Basic gaffes enough to cost Labor its chance to win back NSW from Berejiklian

The Coalition has suffered from its inability to sell its success story but all is far from lost.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: Dylan Robinson.

“Let’s get it done NSW.”

It is an uninspiring slogan and one that has dogged NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian for almost the entire length of her election campaign. But a week of stuff-ups by Opposition Leader Michael Daley has halted Labor’s momentum and put Berejiklian in the box seat to sneak home today with a minority government, or at least a slim ­majority.

The slogan grates because it ­reminds Sydneysiders of just how much disruption has occurred in recent years with not one ribbon cut on a major ­project.

Today’s NSW election shapes as a contest between a reforming government seeking to bash through infrastructure and a side that wants to settle things down and is accused of wanting to take the state backwards economically.

But the election also may shape as a confirmation or repudiation of how much change a government can push through in these post-Brexit, post-Trump times and still be re-elected. The results will have national significance because the direction of NSW will help determine the direction of Australia — particularly economically.

Berejiklian and her colleagues, helped by former Liberal premier Mike Baird’s $30 billion sale of the electricity poles and wires, have started building a tonne of projects but many are yet to be finished. Sydney is a construction zone. Urban congestion in the city is as bad as, if not worse than, eight years ago when the Coalition swept into ­office and promised to fix it. The fact ­Berejiklian says “NSW can have it all” — including two stadiums being built at once — is not resonating well with many voters. The bush feels left out of the ­billions being pumped into economy, and drought has hit hard. ­Berejiklian is asking for a third ­Coalition term to finish the job, ­arguing that given Labor’s past ­record of cancelling projects, the opposition would be incapable of doing so.

The Liberals are casting this as a vital election for the future of the state’s economy, and why wouldn’t they? When the Coali­tion came to power, the NSW economy was performing close to last. Now it is close to first.

But the problem with this, as was evidenced in the June 2016 Brexit vote in Britain and ­Donald Trump’s rise to the White House five months later, is that people, particularly in rural areas, feel left behind. Low wages growth is partly responsible for this.

And Berejiklian has not been the best salesperson. She seems addicted to infrastructure prom­ises. If she feels she has a problem, she just promises yet another ­infrastructure project — including planning money during the campaign for four more metro rail lines and high-speed rail projects. And, unlike Baird in 2015, she is not promising asset sales to fund the promises.

In recent years a strong NSW economy has meant a strong Australian economy. A hung state parliament or a return to Labor may threaten this, goes the theory.

Chris Richardson, of Deloitte Access Economics, spells out the importance of the NSW economy to the nation. “If you go back 30 years, NSW was 37 per cent of Australia’s economy,” he says. “As recently as the Olympics it was 36.5 per cent. Then it entered a ­(period) where it was 32 per cent. By 2013-14 … it was back … up and it is 33 now. During the last few years, essentially from the Olympics, NSW was on the wrong side of some things.”

One of the reasons was that the China-led boom was about Queensland and Western Australia. “We had a sort of political (narrative) of Sydney is full, whereas Victoria was more into immigration growth,” Richardson says.

Immigration, infrastructure and what sort of city Sydney ­becomes is the hidden issue for many in NSW. While Berejiklian’s Greater Sydney Commission says the city will have eight million residents by 2056, many Sydneysiders don’t want this. They want the natural beauty of the place retained and they don’t particularly want a population of 10 million.

Berejiklian has been part of a government that is reaching out towards that big city. She is building the sort of metro lines — and has plans for even more lines — that resemble the London Tube. The Metro Northwest project will open in May. Daley wants the Metro West project too but he would cut back Metro Southwest.

The government builds, builds, builds and there is no end in sight. Ironic that this is now a complaint when, apart from corruption scandals, Labor was ostensibly banished in 2011 for not doing enough to build transport infrastructure projects. Incredible also that Berejiklian is not further up in the polls when NSW has just 4.3 per cent unemployment, up from 3.9 per cent last month, yet still the lowest in the nation.

