Today’s Sydney media is awash with “peace in our time” reports that the Iemma Government’s power privatisation legislation has been rescued by Barry O’Farrell’s Opposition.
The agreement between Iemma and O’Farrell to send the Bill to Auditor-General Peter Achterstraat for a three-month scrutiny was hailed as a victory … for both of them!
“”oalition rescues Iemma on power,” trumpeted The Sydney Morning Herald and “Opposition signs on to power sell-off” and “O’Farrell scores victory on extracting changes” screamed The Australian.
Treasurer Michael Costa added to the atmosphere of triumphalism in his remarks to the SMH:
Mr Costa said Opposition support for privatisation was always inevitable given its policy support for private enterprise. ‘This was always the way it was going to proceed’.
In other words, Costa has admitted that he was unconcerned about reaching an agreement with his own party and treating it with scarcely concealed contempt because he always believed Coalition support was “in the bag”. His comments have deeply annoyed Coalition MPs who have been made to look like Labor’s patsies.
At a press conference this morning O’Farrell and Nationals Leader Andrew Stoner were at pains to stress that the Coalition is not locked in to the sale. They will await the Auditor-General’s report and the rural and regional impact survey before deciding how to vote.
“The NSW Liberal/Nationals final position on the enabling legislation will be determined on the basis of the contents of these reports,” O’Farrell said.
His tactic is clear; he is enjoying the division between the Labor Government and the NSW branch of the Labor Party and he is anxious to perpetuate the government’s agony over privatisation.
Instead of killing off the unpopular privatisation issue, he’s decided to spin it out to highlight the ineptitude of the government and its shambolic inability to get things done.
The weird political reality in NSW is that we have a Labor Government which isn’t supported on privatisation by the NSW Labor Party or the trade unions, and which has become a hostage to the Coalition on the issue.
This simply adds to the other-worldliness of living in the Premier State as it lurches from inertia to paralysis to implosion.
The real “weird reality” is that Iemma and former union boss Costa are trying to do something useful in the face of the union and apparatchik grip on what is laughingly called a government. The whole web of narrow sectional interests finally is choking on itself to such an extent that the only place to find an answer is in the opposition. Well done Sussex Street!
What a great advertisement for parliamentary democracy in action! So Barry O’Farrell’s “tactic is clear, he is enjoying the division between the Labor Government and the NSW branch of the Labor Party and he is anxious to perpetuate the government’s agony over privatisation. …. he’s decided to spin it out to highlight the ineptitude of the government and its shambolic inability to get things done.” Well done, Barry! Good of you to place the welfare of the NSW people above crass political advantage. Little wonder the NSW government has difficulty getting things done with Barry and Co. placing every conceivable obstacle in their path. The tactic of setting conditions for Liberal support backfired when Iemma and Costa agreed to those conditions, but not to worry, just set new ones! It’s a pity Barry has not seen fit to direct some of this energy towards cleaning out the right-wing religious bigots from his own party. Those people have their own agenda and are quite relaxed about being in permanent opposition so long as they exert significant influence within the Liberal Party. Unless decisive action is taken by 2011, it’s likely to be opposition again for the Liberals, notwithstanding the poor performance of the Labor Party.