Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian
New South Wales Premier Mike Baird’s resignation leaves the Coalition government in a shambles and has turned his succession into a cage fight between bitterly divided factions.
His exit probably hands the next state election, in March 2019, to Opposition Leader Luke Foley, who has been clawing back support for scandal-ridden NSW Labor.
Baird was ultimately worn down by six factors:
- His deep unpopularity among electors, which, despite several attempts, he was unable to reverse;
- The constant backstabbing, rancour and factional division within the Liberal Party, led by hard-line right-wing Christian forces;
- Rabid “regime-change” journalists in the press gallery from Rupert Murdoch’s empire, Fairfax Media and the ABC who claimed they were merely reflecting “popular anger”;
- His Premier and Cabinet Department was staffed by toadying flunkies instead of hard-headed political types. These out-of-touch ultra-loyalists might have been responsible for cheering him up, but they gave him the dumbest advice;
- Brutally bad publicity, worsening polls and vicious social media trolling had a damaging impact on his family. In the end, they’d had enough as well and told him so; and
- The National Party decision to oust his loyal and competent deputy premier Troy Grant last November was the last straw. Baird began to lose interest and started to focus on clearing his in-tray.
Like his father, Bruce Baird, a former NSW transport and Olympics minister, Mike Baird is a “good time” politician. He enjoys making announcements of achievement and success such as opening new buildings, tilling the first sod on infrastructure projects and wearing safety helmets on construction sites.
But if there is an accident, a bungle or a seismic stuff-up, Baird is less likely to be on hand. His minders steer him away from bad publicity with almost religious zeal.
[Foley gains on ‘Teflon’ Mike as greyhound ban splits NSW Coalition]
However, it doesn’t help. It simply makes him look weak, evasive and unaccountable, and the polls drop another couple of points.
Lining up to take over the premiership are North Shore MP and Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian, Anthony Roberts, MP for Lane Cove and a former John Howard staffer with close connections to broadcaster Alan Jones, and Dominic Perrottet, MP for Hawkesbury, an avid supporter of privatisation, small government and free markets.
Berejiklian is the most competent of the lot and the stand-out candidate. However, she won’t be supported by the party’s platoon of misogynists or the dominant right-wing faction. Pittwater MP Rob Stokes is another Liberal with major qualifications for the job, but he is branded “unsound” by Tony Abbott’s followers in the NSW division of the Liberal Party.
What you have, therefore, is a lot of candidates, many from the second or third division, backed by extra-parliamentary vested interests. Many of the aspirants want to use their remaining time in Macquarie Street to make money and friends in the CBD boardrooms.
[The ballad of Baird: how Teflon Mike became the big bad wolf]
Labor’s Luke Foley will be enthused by Baird’s exit. Although he didn’t have to raise a finger, he will be claiming Baird’s “scalp” to enhance his foggy image.
There will be other celebrations among groups opposed to the WestConnex motorway, Australia’s biggest infrastructure project, which is causing community outrage in inner-city suburbs where the ALP and Greens are competing for seats.
Their celebrations will be short lived; whoever takes over Baird’s job will pursue the project to its conclusion. And so will Luke Foley if he is elected in 2019.
If they are expecting to lose, Gladys Berejiklian will get the job, or more accurately the poison chalice 🙁 Always happens 🙁
Very true Di, although thus far only the Labor party has been game to do that. I can’t recall the LNP even allowing a woman to accept a poisoned chalice.
Personally, I’m happy to see Baird go. He was a great Premier, if you define great as ‘gets lots of things done by ignoring popular will and good sense, and gifts public land to any developer with a promise, and prioritises coal seam gas and coal mines over our best farmlands.’ I don’t define great that way, but plenty do.
Luke Foley’s image isn’t ‘foggy’: it is transparent due to his invisibility. If Baird’s successor was to be selected on the grounds of assistance to the Liberal Party over the past few years Foley should be odds-on.
Another reason for leaving might be that Baird doesn’t want to be remembered as the premier that opened the Skytrain rail line. If and when it collapses one day, as incredibly seems not impossible, the name of the premier that opened it will be forever vilified in the histories of NSW.
Gladys. That’s all.
Really Irfan? You spend thousands of words talking tolerance and not judging people on their religion, skin colour, sex, gende etc. and you mock her name. For shame!
But she does have a big nose.
“His deep unpopularity among electors”.
Unless this is supposed to describe the situation inside the party room, the assertion is complete bunkum.
Granted, the gloss was beginning to wear off his leadership but in no way was he deeply unpopular throughout the electorate.