Yesterday Barry O'Farrell delivered the last rites to the NSW Government. Some conventional wisdom peddlers will state that the loss is due to natural political cycles. But as Luke Foley said on the ABC on election night: this is more than a conventional political cycle. A conventional political cycle would see Labor lose an election (like Victoria), not be completely annihilated like this.
There's a risk that this loss will prove to be structurally damaging to the Labor Party in NSW.
For starters, there's the lack of Labor MP's. This makes opposition more difficult, when nearly the entire parliamentary delegation will have to be shadow ministers.
Secondly, the Sussex Street Centre Unity machine that NSW Labor nurtured for over seventy years has been severely weakened by the events of the past 4 years. It may yet implode on itself. This would be a good thing. But until this machine is replaced by something else, there are some rocky roads ahead.
How did this all happen? It's true that much of the damage was self-inflicted. It's also true that Barry O'Farrell is a very underestimated politician. But before we touch on those things, it's important to understand a bit of history.
The NSW Labor Machine
NSW Labor has been in government for about 50 of the last 70 years. This is not an accident. It has consciously nurtured structural bases of power in NSW over many decades, both electoral power and money power.
Over long periods of government in office, NSW Labor has built up a large amount of connections in the public service. Departmental heads, senior advisors, and board directors of state-owned enterprises are often linked to the ALP in NSW. On Insiders on Sunday morning, Gerard Henderson called it a "Mates-ocracy". At the liberal party's campaign launch, Tony Abbott called it a "stinking patronage machine". Few within the party would disagree with this, especially those on the ALP Left.
So what exactly is this machine? It's simple - the ALP machine is an electoral coalition of right wing mates backed by powerful stakeholders. At various stages over the last 70 years, the NSW ALP has had backing from the Catholic Church, the Clubs industry, the Hotels Association, the gambling industry, the racing industry, property developers, real estate agents, and many other sections of the business community. It has also had the institutional backing of Unions, particularly right wing unions like the TWU, SDA, HSU and AWU.
The NSW Labor party has also been wise to seek out the support of many migrant communities in Sydney, to join their electoral coalition. In the western suburbs of Sydney, NSW Labor was able to tap into the concerns of migrants and bring them into its base.
People associated with many of the above groups belong to the Centre Unity faction - also known as the NSW Right. This is the faction that has had the numbers in NSW for a long time. It's no secret how it works. The aforementioned groups provide money, people, and votes - all of which the ALP uses to get itself re-elected. In return, the ALP passes policies friendly to these groups. To think anything else is completely naive. It's a 21st century Tammany Hall.
It's easy to see, with such a huge amount of institutional backing, how NSW Labor became the best resourced, most effective political machine in the country, delivering itself power over and over again.
The only problem has been this - Centre Unity is itself now an unstable political machine, struggling to justify its existence in the 21st century. It's malaise has been the Labor Party's malaise.
Decline of the NSW Right?
The NSW Right is being pulled in several directions, to such an extent that it doesn't know what it stands for any more.
Sixty years ago the faction did have a clear purpose - to oppose communist influence in trade unions, and to propose moderate, electorally successful (although still distinctly Labor) policies - as a way of keeping out liberal governments that would attack unions, Catholics, and later migrants. In other words, Centre Unity was the political coalition that opposed commies on the left and conservatives on the right.
But after the fall of the Berlin Wall, much of this reason for existence was undermined. A large debate then went on about what the right should stand for. Some wanted it to be more socially progressive, especially in its younger ranks. This rankled with old-school Catholics and many migrant groups, who correctly judge the political values of their communities as more conservative, and say that the party must accommodate and reflect those views in order to maintain its structural advantage.
People like Michael Costa wanted to turn the faction into the country's biggest cheerleader of neoliberalism. This doesn't sit well with the union movement, who know that it's generally their union members who lose out. It also clashes with the views of Labor's base working class voters. Unions themselves don't want to give up their power because they fear what a non-union dominated Labor party would look like.
And then of course - the stinking patronage machine. Big donors want to continue to have access and influence in order to make money. Property developers in particular. This clashes with the Labor party's progressive beliefs about big monied interests.
Where is the NSW Right faction now?
Most NSW Right faction leaders want the faction to continue to run the party with scant regard to the health of its grassroots. This clashes with the modern view of campaigning found in the Labor Party's 2010 National Review, which identifies the importance of community organising, local engagement, and involving rank and file Labor supporters in party decision making as much as possible.
In the absence of ideas or one clear and consistent direction, the faction merely acts as a soulless factional patronage machine without any clear ideology. It gets wheeled out at election time to raise funds and run attack ads. Then it disappears for a few years, quietly dishing out favours to mates and picking up a few barnacles as it sails aimlessly onward.
Because it doesn't know what it stands for (and it's not a machine with deep community links), the faction has to ask focus groups to figure out what to say. This would be softened somewhat if there was a stronger ALP Left faction. But sadly, the left is on the decline too - bleeding volunteers and young people to The Greens.
It's clear that this can't go on. Now that the ALP is out of government, it can't rely on big donors any more. It must rely on a grassroots base. But the ALP has been a party without members for many years now, due to Centre Unity's iron fist.
