Wagga Wagga by-election: Gladys Berejiklian remains premier in waiting

Huge swings against the Liberals and the Nationals have become normal.

The result of the Wagga Wagga by-election, when taken with a string of other by-election routs, shows Gladys Berejiklian is a Premier in waiting — that is, waiting for the electorate to put an end to her misery and that of her government.

Over a few years in seats such as Orange in the bush through to big-city seats such as North Sydney and Manly, huge swings against the Liberals and the ­Nationals have become normal; so normal that at one point Berejiklian tried to claim that a 20 per cent swing was not unusual.

The trail of by-election disasters makes dreadful reading for committed conservatives: Orange, 34 per cent; Gosford, 11.9; Manly, 24.2; North Shore, 15.3; Cootamundra, 19.6, Murray, 14.8; and now Wagga Wagga, 28.7 per cent.

Just how she will describe a near-30 per cent swing remains to be seen. I know how her colleagues will see it: anyone holding a seat by less than 5 per cent will be scrolling through online job ads.

It is hard to recall a by-election result as lousy as this, and you would be entitled to wonder how the outlook could be so grim for a government with a comfortable majority of 13 seats.

Ever since former premier Barry O’Farrell fell foul of a bottle of Grange, the Liberals have headed downhill.

Despite choosing the “perfect” replacement, successful cleanskin Mike Baird, the disaster from which they could never ­recover was always on the cards. Baird was likeable, but a wowser. His decision to ban greyhound racing after seemingly bothering to consult only his staff, brought the Liberal machine to a grinding halt.

The Nationals lost all credibility in the bush where every town had a dog track. The Liberals looked out of touch and then made this terrible blunder much worse by clinging to it when it was obviously causing voters to drift away in droves.

Berejiklian has struggled to make a connection with voters. While she is earnest, she seems to appear before the cameras for only two reasons: to apologise for another failure or announce another toll road.

Her biggest personal failure was a real whopper. As transport minister she signed a contract to build the light rail from Randwick to Circular Quay. This contract meant the government could not sack the contractor no matter how poor its performance.

Even worse, the contract allegedly gave Spanish contractor Acciona the wrong or inadequate information about what was under George Street in central Sydney. Consequently, businesses all along the light-rail route have been going broke while their plight has been ignored by the Liberals, who paint themselves as the friends of small business.

The government’s addiction to tolls presents Opposition Leader Luke Foley with a rich vein to mine from here to the March election. Tradies in particular, are furious at spending more than $20 a day to get to and from work. They are waiting for their chance of retribution.

Meanwhile, Berejiklian says she is listening, while nothing changes.

Perhaps the situation was best described by a senior Labor scrutineer on Saturday night. He told me that at 9.30pm “the Liberals abandoned their posts as scrutineers, just like they had abandoned Wagga”.

I keep saying it: the mob will ­always work you out.