Eden-Monaro tussle shows political games and ego trump managing pandemic
How did the relatively simple task of finding a candidate for the Eden-Monaro by-election turn into a disaster that left two leading contenders self-destructing, asks Anna Caldwell.
Opinion
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This week of political frolics in the NSW bear pit is a disgrace that lets down the people of this state who are rightly more concerned with life in a pandemic than the careers of elected officials.
The public playing out of a will-they-or-won’t-they plot by two of Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s most senior lieutenants in pursuit of federal fortunes has once again exposed NSW politics as a domain where political games and ego trump all else.
Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Transport Minister Andrew Constance ate up more than a week publicly agonising over what ultimately looked like little more than a ham-fisted student politics race instead of what should have been a carefully co-ordinated attempt to wrest a seat from Labor.
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Cabinet colleagues are now asking just how tenable it is to have two men who publicly flirted with their career prospects go on holding leadership positions in the NSW government.
Berejiklian last night put her team fiercely on notice — and so she should.
She demoted Constance from the position of Leader of the House, and the Premier has told those close to her she is working on a wider reshuffle to be dealt out once the worst of the pandemic is over.
This was the Premier seizing control, meting out some deserved punishment and warning the rest of the rabble to get back to work.
It was the right move from a Premier who has long been criticised for having let Ministers run wild and get away with scandal after scandal.
The spectacle of two of Berejiklian’s most trusted men publicly mulling over whether they would stand for federal politics, fighting among themselves, including allegations of white-anting, disunity and name calling is particularly revolting in the context of the pandemic.
While NSW families were grappling with unemployment, lockdowns, and uncertainty about the future, politics this week looked like a circus sideshow.
This is an unfair slight on Berejiklian, whose workhorse-like diligence could not be in greater contrast to the carry on.
It’s not secret that there are multiple criticisms to be levelled at Berejiklian over the pandemic — ranging from the Ruby Princess debacle to the handling of Newmarch and Don Harwin’s holiday jaunt.
Despite this, the Premier has steered the state in a manner that is enviable to other major cities around the world.
That is in no small part due to her work ethic in the crisis and her singular focus on the pandemic in the past seven weeks.
She has fronted up to 35 weekday press conferences in a row — bad days and good days — facing the people and fielding questions for up to an hour.
She’s shown herself to be reliable and hardworking. Voters appreciate this.
It is no wonder that in all the huffing and puffing about Eden-Monaro polling it was Berejiklian who had the strongest personal approval ratings, outstripping Constance and Barilaro.
Against this backdrop, the pantomime from the one-time Eden-Monaro hopefuls could not be more jarring.
By far the most baffling moment of the week was the fallout from my story that Barilaro had called his mate Constance an unpublishable word beginning with C.
The remark was made to another government member in a private exchange.
After The Daily Telegraph published the story Barilaro went on to ask multiple people if they were the leaker which, of course, raises the question of just how freely he was dropping the descriptor.
But this is politics. The domain of thick-skinned, knife wielding attack dogs who can give as good as they get.
And yet, the story was seized upon to change the course of history, with Constance pointing to the slur and it’s leaking as the key reason he wouldn’t contest the Eden-Monaro by-election.
He said it was a sign of Coalition disunity and political white-anting which he feared would derail his campaign.
It is thought to be more likely that Constance realised he didn’t have support of local branches for a successful tilt and seized on the c-word story to bow out.
In any case, behind the scenes allegations of smears and leaking are flying among ministers.
Even as Barilaro came under fire yesterday for a trip to his holiday home, which police ultimately decided was within the rules, he told Channel 10 he feared he was the victim of a “smear campaign”.
At the end of it all, the only winner in all of this is Labor, who can now present themselves as steady caretakers for Eden-Monaro while the other lot carried on like student politics spivs.
Both Constance and Barilaro will need to put their heads down and try to take a leaf out of Berejiklian’s School of Work Your Guts Out if they are to rebuild credibility in cabinet.
The message to all of government is clear — less cunning stunts, more hard work.