Exit of John Barilaro, Gladys Berejiklian leaves uncertainty in NSW

Departing NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and John Barilaro early this year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

There was a moment during John Barilaro’s valedictory press conference on Monday where he was asked if his departure, so soon after the exit of Gladys Berejiklian, would leave the state without a “steady hand” at this difficult juncture of the pandemic.

The irony of the question was not lost on the NSW Deputy Premier, who has long been renowned for his political hooning and engine-revving with Liberal MPs and Ms Berejiklian herself.

“Well I’m glad you said I’m the steady hand,” he chuckled at the journalist. “I’m sure it’s been reported in the past that I’m not a steady hand.”

Indeed, cautious leadership is unlikely to be a hallmark of Mr Barilaro‘s legacy. While it is true that he has mellowed significantly in recent months, it would be uncontroversial to suggest that his partnership with Ms Berejiklian operated on anything less than an ambient level of distrust and even open hostility between them when competing interests were in play.

And these were always in play – over feral horses, uranium mining, bushfire prevention, renewable energy. Even the humble wood heater briefly became an object of rage earlier this year when Mr Barilaro picked a fight with Matt Kean, the energy Minister, about air pollution in the cities.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Parliamentary sitting weeks were rarely without a whiff of grapeshot between the Nationals and their Liberal cousins over one issue or another, and Mr Barilaro, when not at the centre of these skirmishes, would occasionally wield them to his political advantage.

That is not criticism, by the way. It’s strategy. Mr Barilaro won friends and made enemies by forcefully taking up the battles of other people around the cabinet table, or in crisis cabinet, distinguishing himself from predecessors and winning the support from his party, even when the results ran a risk of severe personal detriment.

In an incident that stands to become folkloric on Macquarie Street, he threatened to take his entire Nationals caucus to the crossbench over an obscure piece of koala legislation that virtually no one in NSW fully understood, except maybe the most committed policy wonk.

This gambit stood to play well to Nationals voters, or at least that was the intended effect; the party had been under siege from opposition forces that had snatched away seats including Barwon, Murray and Lismore under Mr Barilaro’s leadership. (The Nationals reclaimed Upper Hunter earlier this year in a contest with Labor, a coup for the deputy premier.)

In the aftermath of that crisis an outright majority of Nationals MPs continued pledging their allegiance to Mr Barilaro, particularly as calls increased from Liberal MPs that he stand aside over his conduct.

A public show of support for Ms Berejiklian at her Sydney electoral office. Picture: AFP

But even with this support there was a pyrrhic quality to the whole episode.

Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams defected to the NSW Liberal Party in disgust, in a decision that further entrenched the Nationals’ distrust of their Liberal coalition partners, who they blamed for the defection.

It also evidently took a toll Mr Barilaro’s mental health, a factor he cited as a reason for his resignation, along with “vile, racist attacks” he has experienced that are now the subject of a private legal suit.

Although it remains uncertain who will replace him as leader, what seems clear enough is that NSW is about to experience a wholesale reorientation of its governance under Dominic Perrottet, a right-faction conservative whose principles, a bit like his age, are difficult to guess at this point.

We are likely to welcome in one of the most conservative governments since Sydney won the rights to the 2000 Olympics. Whoever does replace Mr Barilaro would do well to retain the verve he brought to the stage with Ms Berejiklian.

Despite the chaos of their partnership, it stands as proof that some odd couples really do match well.