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khiemtranI'm willing to admit I've completely lost my grip on NSW State politics these days. At one point in time, I remember it being fairly simple. Each party tried to make their way into power and stay there as long as they could. The other party, meanwhile, would try to displace them. I gather there was also something about managing the economy and pursuing ideological causes, but I was never quite sure how that all fit.
Now it all seems to be different. At the last election, it seemed like one side had bid "misere" on the pre-election card table and the other side said "oh no, you don't!" In my ignorance, this may actually have been some form of brilliant one-up-manship ("I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back!" "Oh yeah? Watch me beat you with two hands tied behind my back!" "Oh yeah...").
The incumbent party went into the election with ongoing crises in transport, hospitals, and police funding, with various corruption and sex scandals to boot. The opposition countered this brilliantly by doing their best to distract attention from each one, the then opposition leader even resorting to stage-managed appearance in his speedos, when he had to distract attention from the latest government disaster. (He did seem a little confused over whether he was actually applying for the role of "Premier" or "Magnum PI", with his penchant for being photographed wearing swimwear and his claims to have special information from his contacts "on the street".)
As the election approached, each side vied to outdo each other with more and more imaginative gambits. To counter the government's growing infrastructure crisis, the opposition came up with a strategy to fund its promises by drastically cutting the public service. Fortunately, this would be accomplished without any loss of service, because only the useless fatcats would be gotten rid of (and only those not in regional seats), and no sackings would be required because public servants would simply not be replaced as they resigned. It was left up to the reader to determine how exactly only the useless ones would happen to resign, when they were obviously getting pretty good money to do nothing at the moment.
It's difficult to imagine how one side might be able to throw away the moral high ground after the other has been tainted with a drug and paedophilia scandal - but in this case the opposition managed to do it in an afternoon with some outrageous unfounded accusations under parliamentary privilege).
So, sure enough, the government one, and promptly decided to rise to the challenge by self-destructing even further. After a run of scandals and disasters, they've finally imploded this week with the resignation of the premier in what amounted to a factional coup. The new premier had barely announced his new ministers when his police minister ended his ministerial career after three days after a drunken party in which he stripped to his underwear and simulated a sex act with the then Parliamentary Secretary (herself under a cloud for apparently lying about various other drunken incidents). This is going to be hard to top. I can't see how they're going to lose this one.
Now it all seems to be different. At the last election, it seemed like one side had bid "misere" on the pre-election card table and the other side said "oh no, you don't!" In my ignorance, this may actually have been some form of brilliant one-up-manship ("I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back!" "Oh yeah? Watch me beat you with two hands tied behind my back!" "Oh yeah...").
The incumbent party went into the election with ongoing crises in transport, hospitals, and police funding, with various corruption and sex scandals to boot. The opposition countered this brilliantly by doing their best to distract attention from each one, the then opposition leader even resorting to stage-managed appearance in his speedos, when he had to distract attention from the latest government disaster. (He did seem a little confused over whether he was actually applying for the role of "Premier" or "Magnum PI", with his penchant for being photographed wearing swimwear and his claims to have special information from his contacts "on the street".)
As the election approached, each side vied to outdo each other with more and more imaginative gambits. To counter the government's growing infrastructure crisis, the opposition came up with a strategy to fund its promises by drastically cutting the public service. Fortunately, this would be accomplished without any loss of service, because only the useless fatcats would be gotten rid of (and only those not in regional seats), and no sackings would be required because public servants would simply not be replaced as they resigned. It was left up to the reader to determine how exactly only the useless ones would happen to resign, when they were obviously getting pretty good money to do nothing at the moment.
It's difficult to imagine how one side might be able to throw away the moral high ground after the other has been tainted with a drug and paedophilia scandal - but in this case the opposition managed to do it in an afternoon with some outrageous unfounded accusations under parliamentary privilege).
So, sure enough, the government one, and promptly decided to rise to the challenge by self-destructing even further. After a run of scandals and disasters, they've finally imploded this week with the resignation of the premier in what amounted to a factional coup. The new premier had barely announced his new ministers when his police minister ended his ministerial career after three days after a drunken party in which he stripped to his underwear and simulated a sex act with the then Parliamentary Secretary (herself under a cloud for apparently lying about various other drunken incidents). This is going to be hard to top. I can't see how they're going to lose this one.
