NSW Premier Morris Iemma’s days are done. His most junior backbenchers are openly criticising him and the Treasurer Michael Costa. Soon it will be senior ministers followed by the party’s elder statesmen, and then it will be time to go.
Today’s critic is Wyong MP David Harris who was elected only 16 months ago. Nobody has ever heard of him but oh how they become lions when there is a smell of blood in the air.
While the bizarre message from Iemma’s minders is that he is staying to fight the next election in March 2011, the headlines in today’s Sydney newspapers tell a vastly different story:
“Last days: Iemma challenge looming” SMH
“Premier a pariah in his own party” Daily Telegraph
Iemma’s rearguard action is in the hands of Treasurer Michael Costa, Health Minister Reba Meagher, Ports Minister Joe Tripodi, Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal, Disability Services Minister Kristina Keneally, Maroubra MP Michael Daley and party fixer, Eddie Obeid.
It is a motley clique without support anywhere among the broader party membership. These are the individuals who have helped Iemma dig the hole of his own self-destruction.
They are frantically defending him because they know that a post-Iemma administration will result in them being cast out in the cold. Or that’s where they should be if there is any natural justice left in the NSW ALP.
Today’s other headline on the front-page of the “Tele” will have added to Iemma’s nightmare: “Charge them — Police urge DPP to prosecute over Iguanagate.”
Labor “power couple”, John Della Bosca and his wife Belinda Neal, have been interviewed by a special police task force over events at the Iguana waterfront restaurant on June 6 and the subsequent swearing of contradictory statutory declarations about what happened.
Detectives have recommended charges be brought for perverting the course of justice though it is not clear whether they refer to Della Bosca, the former education minister, or Neal, the federal MP for Robertson.
They face suspension from the ALP if either of them are charged and their membership will only be restored if they are cleared at trial. Having this damaging legal entanglement in the midst of the NSW premiership crisis will only strengthen the resolve of powerbrokers to break with the past, jump the generation gap and recommend a cleanskin.
That’s why Nathan Rees, the Emergency Services and Water Minister, suddenly has pole position.
David, he may do nothing for the decor of the room; but he sure stinks it out!
Well there’s the ENTIRE problem: if Iemma’s main supporters are Costa, Tripodi, Meagher, the Minister for the Catholic Church Keneally and Obeid, no wonder he is in such a bloody mess.
Add Sartor’s name to the list and you have the most hated people in the NSW ALP
Get rid of all of them and Iemma might not be such a bad proposition – he has a presence but he is beholden to the WRONG crowd !!!
Morris Iemma is so bland he disappears against beige wallpaper and does nothing for the decor of the room
I think you are jumping the gun by infering that charges could apply to Neal & Della Bosca-it could well be the person who deliberately lied in an affidavit and then went on TV to sell her story. Attempts at trying to blame others for pressuring her mean little when signing a stat dec. Plus her $30K payment will negate her testimoney.
But I hope you are correct and we are in the end days of Iemma and his motley crew. It’s sad that included in the lot you mention we don’t see the name of the current revolting and retrograde NSW AG John Hatzistergos who seems to want to wind back freedoms and is laughingly claiming today there is less crime because of strict bail conditions. In the best Bob Carr tradition he routinely trashes our rights but is a worst offendor being a tarined barrister. At least Carr was ignorant of the law.
Nor will Reba Meagher be much of a loss although she was giiven a poisoned chalice of hospitals after Hatzitergos stuffed that portfolio as well.
Why would anyone of talent bother going into State politics? All you get to do is run trains and hospitals and schools – interesting policy issues are few and far between. And you will always cop it from the press for your troubles. Iemma and his wofeul ministers are merely a symptom of a more fundamental problem.