Matthew Abraham: Steven Marshall’s first 100 days as Premier have been lacklustre

STEVEN Marshall said his team would hit the ground running after winning office — but they’ve just been plodding along, says Matthew Abraham.

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THE longest journey begins with a single yawn. In the case of the new Marshall Government, embarking on its four-year journey in office, it has been a particularly long yawn or, to be precise, a series of lots of little yawns. A yawn a day, so that makes 94 yawns so far including today.

Are we there yet?

It sounded exciting when, in the March election countdown, then-Opposition Leader Steven Marshall unveiled his “First 100 Days Plan” for government.

He repeatedly promised his team would “hit the ground running” from day one. Well, they got the hit the ground bit of the plan right, at least. They just forgot about the running thing.

So far the most exciting thing that’s happened in South Australian politics in the past 94 days has been former Premier Jay Weatherill hitting the ground, walking.

The bearded Weatherill, his inner balance possibly thrown out by sitting on the backbench for the first time in his life, broke a leg bushwalking.

The fact he was wearing a Port Power beanie at the time made it a uniquely SA political accident.

But it served as a reminder of Jay’s endless capacity to pull rabbits from his beanie, even if some of them didn’t live very long.

How about a radioactive waste dump and nuclear fuel industry for SA? Let’s have a royal commission and a citizen’s jury and then not do it.

Or shamelessly belting the federal Liberals around the ears over the subs deal until they coughed up an astounding $90 billion. Winding our clocks forward to east coast time. The Gillman land deal. The car park tax. The bank tax. The trams. The big battery. The big diesel gennies. Driverless cars hitting roos. Unemployment going down, not up.

Sure, the constant state of surprise proved exhausting in the end, but nobody could say Jay wasn’t an ideas man.

Now the mid-mannered Marshall is running with what we are told is a deliberate strategy to vague out the political dynamic, damping expectations and dialling back media hype.

It is working a treat. He is putting us all to sleep.

Unveiling his vision for Adelaide during the week, the premier said he wanted “more civil engineers and less social engineers”. Fabulous.

He said wasn’t offering people a “silver bullet” but wanted a place where individual citizens set their own ambitions and goals. Don’t we do that already? Haven’t we always?

In true SA fashion, nobody can quite agree on when the first 100 days will be reached.

The new Premier, deputy Vickie Chapman and Treasurer Rob Lucas were sworn in by Governor Hiue Van Le in an odd private ceremony on Monday, March 19, and the troika got straight to work as a mini-Cabinet.

Google says that means the 100 days should be reached on June 27, next Wednesday. Right? Wrong. The ALP says it’s June 26, next Tuesday.

But the full Cabinet was not sworn in until Thursday, March 22. We know this because they were photographed in what looked like a tableau of the Harper Valley PTA.

So, the Liberals are taking this as their official starting point, which means the first 100 days finishing line is next Saturday.

This gives Premier Marshall six days to drop his “radical incrementalism” malarky and embrace his inner ninja.

Here is some free advice for the crucial final week.

Monday. Blow up the barge that masquerades as the floating palais on the Torrens. Just like the marooned wave generator off Carrickalinga, it is a symbol of a city that keeps bad ideas afloat way too long.

Tuesday. Sack Onkaparinga Council. Bring back right-hand turns in the CBD.

Wednesday. Establish a royal commission into SA Health. Appoint Nick Xenophon to run it because his policy idea doesn’t seem so wacky now.

Thursday. Ban netting and other commercial fishing off the metropolitan coast. The Victorian Government did this in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay and the rebound in fish stocks has been remarkable.

Friday. Sleep in. Only brekky announcers need to be up at 3.30am and, trust me, it messes with your head, slows decision making to a crawl, makes you grumpy and makes you sick.

Saturday. Dust off your little yacht and go for a sail off West Beach. It’ll do you, and us, the world of good.