Perrottet acts now to avoid Morrison’s fate

While not on the nose as much as Scott Morrison was, Dominic Perrottet has struggled to shrug off his past reputation as a political hardman. Picture: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Announcements on policy action are coming hard and fast from NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

He is still a fortnight out from the release of his government’s state budget, normally the platform to impress voters with new spending, and he faces an election in nine months.

But Perrottet is not waiting. In the past week, the Premier has unveiled plans to recruit 10,000 extra nurses, doctors, paramedics and others for the state’s public health system at a cost of $4.5bn over four years. With two-thirds to sign on next year, this is a fast track to address chronic understaffing and mollify complaints from overworked staff that the strain has become unbearable.

Perrottet is further offering $3000 cash payments to healthcare workers above and beyond maximum 3 per cent pay rises across the public sector, as a thank-you for extraordinary frontline efforts in the pandemic. Even if others are unhappy, it’s won instant health sector support.

The Premier is tackling transport priorities as well. Last week he confirmed he will go against infrastructure planning advice by pressing ahead with a Parramatta light rail extension in Sydney’s west. The proposed Northern Beaches Link motorway (unpopular with some) and M6 motorway extension in Sydney’s south (very costly) will be delayed for now.

On Tuesday, Perrottet’s government selectively leaked to The Daily Telegraph another measure meant to help fix a tollway mess for motorists. Many thousands, mainly in western Sydney, will receive big toll bill rebates in place of a cheaper car registration scheme.

As Tuesday wore on, Perrottet addressed another issue that has troubled his government: pork-barrelling. The era of ministers dishing out $4bn in annual grants, many for pet projects, might not end. But his “support in principle” for Productivity Commission recommendations that would require ministers to provide reasons for grants could improve accountability.

What’s going on? It would appear the Premier has heeded some key lessons of Scott Morrison’s shattering federal election defeat. Jolted into remedial work, Perrottet accepts he needs a solid narrative, a backstory, to persuade NSW voters in March to give his government a fourth term, and that he can’t wait. As Morrison discovered, sudden promises to change or improve made close to the election will not work.

Already governing one short of a 46-seat majority, and up against a potentially competitive Labor opposition and an urbane leader in Chris Minns, Perrottet is not popular. A Resolve poll for Nine newspapers in February showed Minns had edged ahead of Perrottet as preferred premier, 32-29 per cent.

While not on the nose as much as Morrison was, Perrottet has struggled to shrug off his past reputation as a political hardman. He lacks the wide public support of predecessor Gladys Berejiklian. Indeed Berejiklian’s leadership through the Covid-19 pandemic was so admired, even across party lines, that her re-election was thought to be assured, until her political career was cut short by scandal.

The next 10 months will not be easy for the Premier, battling perceptions he leads a tired government in its 12th year of office. He may also struggle to persuade voters that some of his priorities, such as light rail and overhauled toll charges, are not just measures to win votes in Sydney’s west. That’s where the Premier needs to hold seats, and win more, to survive past March.