Now that its tentacles of influence have been removed from government and other power bases in NSW, the faction is going to seriously struggle. And rightly so! There's no point persisting with a political machine unable to justify its existence in 2011. The machine has lived well past its use-by date, despite what some of the hacks will try to say. Anyone who tries to defend it is on the wrong side of history.
Barry O'Farrell is underestimated
Barry O'Farrell understands much of the above. O'Farrell understands that his ability to run a long term government depends on his ability to keep key stakeholders on his side, while undermining any other structural support bases for Labor. Everything he's done over the past 4 years as opposition leader can be viewed through one prism: O'Farrell has maximised political damage to the ALP at any possible opportunity.
Going back to 2008 - he took a highly unprincipled decision (from a liberal point of view) to oppose the sale of electricity assets. He was highly criticised for that decision by many conservatives, but there can be little doubt that O'Farrell's decision ruined the political careers of Michael Costa and Morris Iemma. It also fatally weakened the state government, which never recovered in polling.
Since 2008, the Coalition has done some quiet, but very hard work getting key stakeholders on the coalitions side. Property developers sent a lot of money supporting the National Party, as did the clubs industry and racing industry. Even got the NRL on side back in December. One of his first acts as premier may be to beef up donations laws to more greatly restrict election spending by unions.
Most smartly of all, he moved to detoxify the liberal party's image in western sydney that it only stuck up for racist rednecks, or white men in pinstripe suits. Moderate candidates with local migrant backgrounds were preselected, like Tony Issa and Dai Le. O'Farrell went wining and dining with many migrant communities and asked for their support. He consciously tried to distance the state liberal brand from the federal liberal party (and ALP), and it worked. He was also assisted in this task by federal Labor's abandonment of multiculturalism at the last federal election.
The liberals have finally realised that some migrant groups are conservative, and would ordinarily vote liberal on their values if the ALP hadn't stuck up for multiculturalism. John Howard and Pauline Hanson drove many of these voters away from right wing politics - Barry has won some of them back.
Barry O'Farrell won the election by doing exactly the same thing NSW Labor has done over the years. Appear moderate. Win key stakeholders. Appeal to Sydney's large migrant community. Run negative campaigns against your opponent. It's not the most original strategy for winning government, but it's highly effective, and it worked.
The people left voting for Labor are people who truly do rely on Labor - poorer workers, unionists, public housing tenants, some migrants and the long term unemployed. Basically everyone else went to the liberal party.
Where to from here?
The election result was a catastrophe but it will allow once and for all for a debate about party reform to be had. John Robertson is likely to be made leader - he comes from a working class union background, and he understands grassroots campaigning in and out. In 2007 he and Adam Kerslake co-ordinated the Your Rights at Work campaign in NSW. He will hopefully understand the need for change. On the other hand, he will be in debt to the right wing machine that gave him his upper house spot, arranged for him to be made the candidate in Blacktown, and then sent every right wing hack and unionist in NSW to go and campaign for him.
He will not automatically do the right thing any more than Sussex Street or the other leadership candidiates. He must be forced to do it like everyone else.
On a broader point, Labor must soon make a choice about its future direction. Does it want to win the next election by doing what O'Farrell did, rebulding the lost political machine, the patronage network? I argue that now is the time when we can replace the rotten machine with something better.
We must reform and grow as a grassroots organisation
Now that Labor is out of power right across Sydney and NSW, it needs to rebuild a grassroots campaign network capable of running a huge grassroots campaign in every seat. That's not just hard, it's necessary. Labor only has about 20 seats. You need 47 to form government. That's a lot of seats we need to win back, and not a lot of money or people to do it with.
It's not a coincidence that some of the best ALP results in 2011 came in places where an active campaign was run with many volunteers. Huge Labor campaigns in Marrickville, Maroubra, Toongabbie, Wallsend, Granville and Blacktown helped Labor win seats or at least keep the swing lower. The same thing happened at the federal election in seats like Robertson and Lindsay, which saved the Gillard government.
This sort of saturation campaigning on the ground actually works - but it was only made possible because the party strictly prioritised where to send it's already thinning membership base to campaign. Everywhere else had no campaign at all, and the consequences of that were obvious. Bathurst swung over 30%. Parramatta by 29%. Resources were pulled from these seats ages ago, because there just wasn't enough money or volunteers to go around.
There's only one solution - more people. In particular, more ALP members. It's not enough to wheel out a whole bunch of Union Organisers at election time to run around marginal seats. That's a failure in itself, because it's an admission that we have nobody in the community. We must have a local community presence or we'll be dead.
If we're to be a grassroots movement, we have to actually address the real reasons people don't join the ALP and/or stick around. These come back to rules, the National Review 2010, and the way the NSW has run the party with an iron fist - crushing democracy and crushing hopes for a more progressive Labor party. These are the elephants in the room, and all players must recognise them.
