Opposition Leader Michael Daley stumbles in race to the finish
After the week from hell — including controversies over racism and a blundering performance at the People’s Forum — voters are likely thinking twice about Michael Daley.
Opinion
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Opposition leaders, by their very nature, oppose. It’s what they do. Those in power, however, have a harder job: They have to deliver. And come election time, voters need to be convinced that whomever they put in the top job can get it done.
Unfortunately for Michael Daley, this final, punishing week of the state contest may have left voters wondering if the Labor leader is really ready for prime time.
The entire campaign has turned on a dime in the space of just days. If voters are listening, Daley should be in trouble. But he’ll be hoping they aren’t paying too much attention.
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Daley’s Monday started on a high, with optimism for the final week. The camp was buoyed by polling and believed it was in an even stronger position than the public figures suggested. Plus, momentum was on their side and that’s all anyone wants in a campaign’s final week.
But momentum can vanish. At 5pm that day, everything changed. Daley was deeply rattled when I revealed on The Daily Telegraph website a video had been unearthed of him saying Asian migrants were taking our jobs. The story took on a life of its own and within a day became the stuff of dinner table conversations — quite simply, those comments had cut through.
Of course they won’t play badly at every dinner table — another factor Daley is hoping insulates him from too much damage.
But Labor MPs are feeling an unsettling deja vu. Last campaign, backdoor xenophobia and fear-mongering over Chinese investment in poles and wires blew up in the party’s face in seats such as Oatley and East Hills.
And so it was not surprising that damage control this week the party deployed luminaries including friend of China Bob Carr, former PM Paul Keating and former premier Kristina Keneally in multicultural electorates.
But that wasn’t even close to the end of the Daley unravelling.
Just a day after the damaging video was revealed, the premier-hopeful endured a disastrous interview with 2GB’s Ben Fordham, in which he finally admitted he’d gotten his week two claim that the SCG Trust was “ripping sprinklers out under the cover of darkness” at Sydney Football Stadium wrong.
And then finally, the body blow came on Wednesday — a triple header failure to know key budget details on his big policies under the bright lights of live TV in the battleground seat of Penrith. Not on one policy, but three. And he was out by billions, not millions.
Daley’s series of brutal blunders at the Sky News/Daily Telegraph People’s Forum reverberated through the day yesterday on FM airwaves, newspaper front pages and TV ensuring the event will haunt the dying days of his bid to be premier.
Quite simply, another train wreck.
Labor insiders say one disaster fed into the next this week, rattling the Opposition Leader’s confidence.
Remember, it was exactly a week ago in this column that we unpacked Daley’s shocker when he couldn’t answer questions on his own luxury car tax. He couldn’t say precisely who would be impacted, weeks after introducing a new tax hike.
What has become clear is that the light on detail thing is not a slip-up — it’s a pattern of behaviour.
It means that Daley comes off as slippery, even if he has no ill intent.
And there’s no one worse for him to go head-to-head with than Gladys Berejiklian, who he will never beat on detail when forced to fight on her home turf of technocratic government.
The extent of Labor’s concerns were obvious yesterday. Daley retreated to what he knows best — stadiums and light rail.
These issues and the spend on them boosted his campaign in the early days. There is no doubt Daley and Labor tapped into a public sentiment that was fed up with government arrogance.
The flying economy — which the government believes should guarantee it a third term — had served to alienate voters battling cost of living pressures. They felt forgotten as Sydney went from strength to strength.
For Daley, stadiums became symbolic of elitism and largesse, while light rail was emblematic of the arrogance of a government seeking a third term. The government could out-argue Daley on stadiums policy but it mattered for naught because he had tapped into a mood.
But as Daley retreated to this familiar ground yesterday, it was simply a reminder that his campaign lacked depth beyond this.
Still, there is a day to go.
Daley has had a horror final week, but he had a decent first three.
There’s no getting away from the fact that NSW voters are considering dumping this government. The truth is, with the polls locked neck-and-neck, they were never so much considering voting for Daley — a man who took the baton in only November — as they were wanting to vote against the government.
Berejiklian needed to prove to voters it was better the devil they know.
And this week, she has come as close to proving that as she could have possibly hoped. Correction. Daley has proved it for her. Whether it’s enough at the ballot box remains to be seen.
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