The New South Wales soap opera continues
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:59pm
I remember back in 2006 saying to 2UE’s Stuart Bocking that if the New South Wales government was a television soap opera, it would be accused of being too unrealistic. Alas, for the poor sods of New South Wales (OK, some of them deserve it…they did vote for this mess) it’s about as real as it gets.
Today the soap opera continued to get worse by fulfilling a story line which the writers have been slowly forcing on us since August. Kristina Keneally, planning minister for ensuring enviro-whacko involvement slows down development, is the new Premier. She does make history for being the first female Premier of New South Wales (or, to be more precise, she will, once the official swearing-in ceremony takes place), and for that I congratulate her…I just wish there was something to celebrate here.
The weird thing about New South Wales is that all that ever seems to happen is the same incompetent people are given different portfolios to “manage”. Once they have done a bad enough job, they get “promoted” off to another job. If you make bad decisions for long enough, you get promoted to Premier, take all the heat from the media about the daily disasters of your government, and then after a few dismal years get to disappear from public life and take up a job with Macquarie Bank. Nathan Rees was so bad at it that he got out of the leadership one day before his 15 month anniversary.
The only thing preventing the Liberals from taking power is that nobody seems to be convinced (even the Liberals themselves don’t appear convinced) that they would do a better job. I just believe that, no matter how addicted Barry O’Farrell is to media stunts, he couldn’t possibly be any worse. This feeling is reaffirmed by the fact that one of Kristina’s closest supporters is “minister-for-almost-everything-he-can-possibly-break” Joe Tripod One.
It occurs to me that Kristina Keneally and US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have two things in common. Firstly, they are both of the far-left delusion that socialism works (to be fair, Kristina is on the right with a lot of social issues, but is firmly planted on the left for economic issues). Secondly, they are both from Nevada (I don’t know how I’m going to break it to my Vegas friends that one of their escapees has moved their deckchair to the helm of the SS Titanic New South Wales). One must therefore wonder if the writers of this horrifying soap opera intend on bringing in Harry “Dingy” Reid as Kristina’s deputy when his electorate finally vote him out next year. Between her links to the right-wing of the Party, and Harry’s links to the left, she might just be able to stave off a mutiny long enough for Labor to lose an election.
For the record, Kristina defeated Nathan 47 to 21 in today’s leadership spill. That says more about Nathan’s embarrassing tenure as Premier than it does about Kristina. Realistically, these people should have been unheard-of backbenchers following a John Brogden victory in 2004. One can only dream of how much better New South Wales would be if John hadn’t shot himself in the foot with that stupid “I don’t think I can win” speech a couple days before that election.
So, who wants to predict how long Kristina will last as Premier?
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials
