No one saw the decapitation coming. Four dramatic days have left the people of New South Wales with a very different government from the one they elected in 2019. First Gladys Berejiklian resigned, another premier felled by ICAC. Transport Minister Andrew Constance followed, hoping to make the switch to Canberra.
Then, before 9am on a public holiday, Deputy Premier John Barilaro called it quits.
Amid all that, some swift factional manoeuvring has made Dominic Perrottet, a fresh-faced conservative Catholic with a touch of culture war in his blood, all but certain to secure the top job at tomorrow’s party room meeting.
When the dust settles, he will lead a government with a one-seat majority which faces three byelections in the coming months. And as the first MP from the NSW right to lead the party in over a decade, Perrottet has a blank slate to stamp his authority over the premiership, if he so chooses.
The right man
Once upon a time, the hard right faction of the NSW Liberals was derisively referred to as the “Taliban”, a reference to its deep religious conservatism. The faction’s leading powerbroker was conservative Catholic MLC David Clarke, whose patronage helped Perrottet win a messy preselection battle for Castle Hill, in Sydney’s bible belt, back in 2010.
Perrottet, like Clarke, has links to Opus Dei, a shadowy conservative Catholic sect. Like Clarke, the father of six has been public about the centrality of faith to his politics. Unlike Clarke, whose views on social issues like abortion and gay rights were viewed as too extreme, Perrottet has managed to cast himself as the more reasonable face of the Christian right, a treasurer who focused on boring, wonky stuff like stamp duty reform rather than the low-hanging fruit of culture wars.
Occasionally though the culture war stuff peaks out. Within hours of Berejiklian’s demise, Perrottet’s 2016 Facebook post after Donald Trump’s election win, where he gloated about a “conservative spring”, had been widely shared.
“If you support stronger borders, you are not a racist. If you want a plebiscite on same-sex marriage, you are not a homophobe,” he said.
A year earlier, he’d argued welfare led to family breakdown and childlessness. And while such outbursts have been toned down since becoming treasurer in 2017, there’s plenty more about Perrottet which is already giving Labor, totally bereft six months ago, a new sense of hope.
There’s the trickle of stories about financial mismanagement at icare, the workers’ compensation scheme he set up. And there’s the fact that Perrottet voted against the decriminalisation of abortion in 2019.
How he governs
As Treasurer, Perrottet toned down those hard right impulses, and as premier there’s every chance he’ll tone them down even further. The success of the NSW Liberals has been due to personally popular moderates like Berejiklian and Mike Baird putting a presentable face on a party with its fair share of reactionaries.
Over the coming months we’ll get a good sense of whether Perrottet governs like a conservative Christian. A voluntary assisted dying law — set to be introduced next month with bipartisan support — will be an early test. Then there are two bills proposed by One Nation Leader Mark Latham — on religious discrimination, and an anti-trans bill which seeks to ban any discussion of gender fluidity in classrooms. Conservative Coalition MPs were disappointed with Berejiklian’s draft foetal personhood laws because they felt they didn’t go far enough. How he handles all this will give us an insight into the type of government NSW will have.
But with Sydney’s lockdown to end in just seven days, it’s Perrottet’s handling of this phase of the pandemic which will be his biggest test. In early July, with Sydney facing COVID case numbers in the 20s, Perrottet bitterly opposed an extension to the city’s lockdown. He reportedly pressured chief health officer Kerry Chant to keep Sydney open.
The NSW pandemic response has always been a balancing act between a libertarian-hued Coalition government desperate to keep the country’s economic powerhouse open, and a Health Department desperate to save lives.
Berejiklian’s popularity soared through the pandemic, in part because many voters saw her as a moderate technocrat and a steady pair of hands during difficult times who managed to strike that balance more often than not.
On lockdowns, COVID, and all things, Perrottet is far more of an ideologue. The big question is whether he governs as one.
With his barely suppressed conservative social views and a look about him that just might frighten the children, the ascension of Dominic Perrottet to the leadership of the NSW Liberals just might have brought a smile to Chris Minns’ face.
Oh dear I just had to google who Chris Minn was…! I am over here in the hicksville cave I know but he clearly hasn’t had much air time of late!
No Labor leader state or federal gets air time and if they do it is rarely positive
Oh I dunno I see Anna P and Marky Mark McGowan heaps! 🙂
Yes, plenty of air time for them and Dictator Dan, none for SA Lib and Tas Lib and their Labor like lockdowns etc
Don’t beat yourself up over this. Victorians are trying not to think about the recycled ‘lobster man’ Mr Matthew Guy of Phillip Island land deal infamy (not to mention other matters.. the list is long). Mr Guy created a whole new meaning for the term “Minister for Planning’.
“Invisible Thermidor Guy”? Some superhero he turned out to be?
What sort of superpower was being “able to chow down with the mob – while thinking he was The Invisible Man” turn out?
