Head to Head- That the Liberals are the only hope for NSW

Andrew Woodhouse

All governments are sieved through Seven Stages of Life.
Stage 1: idealism and a genuine desire by politicians to improve everyone’s lot in life.

Stage 2: reality check. Things don’t just happen. Other cogent, conflicting ideals interfere. Change is like fire: well-managed, it generates goodness but uncontrolled, it’s ravenous, dangerous and destructive.

Stage 3: obstructionists, other pollies and glacier-like bureaucracies deliberately hinder policy changes. Pollies fail to represent voters; ‘My electorate believes’ morphs into ‘I think’. Pollies, aiming to please everybody in general, please nobody in particular. They walk both sides of the street, straddling various positions simultaneously. Weasel words proliferate. Egos are paramount during this stage.

Stage 4: electoral moods tack a new course as changed economic and social sirrocos blow up. Ignored by pollies, number-crunching mathematics, not merit, drives issues.

Stage 5: arrogance and self-preservation are paramount, alienating voters. Fudgy figures, media manipulation, dodgy deals, vile, venal tactics or lying create foggy facades and faux-images. Policies change on the run.

Stage 6: mistakes are made, residents are revolting and voters are angry. Pollies cling to power, lusting for lucrative retirement packages. Cleaner, more credible pollies appear either by default or by design.

Stage 7: government outed and ousted. Former pollies receive Order of Merit awards and cash for life. Go back to stage 1.

This self-returning möbius strip means the ten habits of good government don’t happen. Good government leans into the wind of change, encourages voters’ views, uses power as a shield and not a weapon, instigates change for the common good, puts voters first, not last, has merit-based policies, isn’t arrogant ignorant or negligent, encourages a sense of belonging, and enforces the highest standard of ethics and public probity. Passion and compassion are its keys to success.

It’s the quality, not the quantity of governments, nor their political tincture that ultimately matter. I’d rather one big, good, government than dozens of rotating-door little felonious fiefdoms. So it’s time to hand over the keys for Nathan Rees, it’s Stage 2 for Kev-the-dud Rudd and onto Stage 6 as Clover rolls over after 21 years in power.

Peter Whitehead
You may have the fortune to read this on April Fool’s Day. I am writing some time before and must seriously entertain this nihilistic notion.

Australia’s ‘Liberal’ Party was founded three score and four years ago by a Mr Menzies after the United Australia Party had become a loser’s brand. Since then an electoral bandwagon carrying Oz’s middling classes has devolved from Ming to a mingey impersonation of the merciless.

Gerard Henderson might obfuscate desperately but the real history of this country’s conservative party is one of self-righteous pragmatism in desperate pursuit of the reins of government. And really we don’t still need them and we won’t still feed them now they are 64. We are older too.

At best they have been a do-nothing layer of PR flacks providing a sickly-sweet icing to the stolid cake of public service bureaucracy.

The relaxed and comfortable cardigan of Federal Liberal government has come undone as John Howard’s desperate spin back to the fifties has overshot into the Great Depression of the retro 30-somethings.

Little Johnny knows history is written by the winners and should realize his name will cue giggles from future generations of history students.

And now the New South Welsh Liberal leader that Mike Carlton dubbed Fatty O’Barrel [before the weight reduction] is hailed as the Premier we have to have when this state goes to the polls two years after that had seemed a good idea.

Who in that well-groomed party of privilege is not either a smug bastard who reckons he has earned everything he has been given or a virago proud to be reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher? Have you been at one of their barbecues when someone drops a stopper?

Compulsory preferential voting has cornered Australian electorates with Tweedledum and Tweedledee – two major political parties quibbling viciously over irrelevancies – identical twins asserting their individuality by wearing clashing ties.

At least the NSW ALP had the good sense to promote a bloke with infamous form in waste disposal. [Does anyone else love wrapping prawn’s heads in the newspapers that publish Michael Costa’s opinion pieces?]