I’m missing Lote Tuqiri from my local Balmain café — the regular sight of the giant man, his tiny wife and two adorable children was one of the great local tourist attractions, along with the newly famous Adriano Zumbo.
But last weekend we had a whole new scandal to discuss — Michael McGurk and any links to the ALP. Although the standover man and his cohorts are not locals, the aftershocks from McGurk’s shooting on Thursday night quickly spread to the Balmain shoreline, and could wash over the the ALP in 2011.
It didn’t take too long for McGurk’s body to take on a political smell — look at the roll-call on today’s front page of the SMH . Former NSW Planning Minister Craig Knowles, “The Fixer” Graham Richardson, someone called Richard Vereker, a “former butcher and bookmaker and a major donor to the Labor Party” and, best of all, Joe Meissner and the Love Boat! Where is Virginia Perger?
It’s a free kick for Greens senator Lee Rhiannon and her relentless campaign to get rid of corporate electoral donations, and she’s been on the radio all morning, pressing her point. The bad news for Sussex St is that the state electorates of Balmain and Marrickville are the most vulnerable to fall to the Greens at the next state election. Verity Firth is an excellent local member, and anyone who can get around an electorate, hold down a cabinet position and look after a toddler has my respect and sympathy. But she is now in real trouble, and if the Greens put up a halfway decent candidate next time round, the birthplace of the ALP could fall.
On paper, the ALP’s margin is 7.1%, which looks manageable. But you don’t need access to confidential polling to know that the Green vote is rising, leading to unbelievable amounts of local pork-barrelling. Last year the State Government handed back Callan Park to Leichhardt Council after a five-year campaign from the locals to stop any development on it. In fact, I thought the perfectly workable plan from the University of Sydney to put some of their faculties and student housing there was a good one, but local naysayers and dog-walkers got their way and now my rates will pay for its crumbling infrastructure and rolling lawns — it costs $2 million a year just to mow.
Now, the latest insanity is a multibillion dollar Metro which will stop at the corner of Victoria Road and Darling Street, Rozelle. I’m all for trains, but we are already the public transport capital of Sydney. There’s the Lilyfield Metro, several ferry wharves and the buses on Victoria Road; not to mention that I can cycle to the city in 10 minutes and walk in 40. I’ve been to the Hills District and those people have almost no public transport at all. Why hasn’t the government given them a Metro?
According to election guru Antony Green, “(NSW) Labor now holds 51 seats to the Coalition’s 36, the balance of the 93-seat Legislative Assembly being six Independents.
Forty seven seats are required for majority government. Assuming a uniform swing, Labor would lose its majority on a loss of five seats, a uniform two-party preferred swing of 4.9%. If Labor loses seats to the Greens or Independents, Labor would lose its majority with a smaller swing, and if the Coalition wins seats back from Independents, the swing for majority Coalition government is reduced.” It’s not looking good, is it?
So it was a busy weekend in Balmain, pulling out our solar calculators and working out exactly how the latest state scandal is going to play in our seat. Personally, I will vote for anyone who can rid Balmain of its plague of dogs, especially those ones that come into cafes when I am trying to have a cup of coffee And bring back Lote, please, we miss him.
Gosh, Margot, how did we get from Michael McGurk to the Rozelle Metro? There must be something powerful in those Zumbo pastries which has affected your reasoning!
Was it the same stretch of vivid, agenda-driven imagination which had Piers Ackerman name a certain federal minister on Insiders yesterday?
If so, I think you’d go and have a lie down and a rest, clearly you’ve been listening to the Green’s paranoid conspiracy theories for too long. The ones that tell us that NOTHING is built ANYWHERE unless someone is bribed.
It is a very misanthropic view of human nature, but sadly it is one gaining currency as the Greens dismal pessimism about life on this planet captures the popular imagination
Good points about Callan Park, I quite agree, But with the Metro, you are way off the mark. If it was conceived as a “bribe” to keep Verity in her seat, then indeed, it was a very bad idea. But knowing the anti development sentiment in Balmain, no one even in the Labor Party, would have entertained such a mad notion.
The Metro, as it stands is truncated, true. But it is just the first step of a much broader network now taking shape. Check their website, don’t rely on the hysterical propaganda put out by the local Nimbys, the Liberal Party and the Greens.
It has to start somewhere. And why not by servicing two greenfield development sites, Barangaroo and White Bay? They are putting the public transport infrastructure in place BEFORE the development. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?
It sure seems Margot’s got a point even if i do mostly disagree with her. But the ALP knows well their pie is shrinking and in the inner city their only rivals are the Greens.
Maybe that is the main reason Carmel Tebutt is not yet the state leader, it would be too much to have both Verity and Carmel gone.
Two quite able female politicians, that unlike most of their male ALP colleagues, also both have most punters’ respect and even the affection of some.
Why is it that the capable female MPs will have to pay for the lack of talent and the alleged corruption of the NSW ALP?
And to have both Verity and Carmel replaced by the Greens would just add insult to injury.
“Why is it that the capable female MPs will have to pay for the lack of talent and the alleged corruption of the NSW ALP?”
Whether they are capable or not, they are members of NSW ALP. If they can’t do something about it, as insiders, then they deserve to go to.
So Margo we can assume you are not the Lote mystery woman in the tabloids?
Wow Bernard that was a mish mash of topics. Not sure why the article was headed “McGurk’s body takes on political smell”? Thought you had wandered into a local funeral home catering to NSW representatives. Obviously your sub editor wanted to ensure the article grabbed our attention, did that alright. Alas not residing in your fair state one is at a disadvantage knowing about some of your local politics, whereas the gunning down of a prominent ‘businessman’, who may have, that is may have, a tape that could send a couple if not more, ALP NSW reps to a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure, is big time news. One wonders just how much egg will be on the faces of the Liberal Opposition if the tape happens to be a home movie of the late Mr McGurk’s kids. But I digress, the mention of Akerman on Insiders makes me wonder if the jowled one is planning to play the lead in an Aussie version of the Robin Williams classic based on La Cage Aux Folles. Judging by the amount of makeup caked on to the ample facial features of Akers he is destined for something special, or perhaps the ABC makeup dept are simple taking the mick? Surely pedantic Piers hasn’t taken to doing his own 🙂