The Sussex Street machine will no doubt attempt to cling on to its structural control of the party. It will propose some reforms, but none that threaten its control. Power is never given - it must be taken. This will require a grassroots campaign in itself - the left must be active and it must grow. Otherwise decisions will be taken without its input, and nothing will change.
Real change means the National Review 2010 being implemented in full, as a bare minimum. Preselection powers should be returned fully to membership, and Sussex Street should give up its veto. Members of the executive and conference delegations must all be elected. Without these things, people will still see no value in getting involved. Labor is supposed to be a party that believes in social democracy, but it's probably the least democratic political party of its type in the world.
Once this is done, the next step will be to regain local councils in NSW. There are council elections in NSW next year, and that will be a good opportunity for the party to come up with a consistent local government agenda that can be campaigned on at the grassroots in local communities. That can be a way we can re-engage people to get involved. That will be the key to oppose the likely liberal and national party orgy on some issues around local government matters.
There's also a practical reason for this - the next council elections after that won't be until 2016. With an O'Farrell re-election likely in 2015, (plus a possible Gillard defeat somewhere before then), that's five solid years in the doghouse in NSW. That amount of time spent out of any public office will be enormously damaging to the party and, perhaps, the state.
After council elections, we should do as Sam Dastyari proposed, and exploit some of the ideas the coalition have, like petitions to parliament to trigger parliamentary debates. Those would be great ways to assist the parliamentary labor party to set the agenda, despite its low amount of numbers.
To do all of this, we have to go back to our political roots - standing up for workers rights, cost of living issues, public services, and local community concerns. We can't do this without reform and fast change. It will be tough to regain credibility that quickly - it requires a real Clause IV moment, followed by a fundamental change in the way things are run. John Robertson may be the person to do this, but grassroots pressure still needs to be there from below to make it a reality.
There's a lot of work to do, and this moment seems dark. But this is an opportunity as much as a threat, to create something more hopeful out of the ashes. It need not be a Blue South Wales for long if we force our way down the right path.
Showing posts with label NSW Liberals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NSW Liberals. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Early Predictions for the 2011 state election
With the federal election now done and dusted, the attention of voters in NSW will be on the state election to be held next year.
Opinion polling has been absolutely horrid for NSW Labor for most of its current term in office, as you can see from the wikipedia website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_state_election,_2011
As you can see, at the last election Labor won exactly 39% of the primary vote. Despite how unpopular the state government was, the coalition could only scrape together 37% (with 26% belonging to the liberals and 10% belonging to the Nationals). The greens polled about 8%, and there was a high vote for independents, reflecting the six that currently sit in parliament.
(One thing before we continue - newspoll has the nationals vote on 5%, even though they got double that at the last state election. this is probably a reflection of the places newspoll call - which would most likely be urban seats where the liberals are running. The combined coalition vote, however, should still be reasonably correct. The nationals are hardly going to lose 5% of their vote compared to last time - if anything it will increase).
The beginning of the rot began to occur in around about May 2008. This was the time where anger about electricity privatisation was at its highest. Around that time, NSW Labor conference was held, and there was much public bloodletting on display. Labor's primary vote in polling fell down to around 32% - a 7% swing away from labor, which washed out into a 52-48 lead for the coalition. At this stage, the situation was bad, but not unsalvageable.
The real damage began in September 2008, when privatisation fell over and Morris Iemma was replaced as premier by Nathan Rees. Immediately, Labor's primary vote fell to 29% - a 10% swing from 2007. The coalition's combined primary vote rose to 42% - an increase of 6%. The greens vote also spiked up 4 points. This meant that Labor was bleeding voters both ways - 40% were disaffected Labor voters going to the greens, and the other 60% were going to the coalition. In december 2008, Labor's vote went to 26% - a record low.
During 2009, the Nathan Rees experiment seemed to have settled things down. labor's vote rose again and hovered around the low 30's for the rest of the year. The coalition's vote was up to around 41%.
Such polling would still have seen Labor headed for a solid defeat. But worse was to follow later.
In december, Rees himself was knifed. Immediately Labor's vote plummeted back to 26%. It would briefly revive in the new year to back around 30%, but it has since falled back to 25% in the past two newspolls (taken over the past 4 months).
Since Keneally took over as premier, Labor's primary vote has been between 25%-30%. If we take the average, that's about 27%. The last two polls have had Labor at 25-26%.
That result represents a whopping 12-13% swing away from Labor on the primary vote. About 8-9% of it seems to be going straight to the liberals. And the rest has gone to the greens, up about 4-5%.
What does that mean for the election?
Given how awful these polls are, how bad can it really get for NSW labor?
Obviously, if this polling was reflected on election day 2011, Labor would be devastated. Exactly how bad would it get?
Well, firstly we need to consider a couple of variables.
Federal election
In metropolitan Sydney, Labor suffered absolutely enourmous swings at the federal election. In many safe Labor seats, there were primary vote swings away from Labor of anywhere between 7-11% - and some were even bigger. Labor could not perform well anywhere. The reasons for it are complicated and varied. But I honestly believe that if people were willing to kick the federal government by that much, they must also be willing to kick an even more unpopular state government.
The Greens vote - where will it increase?