Other reports state that Perrottet has said something to the effect that “man made climate change is still open to debate.”
So secretive is the Opus Dei group that having been brought up a catholic (long since renounced) I hadn’t heard of them until my 20s.
Perrottet’s ascension (just had to use that word, 🙂 ) will spell a whole lot of trouble for NSW Libs down the track, including possibly losing one of the independents who are supporting this government, leading to a possible no confidence motion in the house, if it ever sits again.
I posted those reports on a couple of other articles earlier this morning
Of course, you always do – cue Fanny Brice’s 1920 hit song.
The kiddies’ oldies should think B. Streisand.
Emma, The Worm:
Perrottet is not actually in the dominant faction in the NSW Liberals — him taking the top job would break a more moderate [and ICAC removed] lineage set by predecessors Berejiklian, Mike Baird, and Barry O’Farrell. Perrottet’s a proud conservative Catholic who actually voted against decriminalising abortion in 2019
Almost as soon as Berejiklian stood down, Perrottet’s 2016 Facebook post started doing the rounds where he called Donald Trump’s election win “a victory for people who have been taken for granted by the elites”. He continued: “If you question man-made climate change, you are not a sceptic.”
Yeehaa, the Howard approved Delta Ruby Berejiklian’s replacement is off to a good start.
Watch those downtickers get tickled pink now.
Hilarious! A card-carrying member of the elite talks about people who have been taken for granted by the elites. Straight out of the Trump playbook! As if he gives a rat’s about the little people – before you know it he’ll be talking about swamps needing draining….
Perrottet is one of 12 siblings. He has 6 kids and is only 39 years old. I am reminded of the Monty Python and the Meaning of Life “Every Sperm is Sacred” scene. I would not trust anybody to run the state who thinks population growth at any cost is OK. Fiscally irresponsible.
And environmental suicide
Anyone belonging to a dark ages group like Opus Dei which pursues wealth and control and the domination of women, arising out of a cult that supported a brutal Spanish Dictator, is not desirable as a person to hold power over people. Opus Dei seeks members amongst the wealthy and pursues power in Government. It uses brainwashing of the very young in their closed schooling set ups. It might have a link with Catholicism but it certainly wouldn’t be described as Christian. Perrottet has already demonstrated how he has placed burdens on the backs of those injured workers seen to him as a a means of money making in his iCare debacle. He is absolutely a bad choice as a leader for NSW.
Spot on, there’s some really dark stuff happening here in the background with both DeltaQueen Gladys and her probably successor Dom
Consider: Berjiklian does a runner a few months before she became eligible for a generous retirement package of state-funded entitlements including a car, a driver, an office and staff, the Queen of Delta explained it away saying her decision was in the interests of the people of NSW.
Her likely successor, Perrottet has the interests of the people of NSW?
I don’t think so given he believes in the sanctity of confession and refuses to countenance or support any legislation that would demand priests report confessions of child sexual abuse. And he is a Right to Lifer or whatever they call themselves these days
And Jennifer Wilson writes in IA regarding Perrottet and his ‘interests’.
Opus Dei pursues the Vatican’s agenda through the presence of its members in secular governments and institutions and through a vast array of academic, medical and grassroots pursuits. Its constant effort [is] to increase its presence in civil institutions of power. [T]heir work in the public sphere breaches the church-state division that is fundamental to modern democracy.
Opus Dei is mostly middle and upper-class businessmen, professionals, military personnel and government officials. Its members control a large number of banks and financial institutions.
Should Perrottet become the next NSW Premier, Australia will have a Pentecostal Prime Minister and a member of Opus Dei as leader of our most populous state.
This is not cheerful news for women and members of the LGBTQI community.
It suggests that the Liberal Party has been deeply infiltrated by religious extremists who are achieving powerful leadership roles, in keeping with the goals of both cults.
While the conservative Catholic cult differs from the Pentecostals, the ways in which they are alike are centred on patriarchal control of women, our bodies and our struggle for autonomy and equity.
Both cults are opposed to same sex relationships and neither fosters an environment that is safe for LGBTQI people.
Well said LoL.
I would argue that anyone who holds strong religious views and who gets into a position of power in this country is a danger to our very way of life.
More specifically it seems that the DLP, which I regard as the political wing of the Catholic Church is now very influential in the Liberal Party, just as it was in the ALP for decades in earlier part of the 20th Century. We had Tony Abbott as Prime Minister pushing a Catholic agenda and now it looks like we will have a Premier of Australia’s most populous state who will be doing the same thing.
The resilience of this toxic and insidious organization should never be underestimated. We have more chance of eliminating COVID than this body.
To quote Kenny, “the stench in here will outlast religion.”
I thought that was their religion?
Don’t forget the purpose of the ‘smells & bells‘ – all those rotting corpses and lurking demons to be dispersed.