Keneally misses her chance on unpopular players and policies

KRISTINA Keneally has lost another chance to shuck off the "puppet premier" label since assuming power in NSW in early December.

Labor is staring down the barrel of a possibly brutal election regime change next year. But faint hopes that caucus's election of a fresh-faced US-born Premier might propel the Labor government into a new era have failed to materialise.

Although Keneally spent the holiday period hard at work amid a flurry of almost daily picture opportunities, her elevation of former cabinet minister Tony Stewart and controversial Wollongong MP Noreen Hay as parliamentary secretaries squandered another opportunity to stamp her mark on the deeply unpopular government.

Keneally already faced an uphill battle for credibility with voters after being catapulted to power after a last-minute deal was struck between party powerbrokers Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid on the one hand, and one-time leadership hopeful John Della Bosca on the other.

If the NSW Labor Party was to have any chance of avoiding an almost certain election defeat, voters would have to be convinced that Keneally was a Premier in control of her own destiny, determined to shake up an underperforming government.

NSW's ranking as last in investment broker CommSec's State of the States report this week -- showing NSW as the worst performing economy in the nation and desperately in need of new initiatives to stimulate growth in housing construction and business investment -- underscored the need for radical surgery.

A cabinet reshuffle would have been a good start; instead Keneally immediately rewarded Della Bosca and former minister Ian Macdonald, who had plotted against her predecessor, Nathan Rees, with senior ministerial posts.

If she were to have scrapped the expensive CBD Metro rail -- announced by Rees and opposed by transport planners and rail unions -- it would have been another chance for Keneally to stamp her authority on the ailing government. Inquirer understands that NSW ALP general secretary Matt Thistlethwaite begged the new Premier to cancel the metro rail project, criticised as a needless luxury.

But in choosing to continue it, the risk-averse Keneally has ensured her premiership will be inextricably tied in the minds of voters to the $5.3 billion rail project that has caused outrage in inner-west electorates. Those electorates are now more likely to punish Labor next year.

One of the most telling signs that voters can expect business-as-usual under Keneally is her failure to hand pick her own, fresh team of advisers.

In appointing former Carr government media boss Walt Secord as her chief of staff, Keneally has tightened her ties to the forces of Tripodi and Obeid.

Secord was chief of staff to Treasurer and right-winger Eric Roozendaal before being elevated to the Premier's office.

Secord was Kevin Rudd's director of communications when federal Labor was in opposition and was dramatically demoted when Rudd was elected Prime Minister. He is not likely to be an asset to Keneally if she seeks close and warm relations with Rudd's office now.