It will be important to also make a distiction in the polling. The high greens vote may very well be a reflection of a state wide trend. Or it may not. One thing we have to take into consideration is that the greens vote is likely to increase hugely in the inner city - especially in seats like Balmain and Marrickville.
The big question of this election won't be how big the anti-labor swing will be on the primary vote. We now know that consistently there has been a 9-14% away from the ALP in polling since Keneally was premier. During Rees's reign, the swing was anywhere between 7-14%.
The big question will be - if Labor's vote drops by that much, where will the swing go? How much will go to the liberals, and how much will go to the greens? And in what seats will there be differences?
Balmain and Marrickville
One reason why we need to be cautious about the higher greens vote in polling is that these two seats are likely to fall to the greens. This could be skewing the current opinion polling. The liberal vote may in fact be even stronger than that in some areas.
At the last state election, there was a swing against Labor, but the vast majority of it in both seats went to the greens. If the same ratio was reflected this time, a 12% swing against Labor would go to the greens by about 8%. The rest would go to the liberals - but given the liberals will likely preference labor behind the greens, and the greens will likely finish ahead of the liberals, any preferences will go from liberal to green. An 8% swing to the greens would see them easily unseat Verity Firth in Balmain and would put Carmel Tebbutt in big trouble in Marrickville.
Immediately Labor loses 2 seats and would only need to lose 2 more to see it's majority gone.
The Rest of NSW - Coalition sweep
However, what we might find in the rest of Sydney is that the swing to the greens is much smaller - perhaps even less than the uniform swing the current polls predict. The liberals could get a much bigger ratio of the swing.
In the recent penrith byelection, there was a 25% swing away from Labor on primaries - double the current swing in polling (probably reflecting the scandal surrounding Karen Paluzzano). Interestingly though, although the swing was double current opinion polling, the actual ratio of where the anti-labor swing went wa very reflective of opinin polling. 18% of it went to the liberals. Most of the rest went to the greens. That very accurately reflects polling, where 3/4 of the anti-labor swing seems to be picked up by the coalition with the rest going to the greens.
But tere is another problem for Labor - optional preferentia voting. In penrith, 65% of greens voters decided not to direct preferences - what's called "exhausted preferences". Only 21% of greens voters preferenced Labor. 14% preferenced the liberals. This made the anti-labor swing worse.
What's the scenario?
If we consider the ratio - the liberals got about 75% of the anti-labor swing in penrith. Incidentally, this also happened in quite a few sydney seats at the federal election. And it's being reflected in current opinion polling.
If the anti-labor swing on the primary vote is 13%, we would see almost 9.75% of that swing belong to the liberals, with 3.25% of the swing going to the greens. (note: in Balmain and Marrickville this would be the other way around).
If greens preferences exhaust at the same rates as Penrith, Labor would be in a world of hurt.
If we remove Balmain and Marrickville - a uniform swing of that magnitude (9.75% to the libs and 3.25% greens) across the state would see Labor lose 25 seats - that is - every seat on the pendulum up to (and possibly including) the seat of Oatley (but not including Macquarie Fields, which has already had a big byelection swing in 2008 and probably won't happen again - and a few other seats where Labor went up against independents last time), plus balmain and marrickville to the greens.
Under the above scenario, Labor would lose the following seats:
Miranda
Menai
Wollondilly (Phil Costa)
Camden
Gosford
The Entrance (Grant McBride)
Monaro (Steve Whan)
Londonderry
Wyong
Coogee (Paul Pearce)
Drummoyne (Angela D'Amore)
Heathcote (Paul McLeay)
Riverstone (John Aquilina)
Rockdale (Frank Sartor)
Swansea
Blue Mountains
Granville (David Borger)
Mulgoa
Kiama (Matt Brown)
Cessnock
Bathurst
Parramatta
East Hills
Balmain (Veity Firth) - to the greens
Marrickville (Carmel Tebbutt) - to the greens
Labor would lose 25 seats and most of its ministerial talent.
That would leave it with 25 seats in the lower house. The coalition would have 60 (+23), te Greens would have 2 (+2) and Independents would retain 6 (unchanged).
A slightly bigger swing in some individual seats towards the liberals could also see Labor lose:
Oatley (Kevin Greene)
Toongabbie (Nathan Rees)
Strathfield (Virginia Judge)
Smithfield
Wallsend
Maroubra (Michael Daley)
Kogorah (Cherie Burton)
So when the media have been saying Labor could lose 20 seats - that scenario is actually believable on all polling done in the last 9 months - and even beforehand.
Look out, NSW Labor.
Opinion polling has been absolutely horrid for NSW Labor for most of its current term in office, as you can see from the wikipedia website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_state_election,_2011
As you can see, at the last election Labor won exactly 39% of the primary vote. Despite how unpopular the state government was, the coalition could only scrape together 37% (with 26% belonging to the liberals and 10% belonging to the Nationals). The greens polled about 8%, and there was a high vote for independents, reflecting the six that currently sit in parliament.
