatta Cycling Club in the 80’s and 90’s and a pretty good bike racer, something Sarah Palin is not, so he’s totally qualified to be Premier.
Yes well. There is nothing like the spectre of eminent (political) death to concentrate the mind. Minds have been concentrated very sharply in the NSW Parliamentary ALP, particularly since the announcement of a by-eleciton in the seat of Ryde in around six weeks time, and they have taken the necessary steps.
The political executions announced today should concentrate parliamentary minds in the ALP for a while. Less a case of ’shoot one-educate thousands-as shoot three and educate four whole political generations.
From the SMH link - ” It is understood the right- wing powerbrokers Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid were orch-estrating a spill last night to have the Community Services Minister, Kevin Greene, Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, and Lands Minister, Tony Kelly, dumped to make way for right-wing rising stars Michael Daley, Tanya Gadiel and Steve Whan. Mr Tripodi denied he was pushing for cabinet changes.
Regardless, Mr Sartor will be removed from planning and could be given the health portfolio, while Eric Roozendaal is expected to keep roads. Kristina Keneally and Verity Firth will be promoted.”
‘
So what has really changed if Fast Eddie Obeid is still the power broker? Nothing except the mask used to hide the hideous face of the NSW RIGHT Faction.
Fast Eddie will be going sooon, and Tripodi? Well you don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing. Watch who emerges as the Right’s factional front man. It won’t be the man from Orange Grove.
Woo hoo.
Oh god….someone mentioned Sartor and Health in the same sentence…?!
I can just see it…patient lying on a stretcher in the bus shelter outside a crowded hospital…in the background
Frank Sartor is explaining how the new method of using buses to transfer critical patients is leading to an “optimisation of health resources with attendent synergies”.
/derail
Sorry everyone, did my review the other day and got a bit lost in the wank-word bingo.
/rerail
Guess he could follow his current style of planning and sell all the public hospitals to whomever contributes the most…$ that is…
/end of sarcasm
Been listening to ABC Sydney this arvo (and making the Geek’s birthday cake). John Watkins claims that Iemma was rolled by members of his faction because they were the deadwood facing demotion. Of course Watkins isn’t part of that faction, but it wouldn’t be too hard to work out the names. The Right didn’t have a replacement for Iemma, hence the unanimous election of a Left member. This is a problem of the Right in general; they simply don’t do succession planning. Neither did the NSW Liberal Party, and that’s why they’ve been so long in opposition.
And the really good news is that Rees has confirmed at his press conference that Costa will not be in the new Cabinet. Of course, it would have been electoral suicide to keep him!
Interesting that Rees & Tebbutt headed straight off to be sworn in — our Governor is away, so the duty devolved to the Chief Justice. Wonder were they thinking that they’d better move fast before the boofheads on the Right get themselves sorted out?
Awesome day.
Leadership is a quality entirely separate, but until that’s been proved I’ll take a garbo and “life experience” over an isolated lawyer feeding off others’ minds and doings any day, on account of that phrase being used confidently alone.
Bring on less, pretty, articulate, words, and let’s have some quality NSW rumble - action - where it matters.
#36,I’ll go along with that..
Uncle Festa got sacked, Lurch resigned and now we have ‘thing’.
WTF? On ABC Stateline a few minutes ago, Quentin asked Rees about the privatisation.
Rees repeated what he’d said earlier, “Parliament and the people have already spoken on that issue”, which I would have interpreted as meaning that the issue was dead.
But then he added “Retail privatisation will go ahead”.
It’s good news that Costa and Iemma are now gone. However, what really matters to me are the policies that are implemented. If it’s going to be more of the same in terms of policy (and I sincerely hope that it isn’t), then this change of leadership will just be window dressing.
Rees confirmed that they’ll go ahead with the Desalination Plant. Sydney’s dam levels are above 65% full. To go ahead with this project would be an outrageous waste of money, energy and cause water bills to rise uneccessarily.
Alastair, I thought the desal contracts had been signed ages ago.
RE policy: I have a librarian’s view of the world, I suppose, but a lot of the trouble in Health, DOCS and Transport in particular seems to me to come down to information not being shared effectively, plus some ineptitude at senior levels (Chicken? Egg?) and sometimes just poor structures. The relationship between Transport and the RTA needs to be looked at, for example, and I have no doubt that there is trouble sharing information between DOCS, Education, Health and Justice, which is a huge problem for those people who have multiple difficulties in life.
Iemma’s Untergang
Made 3 months ago! (via Peter Martin)
Let the culture war framing begin!
Caroline Overington.
You’d be forgiven if you thought today’s SMH editorial was written by Costa.
Electricity privatisation was first sold as a boost to infrastructure that wouldn’t derail the budget, and now it has derailed the budget. Costa is a blowhard and Iemma is a loser for being the one person in NSW other than the said editorial-writer who couldn’t see through him.
Trouble is that there are about a dozen dead-wood ministers in the NSW government. Apart from David Borger and Virginia Judge, there is nobody who could really make the case that they deserve a place ahead of someone already there. Tanya Gadiel is your garden-variety hack and for her to become a minister would be six-of-one, half-a-dozen etc., exactly the image Rees would not hope to convey.
Rees can’t rely on being a staffer as a substitute for political experience. He gets shouty when he’s rattled and I do not believe him on Orkopolous. This is a brittle government and you need a cuddly bridge-builder after so much blood has been spilt: Rees is about as cuddly as a brown snake. Let us have no vision bullshit: get the trains working and stop the hospitals haemorrhaging Nathan, and Labor might be in with a chance. Yep, do the right thing: it’s the only thing Labor hasn’t tried.
After the byelections for Ryde and Port Macquarie the Coalition will have two more seats, Sartor and Tripodi won’t go because that would require more decency than either has, the ministry will be coming to terms with their new portfolios, and O’Farrell will do them slowly.
Sam@6: yeah, and do what?
Chookie@35: “Interesting that Rees & Tebbutt headed straight off to be sworn in — our Governor is away, so the duty devolved to the Chief Justice. Wonder were they thinking that they’d better move fast before the boofheads on the Right get themselves sorted out?” - very Whitlam & Barnard if you ask me, except without the bold decision-making.
Has there been a cartoon yet on the Garbo tipping out Iemma and Costa?
“Has there been a cartoon yet on the Garbo tipping out Iemma and Costa?”
LOL That’s a great idea!
“Sartor and Tripodi won’t go because that would require more decency than either has,…..”
.
From this morning’s SMH -”Joe Tripodi retains Ports and Waterways, and Regulatory Reform, but adds the title of Finance Minister and Infrastructure Minister.”
Oh lucky state - no possibility of corruption now it there?
.
Lee Rhiannon commented this morning that unless you get rid of Obeid and Tripodi nothing will change.This is a hopeless and cynical start for Rees but I guess he is powerless to do otherwise. Where is the blogger who will go after Obeid?