Mike Rann’s leadership is stone dead. Having lost the confidence of the parliamentary party, the cabinet room and ALP factions, each day that he delays a transition to Jay Weatherill weakens the new leader and jeopardises the party’s broader prospects.
While he hopes the massive mine at Olympic Dam will save him, it was a fledgling uranium prospect at Arkaroola that did him in. By Friday, Weatherill, a member of Labor’s left, had received the support of enough members of the Right faction to be anointed as the next leader.
Once such a move is made, those who ache for change are always moved to make it swiftly. Weatherill’s team is unlikely to allow the deal to be put at risk by allowing a cooling off period.
Rann, leader for 16 years, has been holding back the tide of change for almost three years.
The “night of the long knives” in October 2008, led by then ambitious Right faction convener and Upper House member Bernie Finnigan, failed to hurt Rann’s leadership. Yes, MPs were fed up with his leadership style, but it was too risky to start changing leaders when the polls were evenly balanced. But in October 2009 it turned again when disaffected ex-husband of a parliament house waitress whacked the Premier with a rolled up copy of WineState magazine.
Rann’s masterful technique of answering a question that hadn’t been asked was exposed in a crisis that centred on detail and believability. He said he had never met his attacker, Rick Phillips, and that he had never had a s-xual encounter on a golf course. Both statements were true; but they were not the questions that had been posed.
The damage was done and Rann limped to the March 2010 election where he won, courtesy of party strategist Bruce Hawker shoring up several key marginal seats. Labor won, but 52% of voters preferred the Liberals.
From that point, Rann’s tenancy in the top job was temporary, as his party went about the process of working out who would lead them to the 2014 election.
The right pushed deputy Premier Kevin Foley aside and road-tested Jack Snelling and John Rau in senior positions. With Rann still in the top job, the polls continued to slide, but Rann’s supporters still believed he could pull it back.
As he has always done in his nine years as Premier, Rann was looking for symbols that would build his imagery, and if worse came to worse, would define his legacy.
He couldn’t lay claim to the Adelaide Oval — that was first a Liberal policy and then a Kevin Foley initiative. He had built up a strong portfolio of achievements in renewable energy, but the masses were losing interest in green issues. And while the Adelaide desalination plant was a big winner when the state was parched from years of drought, it held no value when the state was soggy underfoot.
That left Olympic Dam — the BHP Billiton project that he had been spruiking since 2005 and had expected to be up and about by 2007. If he can get his name on that plaque, he would at least have a major project to his name — something more than a tram extension in the city.
In what appears to be a contradiction to his Olympic Dam position, Rann also has a passion for European politics and environmental issues — and the proposed uranium mine at Arkaroola presented a fascinating opportunity. In contrast to Olympic Dam, Arkaroola was a prospect — not an existing mine.
The debate over mining in a wilderness area such as Arkaroola in the far north had raged for almost three years since the exploration company, Marathon Resources, clumsily dumped exploration waste in a shallow pit. And so it came to be that while his Mineral Resources Minister and Right faction power broker Tom Koutsantonis was rubbing shoulders at the Australian Uranium Conference in Perth on July 21, the Premier was booking a plane to Arkaroola for July 22.
Sources close to Koutsantonis said the minister was upbeat about the prospects of a go-ahead at Arkaroola, with the appropriate environmental safeguards. “He was telling people at the conference that everything was fine,” the source said. “His department officials were of the same mind.”
Also of the same mind, was factional heavyweight Senator Don Farrell, a reported supporter of the Arkaroola bid. Few appear to have known about the Arkaroola total-ban decision and Crikey understands Koutsantonis was enraged at being told he had to travel to the region with the premier to announce the mine had been killed off.
Rann had scored his environmental credibility, but in doing so had cut Koutsantonis’s grass. From that day onwards, the talk got louder among Labor’s powerbrokers, incensed at Rann insistence on writing his own script.
With no credible alternative of their own, the Right settled on a deal with Weatherill and Rann was told last Friday. He denied it Friday night, but then confirmed the arrangement in a statement from India late on the weekend.
But he still wanted some more. Always keen to write the story he wants the media to run, Rann is insisting that he will mentor Weatherill on how to do the job and then take the biggest prize on offer — ownership of the Olympic Dam expansion deal. It weakens Weatherill’s authority and the party won’t stand for it.
Rann’s desperation for a legacy has brought him undone on two fronts and the end will come sooner than he hopes.
*This article was first published at InDaily.
Why oh why are Labour so messy at this? Have they lost the ability of the smooth transfer of power?? Shades of John Howard in 07…………
The decision has been made and announced – replace Rann now – nothing that happens in the next couple of months will improve his so called legacy and the longer he stays as Premier diminishes both the SA ALP and Rann
Rann’s higher education policy has been a dreadful waste of money and hot air. He wasted millions paying for overseas universities to establish micro campuses in Adelaide, none of which has succeeded. He has also bullied South Australia’s universities and its staff, who have failed to exercise their intellectual freedom and criticise publicly policies they are scathing about in private, presumably preferring to retain the minor government patronage they enjoy.
What is so cute about this Rann position is that he wants to put his name on Olympic Dam – a uranium project that fits with the UK position on emission reduction, but takes no account of his Labor position on nuclear electricity generation in Australia.
If he is serious about the future of uranium mining, he should come out – as does David Cameron in the UK – and say that nuclear energy is what Australia must embrace if we are serious about reducing our emissions.
Replace the dirty power generation in your state with nuclear, Mr Rann! That would be a wondrous legacy.
Rann allowed bhp billiton to have as much water as they wanted for their venture at Olympic Dam – even though the people of Adelaide were almost out of water altogether. bhp billiton is going to build a desalination plant so they can expand their uranium mining activites. What other industry or body is allowed to do this? While the people were on rations, water was used in this filthy endeavour!
@GRANORLEWIS – A Solar Thermal Plant has started operations in Spain only recently. What is amazing about this plant is that it operates 24 hours a day. It has the capability to store energy for up to 15 hours. “Unlike coal ornuclear plants, solar thermal power is dispatchable: it can be used to meet peaks in energy use. Baseload or peakload – solar thermal can do both.”.
“Solar thermal power is expensive. But the costs will come down sharply once more plants are built”.
Greenleft, July 13 2011. Issue no. 886
There are other newspaper articles about it. We have enough sun in one day in this country to provide the world’s energy needs for at least one year. We do NOT need nuclear power at all! We’d only create many serious problems, not to mention the high quantity of water they require. This is not necessary for solar thermal plants, nor do we need to worry about the waste. The people of the NT can breathe easy!