(One thing before we continue - newspoll has the nationals vote on 5%, even though they got double that at the last state election. this is probably a reflection of the places newspoll call - which would most likely be urban seats where the liberals are running. The combined coalition vote, however, should still be reasonably correct. The nationals are hardly going to lose 5% of their vote compared to last time - if anything it will increase).
The beginning of the rot began to occur in around about May 2008. This was the time where anger about electricity privatisation was at its highest. Around that time, NSW Labor conference was held, and there was much public bloodletting on display. Labor's primary vote in polling fell down to around 32% - a 7% swing away from labor, which washed out into a 52-48 lead for the coalition. At this stage, the situation was bad, but not unsalvageable.
The real damage began in September 2008, when privatisation fell over and Morris Iemma was replaced as premier by Nathan Rees. Immediately, Labor's primary vote fell to 29% - a 10% swing from 2007. The coalition's combined primary vote rose to 42% - an increase of 6%. The greens vote also spiked up 4 points. This meant that Labor was bleeding voters both ways - 40% were disaffected Labor voters going to the greens, and the other 60% were going to the coalition. In december 2008, Labor's vote went to 26% - a record low.
During 2009, the Nathan Rees experiment seemed to have settled things down. labor's vote rose again and hovered around the low 30's for the rest of the year. The coalition's vote was up to around 41%.
Such polling would still have seen Labor headed for a solid defeat. But worse was to follow later.
In december, Rees himself was knifed. Immediately Labor's vote plummeted back to 26%. It would briefly revive in the new year to back around 30%, but it has since falled back to 25% in the past two newspolls (taken over the past 4 months).
Since Keneally took over as premier, Labor's primary vote has been between 25%-30%. If we take the average, that's about 27%. The last two polls have had Labor at 25-26%.
That result represents a whopping 12-13% swing away from Labor on the primary vote. About 8-9% of it seems to be going straight to the liberals. And the rest has gone to the greens, up about 4-5%.
What does that mean for the election?
Given how awful these polls are, how bad can it really get for NSW labor?
Obviously, if this polling was reflected on election day 2011, Labor would be devastated. Exactly how bad would it get?
Well, firstly we need to consider a couple of variables.
Federal election
In metropolitan Sydney, Labor suffered absolutely enourmous swings at the federal election. In many safe Labor seats, there were primary vote swings away from Labor of anywhere between 7-11% - and some were even bigger. Labor could not perform well anywhere. The reasons for it are complicated and varied. But I honestly believe that if people were willing to kick the federal government by that much, they must also be willing to kick an even more unpopular state government.
The Greens vote - where will it increase?
It will be important to also make a distiction in the polling. The high greens vote may very well be a reflection of a state wide trend. Or it may not. One thing we have to take into consideration is that the greens vote is likely to increase hugely in the inner city - especially in seats like Balmain and Marrickville.
The big question of this election won't be how big the anti-labor swing will be on the primary vote. We now know that consistently there has been a 9-14% away from the ALP in polling since Keneally was premier. During Rees's reign, the swing was anywhere between 7-14%.
The big question will be - if Labor's vote drops by that much, where will the swing go? How much will go to the liberals, and how much will go to the greens? And in what seats will there be differences?
Balmain and Marrickville
One reason why we need to be cautious about the higher greens vote in polling is that these two seats are likely to fall to the greens. This could be skewing the current opinion polling. The liberal vote may in fact be even stronger than that in some areas.
At the last state election, there was a swing against Labor, but the vast majority of it in both seats went to the greens. If the same ratio was reflected this time, a 12% swing against Labor would go to the greens by about 8%. The rest would go to the liberals - but given the liberals will likely preference labor behind the greens, and the greens will likely finish ahead of the liberals, any preferences will go from liberal to green. An 8% swing to the greens would see them easily unseat Verity Firth in Balmain and would put Carmel Tebbutt in big trouble in Marrickville.
Immediately Labor loses 2 seats and would only need to lose 2 more to see it's majority gone.
The Rest of NSW - Coalition sweep
However, what we might find in the rest of Sydney is that the swing to the greens is much smaller - perhaps even less than the uniform swing the current polls predict. The liberals could get a much bigger ratio of the swing.
In the recent penrith byelection, there was a 25% swing away from Labor on primaries - double the current swing in polling (probably reflecting the scandal surrounding Karen Paluzzano). Interestingly though, although the swing was double current opinion polling, the actual ratio of where the anti-labor swing went wa very reflective of opinin polling. 18% of it went to the liberals. Most of the rest went to the greens. That very accurately reflects polling, where 3/4 of the anti-labor swing seems to be picked up by the coalition with the rest going to the greens.
But tere is another problem for Labor - optional preferentia voting. In penrith, 65% of greens voters decided not to direct preferences - what's called "exhausted preferences". Only 21% of greens voters preferenced Labor. 14% preferenced the liberals. This made the anti-labor swing worse.
What's the scenario?
If we consider the ratio - the liberals got about 75% of the anti-labor swing in penrith. Incidentally, this also happened in quite a few sydney seats at the federal election. And it's being reflected in current opinion polling.
