It’s the Pitts, alright. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

The
NSW Liberal Party are in utter disarray after losing their third safest
seat of Pittwater to a mayor who managed his campaign from his kitchen table.

So
let’s give credit where credit is due. Congratulations to MLC David
Clarke and Alex Hawke from the right and Sam Witherspoon and Michael
Photios from the left aided and abetted by NSW party president Geoff
Selig for their brilliant strategy. They decided to ignore local
knowledge and impose an outsider on the parochial punters of Pittwater.

The stunning loss of the seat shows just how bright these guys
really are. Bet you thought they wanted to win the seat. Naah! That’s
why they brought in an outsider over locals protests.

Geoff,
David, Alex, Sam and Michael really wanted the Labor Machine to feel
comfortable in the knowledge the NSW Liberal Party is so tactically
inept that they couldn’t even pull off Stephen Mayne’s kindergarten
coup.

Unless it was all a cunning plan – Baldrick style–
to lull the Labor machine is lulled into a false sense of security for
the 2007 state election, this is one of the worst results ever seen by
the NSW Libs. They have been beaten by an independent clearly aligned
with a very unpopular Government.

Now, the finger pointing is beginning – while the party players who drove the ship onto the rocks fight over spots on the lifeboats.

And
the big question – will the Right still adopt their fallback position
to put failed candidate Paul Nicolaou in the Legislative Council as
well as honour their agreement to put the lefty Sam Witherspoon in that
place as well? Nicolaou has now flopped in two seats – and will be about as useful for future fundraising for the Libs as Terry Metherell .