NSW Premier Mike Baird has to weed out his bad apples

NSW Premier Mike Baird faces three challenges: ICAC’s outing of idiots in his ranks, pressing party reform and an election in six months.He’s only been premier since April, when Barry O’Farrell resigned after misleading ICAC over a $3000 bottle of Grange. O’Farrell was not ­accused of corruption.

This past week two Liberal MPs, Tim Owen (Newcastle) and Andrew Cornwell (Charlestown) resigned from the party after ICAC revealed they had taken cash from Newcastle mayor and property developer Jeff McCloy. Last December Energy Minister Chris Hartcher (Terrigal) went to the cross benches after allegations of corruption were raised. He was followed in February by Chris Spence (The Entrance) and Darren Webber (Wyong), both of whom faced corruption allegations. Both announced in June that they would not stand again next year. Another Central Coast MP, Garry Edwards (Swansea) took to the cross benches on Thursday after it was revealed McCloy also gave him cash. Liberal MLC Marie Ficarra, accused of soliciting a banned donation, went to the cross benches in April. Her Upper House colleague, former police minister Mike Gallacher, stepped down as minister in May and joined her on the cross benches after he was accused of hatching a “corrupt scheme”. All of the above fall into the stupid category. Some of them, Hartcher, certainly, were players in the insidious factional system that currently operates in the NSW division of the Liberal Party. Immediately after last year’s federal election Prime Minister Tony Abbott oversaw the establishment of a committee to address the issue of reform in NSW. Former PM John Howard was a key member of the committee and this past week its report went to party members. One of its key recommendations is for plebiscites of all branch members of at least two years standing for all lower house seats at the federal and state level. Senate preselection would be the prerogative of the State council which has some hundreds of members. Another recommendation would bar staff members of MPs from sitting on the state executive, and there is a call to dramatically curtail the emergency powers of the state executive to prevent further abuses of authority. Clearly, ICAC’s revelations have had little bearing on the reforms. Indeed, there is an excellent case to be argued that the principal law which ICAC has relied on to stay in the headlines — the law prohibiting donations from developers. It was a clearly discriminatory law passed by Labor when it was in office and was ­obviously targeting an important stream of Liberal Party funding. But why should developers or any other legitimate business sector be banned from making political contributions? The illegality, surely, should be if a donor, any donor, acts corruptly to influence a politician or public servant. O’Farrell, as premier, acted too hastily to agree to Labor’s legislation. History shows that the trade union movement has been far more effective in buying Labor Party MPs and governments than a handful of developers have been in ­obtaining dodgy approvals. Surely the bottom line is that people who cannot be trusted to reject corrupt ­inducements no matter where they come from should not be in politics. The reforms, not dissimilar to those which were implemented in Victoria after years of work by former federal minister David Kemp, would need the support of 60 per cent of the state council. As the council is divided ­almost equally between those who are beneficiaries of the ­existing system and those who fear the possibility of the party sliding toward Labor-style ethnic branch stacking, there is ­little chance the report would gain the necessary approval if put to a vote now. It will take years for supporters of the Howard committee report to address each powerbroker, each branch and individual member if necessary to address the questions and concerns and make the case for change. The challenge for Baird is to address the expected losses of the Newcastle seats which, not to make a fine point of it, were really windfall victories delivered in the 2011 landslide. He must be ruthless in weeding out any MPs or candidates who are at all tainted by serious allegations of corruption. He must be open to the necessary reforms and pragmatic enough to understand that they cannot be executed and without persuasion and probably some compromise. Those anxious for reform must understand that none of the party’s most significant political problems came about because of problems with the preselection process. They came about because of the stupidity of those who won office.