If the anti-labor swing on the primary vote is 13%, we would see almost 9.75% of that swing belong to the liberals, with 3.25% of the swing going to the greens. (note: in Balmain and Marrickville this would be the other way around).
If greens preferences exhaust at the same rates as Penrith, Labor would be in a world of hurt.
If we remove Balmain and Marrickville - a uniform swing of that magnitude (9.75% to the libs and 3.25% greens) across the state would see Labor lose 25 seats - that is - every seat on the pendulum up to (and possibly including) the seat of Oatley (but not including Macquarie Fields, which has already had a big byelection swing in 2008 and probably won't happen again - and a few other seats where Labor went up against independents last time), plus balmain and marrickville to the greens.
Under the above scenario, Labor would lose the following seats:
Miranda
Menai
Wollondilly (Phil Costa)
Camden
Gosford
The Entrance (Grant McBride)
Monaro (Steve Whan)
Londonderry
Wyong
Coogee (Paul Pearce)
Drummoyne (Angela D'Amore)
Heathcote (Paul McLeay)
Riverstone (John Aquilina)
Rockdale (Frank Sartor)
Swansea
Blue Mountains
Granville (David Borger)
Mulgoa
Kiama (Matt Brown)
Cessnock
Bathurst
Parramatta
East Hills
Balmain (Veity Firth) - to the greens
Marrickville (Carmel Tebbutt) - to the greens
Labor would lose 25 seats and most of its ministerial talent.
That would leave it with 25 seats in the lower house. The coalition would have 60 (+23), te Greens would have 2 (+2) and Independents would retain 6 (unchanged).
A slightly bigger swing in some individual seats towards the liberals could also see Labor lose:
Oatley (Kevin Greene)
Toongabbie (Nathan Rees)
Strathfield (Virginia Judge)
Smithfield
Wallsend
Maroubra (Michael Daley)
Kogorah (Cherie Burton)
So when the media have been saying Labor could lose 20 seats - that scenario is actually believable on all polling done in the last 9 months - and even beforehand.
Look out, NSW Labor.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
New South Wales - a 1970's political system in a 21st century state
Another week, another scandal in the New South Wales government. This time, the media are the ones guilty of over-reach. But the overwhelming impression voters still get is that our political system is broken.
The meme that "our politics is broken" is often a meme that politicians run. At times, it isn't necessarily true, or the claims are exaggerated.
But if you were to ask about the state of politics in New South Wales, I doubt you'd find many people who disputed it. Of all the governments in Australia, the NSW state government stinks the worst - and you probably wouldn't find much in the way of honourable or saintly conduct in local government either.
Local governments are regularly mired in corruption scandals. Influential people are able to get planning approval for all sorts of major projets with little active community consultation. When developers can't get what they want, like with the Coogee Bay Hotel redevelopment, they beef it up to exploit part 3A (the "state significant development" section) of state government planning rules to bypass all council involvement, and all community consultation.
The hotels lobby actively lobbies the government to kill arts, culture and live music and allow them to introduce more poker machines that take money away from the elderly, the poor and the addicted.
Property developers donate money to political parties (especially the incumbent one), and then lobby furiously to get land rezoned for development. Ironically, this is a product of the state government's own making, by neglecting to release enough land, thus pushing up house prices. They regularly win friends and influence people in the labor party. Some have stopped bothering trying to conceal their connections.
As many as four government ministers have been sacked or resigned over the past 4 years over sex scandals. Milton Orkopolous was defrocked for sexually abusing teenage boys. A second was accused of domestic abuse. Less than a week into Rees' reign, Matt Brown allegedly sexually harrassed people in his office. A vindictive journalist then exposed David Campbell visiting a gay sex club. That journalist was later exposed by Crikey of having a vendetta against the Labor Party for his poor treatment as a short lived spin doctor under Iemma - and for the poor treatment of Reba Meagher - a rare case of someone being sacked for genuine incompetence.
The New South Wales government has had 4 premiers in the past 6 years. Bob Carr resigned with an impeccable sense of timing. Morris Iemma resigned and took a number of discredited ideologues with him. Nathan Rees was ousted for few other reasons apart from coming from the wrong ALP faction. Kristina Keneally has surprised many with her competence, my included, but she is struggling to drag the very dead, very heavy weight of her colleagues to the polls. At each leadership change, two catholic men, one of them very rich, have effectively had the biggest say. The media now blatantly make up stories - and yet even the fake ones sound plausible.
And where has the opposition been? Well, in a similar state.
Kerry Chikarovski led the liberals to a decimation in 1999. John Brogdon was thrown to the wolves far too early in 2003. Two years later, some right wing religious crazies in his party spread rumours that he had sexually assaulted a woman at a party. He went back to his office and attempted suicide. Three weeks later he was replaced by a dribbly guy who was more frequently spotted in his red budgie smugglers than a suit.
As recently as last year, when they were virtually unassailable in the polls, the liberals were still having internal factional wars between two subfactions of the extremist hillsong/opus dei right. During the fight, Federal MP Alex Hawke stated that "nobody joins the liberal party to decriminalise homosexuality". And who is their leader? Barry O'Farrell.
