Liberal MPs have endorsed Gladys Berejiklian as the 45th premier of NSW, the state’s seventh premier in 12 years.
She won the unanimous support of her bitterly divided party after agreeing to scrap policies she previously favoured and handing out cabinet positions to her bitterest opponents in the hard-right faction. By attempting a balancing act between party “wets” and “dries”, Berejiklian has created an inherently unstable administration.
Her new deputy Dominic Perrottet, the hard-right’s premier-in-waiting, will become Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader to pursue his philosophy of wholesale privatisation, smaller government and lower taxation for companies and entrepreneurs.
The gushing media welcome for 46-year-old Berejiklian ignores the fact that her professional and political career has been sponsored by preferment. Her carefully cultivated image of the first-generation immigrant woman who succeeded by dint of brilliance and diligence will be tested between now and the next state election in March 2019.
The fact remains that she has never experienced leadership at the pointy end because her strength has been as a backroom operator, and she has never been challenged with the carriage of major policy issues. In the past, she has ducked the ownership of tough decisions and gone along with the prevailing cabinet view. As premier, however, there’s no place to hide.
With a new cabinet to be announced this weekend, Berejiklian will have to declare her policy on critical matters:
- Will the Coalition’s council amalgamation program go ahead or will it be unscrambled?
- Will the deeply unpopular lock-out laws, sponsored by the NSW Police Association, be junked?
- Will plans to cripple the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) be aborted?
- Will the new premier choose an independent police commissioner or will she leave the selection to Alan Jones and the Police Association?
- Will she halt the sale of Crown land and historic buildings?
- Will she tackle the affordable housing emergency by releasing public land for new housing estates equipped with renewable energy and the NBN?
For the moment, Berejiklian is basking in wildly adoring publicity in the mainstream media, led by Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald and Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids.
The Daily Telegraph editorial said: “Berejiklian, part of the Coalition team that has already done so much to rebuild the state, now says her aim as premier will be to make NSW even greater.”
Its sister paper, the Sunday Telegraph, said: “Gladys Berejiklian is the right Premier for NSW now. She is the only member of the Coalition who is premier material. Ms Berejiklian has been an outstanding Treasurer and she deserves support.”
Since 2005, four Labor premiers have passed through the revolving door — Bob Carr, Morris Iemma, Nathan Rees and Kristina Keneally — and three Liberals: Barry O’Farrell, Mike Baird and Berejiklian.
For the Liberals, Berejiklian’s ascension to the leadership sets a new record for the party. In the past 20 years, the party has had seven leaders, Peter Collins, Kerry Chikarovski, John Brogden, Peter Debnam, O’Farrell, Baird and Berejiklian. Only two of them, Chikarovski and Debnam, were from the right-wing “dry” faction while all the others have been “wets”.
Both Chikarovski and Keneally, the state’s first female premier, tried to introduce political chic into their appeal to voters. It didn’t work. The electorate drew the conclusion, unfairly or otherwise, that they were lightweights and moved on.
Berejiklian’s ace is hard work, competence and honesty but, regrettably, those are not attributes that necessarily win elections. A privileged, hard-working former banker from the North Shore doesn’t raise enthusiasm in western Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong, Orange, Dubbo, the Blue Mountains or Ballina.
With a tight election due in March 2019, the backstabbing isn’t over yet. If the Berejiklian experiment fails to encourage support for the Coalition, she won’t remain unchallenged.
And if Labor’s Luke Foley continues his uninspiring leadership of the opposition, he will face a late challenge too.
‘Deeply unpopular lockout laws’ – except according to every single poll on the issue. Should have read ‘immensely effective lockout laws, overwhelmingly popular with the community but very on the nose with partygoers and nightlife workers on social media’.
And Sydney Visitors like myself who just visited Sydney for the 1st time in a couple of years and was dismayed by the destruction of the Sydney Nightlife. It was a family visit so nothing wild but try to find somewhere for 2 adults to get a drink and 2 late teen kids to get a softy after 10pm. Place was dead, absolutely dead. Sad. You didn’t need to destroy the life and atmosphere of the place to sort out the small number of idiots partying themselves to death. Sadly Melbourne now wins hands down for Nightlife and even little old Adelaide can give you a run for your money!
Sydney has always been a terrible place for a late night dinner. Kitchens tend to close at 9pm, latest. Lockout laws haven’t changed that. Restaurants and small bars are exempt from the laws. The only thing that has changed is the carnage on the streets, in all its forms, from midnight through to sunrise.
Berejiklian is the 45th premier of NSW and Trump is the 45th president of America.
I think that is an amazing coincidence and must mean something significant. Or perhaps nothing.
Couldn’t we do a swap? There would only be positives. America would get a competent leader and my home state, WA, might manage to get off the bottom of the best economically performing states.
A bit off-mark tagging her as ‘privileged’, .. ‘..North Shore’. Never met an Armenian from the (below-North Shore) Willoughby area I’d class as such. Dux of North Ryde High School hardly conjures up images of privilege, unlike (most?) of her GPS/private cohort in the Liberals. In fact, someone from that background might also have gravitated towards the Labor Party. Down to what grabs you in the formative years, I guess. Am no Liberal supporter, but feel for her in that role; not quite the Kenneally poisoned chalice, but imagine having that Opus Dei zealot watching your back as 2IC. :shudder:
“Will she tackle the affordable housing emergency by releasing public land with renewable energy and the NBN?”
Hang on, the most affordable version of anything is one that has has no bells and whistles on it at all. Neither does the premiere have to release public land when she already has the power to simply appropriate land from speculators. Plus NBN? No one should be getting a priority to get NBN when the rest of us are still waiting.
Decorating the offering with the currently fashionable “renewable” energy is simply increasing its price, as well as increasing the price of electricity for the rest of us. You would have to be pretty ignorant to believe that the world is running out of non-renewables, in a country with more mineral resources already discovered than you could poke a stick at. Sure, we have got to stop pumping carbon into the greenhouse, but fixing that problem starts at the local power station, and removing that silly antinuclear law also rests with the premiere herself.
Dear Dodger can crowbar his beloved nukes into absolutely any topic, even state housing policy.
AR, the article is about the new Premier and what she should do in office. At low political cost, she can be seen to do something significant toward replacing carbon emissions by NSW. Greenhouse-caring people on the left need a (yes,) conservative Premier to knock over the 1970’s law against using nuclear.
Glad reckons housing afford-ability will be a top priority …so will she urge her Fed. buddies to abolish negative gearing and sort out CGT rorts ?
Or just wait for Sro-Mo to report back from his current Brexitville “working holiday” ?
Whoops, I meant Sco-Mo or ScrotuMo or Ray Hadley’s mate or Eleventy’s replacement, you know … that federal Treasurer dude .