This man wants to be premier of NSW and Barry O'Farrell may be just the kind of conservative needed to beat a Labor Government that's on the nose.
In just over 17 months time, if you believe the polls of the past year and more, the new premier Barry O'Farrell will stride up to Government House for a swearing in which will see a new team in charge of the treasury benches in NSW.
It will be a victorious day for the Liberal Party in Australia.
First time in power in NSW since 1995, likely to be the second state to go conservative after Western Australia - a chance for the 65-year-old party to re-establish itself after a second successive federal election defeat.
But what sort of team will this be and what will it stand for?
Because, for all the infrastructure promises O'Farrell is making, somebody has to pay for them.
And, although he is adopting a "small target" strategy in not promising much, other than the scrapping of the metro and construction of north west rail line and south west rail link, it seems clear there will have to be a policy of "reform", privatisations and a mass of public service jobs axed. Anything else emanating from the opposition is, quite frankly, a lie.
Public service job cuts are what many Labor hardheads would actually like to do, were it not for this government being hostage to union interests, but the mere suggestion shivers up the spines of Liberal MPs. They still remember the successful Labor advertising campaign in the 2007 election campaign about former leader Peter Debnam's proposed 20,000 job cuts.
Services like the Department of Community Services are likely to see work outsourced, the ports, ferries and some aspects of rail will be sold off and providing they can get it through the upper house, which is a big 'if', there will be an attempt to sell off electricity generators.
It will be a faux election campaign in this sense. Like John Howard in 1995 saying "never ever' on the GST (although he admittedly waited for another election before introducing the tax) Mr O'Farrell's promises are likely to be the top-drawer kind, with the bottom drawer policies listed above to be introduced after winning office.
This is the conservative way. And often, whether voters like it or not, it's proved the only way to get the economy - and services - back on track.
No pain, no gain. In Victoria in 1991 when Jeff Kennett came to power he closed schools and cut 50,000 public service jobs. Lot of pain at the time but the state has boomed since.
In 1996, John Howard slashed through the public service, sending Canberra into an economic slump and privatised employment services among other things. It put the budget back on track.
Expect O'Farrell and his new treasurer Mike Baird to pull out a familiar refrain when they get in: they lied to us about the books, look at Labor's black hole, that's why we have to be tougher than we said etc etc.
The other big difference between the current government and the incoming one may be on the law and order front.
It's yet to be seen what right-winger and former Right to Life President and former deputy DPP Greg Smith will do in the Attorney-General's job and how hardline the former internal affairs detective and police union representative, Mike Gallacher will be in the police portfolio.
The pair could send civil libertarians spare.
Having said all that, some say rather disparagingly that O'Farrell is the best Labor leader the Coalition has ever had. That deep down he is a Labor bloke - perhaps without the sort of union background, but quite left of centre.
He certainly could hardly be more pragmatic.
But perhaps in a way this is what is required here. In the same way Kevin Rudd was the conservative nerd to beat the other conservative nerd, John Howard, O'Farrell isn't so conservative as to be threatening.
The north shore of Sydney excepted, NSW is fundamentally a Labor state. In order to win enough votes you have to win over that middle ground, including the battlers of Western Sydney.
Australians vote out of hate, not love for politicians.
And in NSW they hate this state Labor government more than just about anything right now.
It's there for all to see.
So it really is a drover's dog election for Barry.
But what would be refreshing is if cynical politics didn't win the day for once and he came up with a clear outline of what he would do in government. Might even help him with his primary vote too.
It is hovering around the early 40 per cent mark, when it should be in the mid to high 40s given the poor stocks of the government.
21 comments
More comments
Comments are now closed