Compared to everyone else, he looks like a saint, for the sole reason that he is a weak man who has done absolutely nothing and hasn't been brave enough. Which compared to anything else...
And all through this - where's the good policy in the public interest? What has the government actually done in the last 5 years that merits applause? MyZone? They nearly buggered that one up too. The Lane Cove Tunnel? The operator nearly went broke recently. And they still managed to build it without enough lanes.
Public Transport? A new plan every year, and hundreds of millions wasted on the Metro, but still no north west or south west metro. Public hospitals? Shortages of doctors, nurses, and funding have led to bed shortages and high waiting lists. The environment?
Well, there was one win recently - they stopped building a coal mine in the hunter. Why? Was it because the government decided it was bad for the environment? Well, no. It was because Alan Jones, John Singleton and a few other high flyers had friends up there who convinced the government that it was a major horse ranch area and furiously lobbied the government for 5 years. Thank you, racing and gaming industry, for your wonderful environmentalism!
Meanwhile, coal mines damage the environment north west of wollongong.
Gay marriage? the catholic right in the ALP have vetoed that over and over again. Abortion is still technically on the statute books as a crime for the same reason.
Karyn Paluzzano? Busted for corrupt use of her office. Nobody in the Labor party believes it's an isolated incident, me included.
The Michael McGurk scandal? We had the farcical parliamentary hearings into tapes that turned up nothing. Graeme Richardson even turned up and basically said "it's ok guys, I checked this one out, and it's not corrupt. Because believe me, if it was corrupt, I would know about it."
Seriously.
Is it any wonder that people in new south wales are keeling over in agony?
They are desperate for something, anything. The polls show the liberals way out in front. But it's not with any enthusiasm that they endorse Barry O'Farrell, but more of a resigned "well, it's the only thing we can do, but I doubt it'll change much". They've actually taken more of a liking to Kristina Keneally on a personal level. But yes, even she owes her career to questionable tactics by the Tripodi faction in the preselections for her seat of Heffron in 2003.
And the political parties themselves - what an awful mess. They ceased to be mass-based political organisations many years ago. The Liberal moderates have been comprehensively routed by the extreme right wing crazies in recent years. The only reason Barry is the leader is that some of these right wing crazies were politically savvy enough to stick a moderate in front of the camera. But you only have to look at the Young Liberals to see what the future looks like. The poor old young liberals only ever read two books when they join - the hillsong bible, and Atlas Shrugged. Whenever they have a debate with young labor, they literally walk across the road from Macquarie Bank, or from their father's law firm, and walk in the front door of macquarie street.
In 20 years, these guys will be running the government.
Young Labor isn't quite as bad. There are some very good people. But somehow, none of them get promoted to good positions. I wonder why? The senior party uses it more as an employment agency for MP and ministers offices. Come March 2011, all of these men and women will be out of a job.
The ALP is an empty vacuum of talent. All the sensible people went to work in federal politics or the union movement long ago. Most have given up trying to even save it. Many party members I speak to think that a loss would actually be good for the ALP. Bad for the state, perhaps, but good for the ALP. What a shocking thing to even think. Most of these members have been through the pain of watching someone parachuted in over the top of them by the executive, or having their views on policy ignored by factions.
Does anyone doubt that the moment labor loses the next election, a whole number of labor MP's will be exposed as corrupt frauds? Curring favour from business? Stabbing each other in the back? Selling government to the highest bidder? In the late 19th-century, if the founders of the labor party saw what was to become of their creation 100 years later, they would have been appalled. Is this supposed to be the party of the workers?
But does anyone seriously think the liberals will do any better? They're just as likely to be worse.
Who's going to save NSW?
The meme that "our politics is broken" is often a meme that politicians run. At times, it isn't necessarily true, or the claims are exaggerated.
But if you were to ask about the state of politics in New South Wales, I doubt you'd find many people who disputed it. Of all the governments in Australia, the NSW state government stinks the worst - and you probably wouldn't find much in the way of honourable or saintly conduct in local government either.
Local governments are regularly mired in corruption scandals. Influential people are able to get planning approval for all sorts of major projets with little active community consultation. When developers can't get what they want, like with the Coogee Bay Hotel redevelopment, they beef it up to exploit part 3A (the "state significant development" section) of state government planning rules to bypass all council involvement, and all community consultation.
The hotels lobby actively lobbies the government to kill arts, culture and live music and allow them to introduce more poker machines that take money away from the elderly, the poor and the addicted.
Property developers donate money to political parties (especially the incumbent one), and then lobby furiously to get land rezoned for development. Ironically, this is a product of the state government's own making, by neglecting to release enough land, thus pushing up house prices. They regularly win friends and influence people in the labor party. Some have stopped bothering trying to conceal their connections.
As many as four government ministers have been sacked or resigned over the past 4 years over sex scandals. Milton Orkopolous was defrocked for sexually abusing teenage boys. A second was accused of domestic abuse. Less than a week into Rees' reign, Matt Brown allegedly sexually harrassed people in his office. A vindictive journalist then exposed David Campbell visiting a gay sex club. That journalist was later exposed by Crikey of having a vendetta against the Labor Party for his poor treatment as a short lived spin doctor under Iemma - and for the poor treatment of Reba Meagher - a rare case of someone being sacked for genuine incompetence.
The New South Wales government has had 4 premiers in the past 6 years. Bob Carr resigned with an impeccable sense of timing. Morris Iemma resigned and took a number of discredited ideologues with him. Nathan Rees was ousted for few other reasons apart from coming from the wrong ALP faction. Kristina Keneally has surprised many with her competence, my included, but she is struggling to drag the very dead, very heavy weight of her colleagues to the polls. At each leadership change, two catholic men, one of them very rich, have effectively had the biggest say. The media now blatantly make up stories - and yet even the fake ones sound plausible.
And where has the opposition been? Well, in a similar state.
Kerry Chikarovski led the liberals to a decimation in 1999. John Brogdon was thrown to the wolves far too early in 2003. Two years later, some right wing religious crazies in his party spread rumours that he had sexually assaulted a woman at a party. He went back to his office and attempted suicide. Three weeks later he was replaced by a dribbly guy who was more frequently spotted in his red budgie smugglers than a suit.
As recently as last year, when they were virtually unassailable in the polls, the liberals were still having internal factional wars between two subfactions of the extremist hillsong/opus dei right. During the fight, Federal MP Alex Hawke stated that "nobody joins the liberal party to decriminalise homosexuality". And who is their leader? Barry O'Farrell.
Compared to everyone else, he looks like a saint, for the sole reason that he is a weak man who has done absolutely nothing and hasn't been brave enough. Which compared to anything else...
And all through this - where's the good policy in the public interest? What has the government actually done in the last 5 years that merits applause? MyZone? They nearly buggered that one up too. The Lane Cove Tunnel? The operator nearly went broke recently. And they still managed to build it without enough lanes.
Public Transport? A new plan every year, and hundreds of millions wasted on the Metro, but still no north west or south west metro. Public hospitals? Shortages of doctors, nurses, and funding have led to bed shortages and high waiting lists. The environment?
Well, there was one win recently - they stopped building a coal mine in the hunter. Why? Was it because the government decided it was bad for the environment? Well, no. It was because Alan Jones, John Singleton and a few other high flyers had friends up there who convinced the government that it was a major horse ranch area and furiously lobbied the government for 5 years. Thank you, racing and gaming industry, for your wonderful environmentalism!
Meanwhile, coal mines damage the environment north west of wollongong.
Gay marriage? the catholic right in the ALP have vetoed that over and over again. Abortion is still technically on the statute books as a crime for the same reason.
Karyn Paluzzano? Busted for corrupt use of her office. Nobody in the Labor party believes it's an isolated incident, me included.
The Michael McGurk scandal? We had the farcical parliamentary hearings into tapes that turned up nothing. Graeme Richardson even turned up and basically said "it's ok guys, I checked this one out, and it's not corrupt. Because believe me, if it was corrupt, I would know about it."
Seriously.
Is it any wonder that people in new south wales are keeling over in agony?
They are desperate for something, anything. The polls show the liberals way out in front. But it's not with any enthusiasm that they endorse Barry O'Farrell, but more of a resigned "well, it's the only thing we can do, but I doubt it'll change much". They've actually taken more of a liking to Kristina Keneally on a personal level. But yes, even she owes her career to questionable tactics by the Tripodi faction in the preselections for her seat of Heffron in 2003.
And the political parties themselves - what an awful mess. They ceased to be mass-based political organisations many years ago. The Liberal moderates have been comprehensively routed by the extreme right wing crazies in recent years. The only reason Barry is the leader is that some of these right wing crazies were politically savvy enough to stick a moderate in front of the camera. But you only have to look at the Young Liberals to see what the future looks like. The poor old young liberals only ever read two books when they join - the hillsong bible, and Atlas Shrugged. Whenever they have a debate with young labor, they literally walk across the road from Macquarie Bank, or from their father's law firm, and walk in the front door of macquarie street.
In 20 years, these guys will be running the government.
Young Labor isn't quite as bad. There are some very good people. But somehow, none of them get promoted to good positions. I wonder why? The senior party uses it more as an employment agency for MP and ministers offices. Come March 2011, all of these men and women will be out of a job.
The ALP is an empty vacuum of talent. All the sensible people went to work in federal politics or the union movement long ago. Most have given up trying to even save it. Many party members I speak to think that a loss would actually be good for the ALP. Bad for the state, perhaps, but good for the ALP. What a shocking thing to even think. Most of these members have been through the pain of watching someone parachuted in over the top of them by the executive, or having their views on policy ignored by factions.
Does anyone doubt that the moment labor loses the next election, a whole number of labor MP's will be exposed as corrupt frauds? Curring favour from business? Stabbing each other in the back? Selling government to the highest bidder? In the late 19th-century, if the founders of the labor party saw what was to become of their creation 100 years later, they would have been appalled. Is this supposed to be the party of the workers?
But does anyone seriously think the liberals will do any better? They're just as likely to be worse.
Who's going to save NSW?
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