Sydney’s growing pains have hurt politically and that is why ­Berejiklian, normally pro-immigration and a daughter of immigrants, came out with the shock announcement last year that she wanted permanent migration to NSW halved.

This has led to Scott Morrison announcing a reduction in permanent migration levels this week.

There will be federal implications from tonight’s result.

In the NSW campaign, the Prime Minister was like a cold the state Libs did not want to catch. He wasn’t allowed to speak at the Liberals’ launch and when he wanted to announce the funding for the airport rail line the next day, Berejiklian’s team reluctantly agreed to appear with him.

Berejiklian’s team had wanted to get more out of their before-and-after school care announcement, also made at the launch, but felt they had to appear with Morrison instead.

One NSW Labor MP saw the Morrison-Berejiklian announcement and asked if the Libs were “doing Labor’s campaign for them”.

If Berejiklian does OK, as ­expected, that could help Morrison think he is in with a crazy show of winning, and certainly a show of saving the furniture.

On the other hand, ironically, if she gets over the line, it could be dangerous for Morrison because it may encourage people to throw out the federal Liberals, knowing the state Liberals are in charge. Many voters would fear the ­potential effect on the economy of having state and federal Labor in charge.

Last September, two months before he became Labor leader, Daley made a trip to a Politics in the Pub event hosted by Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle, attended by his friend and upper house leader Adam Searle. The event was held at Wentworth Falls and Daley made some remarks that have damaged his chances of becoming the state’s 46th premier.

As one former Liberal staff member said this week, if Berejiklian wins she should shout dinner for Daniel Pizarro, the young journalist who filmed the speech and posted it on YouTube.

Perhaps she should also shout the young Liberal staff member who was trawling YouTube for Daley references and found the video. When it was broken by The Daily Telegraph online last Monday afternoon, all hell broke loose for the Labor campaign.

There was one phrase in that speech that could haunt Daley forever. “Our young children will flee and who are they being ­replaced with? They are being ­replaced by young people from typically Asia with PhDs.”

Also: “There’s a transformation happening in Sydney now where our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in and taking their jobs.”

Daley’s remarks feed into a very large debate in Sydney and NSW about immigration and the rate of it.

But singling out Asians and talking about “our” kids was ugly language, particularly to many traditional Left voters.

The Opposition Leader had alienated many in his base and suddenly seats that were in the can are now in doubt. Labor began ­removing posters with Daley’s face on them in certain seats.

The dog whistle might have worked in Penrith and Goulburn, seats Labor is hoping to win, but it was always going to hurt Labor in parts of Sydney where there are large Chinese communities such as Kogarah, Oatley, Ryde and Strathfield.

Today’s Newspoll reflects a slight decline — enough to stop Daley having a chance of achieving minority government.

But, more telling, Daley ­appeared shaken by the reaction to his comments and his performance was affected just when he needed to be at his best.

And that’s when he screwed up in the Sky News People’s Forum on Wednesday night. Asked by host David Speers to name the cost of Labor’s Gonski education promise, Daley could not name the $2.7bn costing. He froze. “I can’t remember the exact ­figure,” he said. “I’ll have a look at it. I just can’t remember it off the top of my head.’’

This wasn’t just any figure. It was the lead figure announced at the Labor Party’s launch 1½ weeks earlier.

Then Daley got his TAFE promise wrong by a couple of billion — appearing to mix up the schools and TAFE figures.

It was cringe-worthy. One ­Liberal MP texted on the night: “It’s over.”

As NSW goes to the polls today, Labor is on the backfoot. For it to win minority government, it essentially needs almost every seat of 11 in play to fall. The ­momentum does not appear that way and today’s Newspoll, published in The Australian, says it can’t be done.

A government loss of six seats appears more likely — enough to force it into minority government and have it rely on just one of nine or more crossbenchers, most ­likely Lake Macquarie independent Greg Piper, to govern.

It now appears a race between a Coalition majority and Coali­tion minority.

Even if the government loses four to seven seats, only two to four of those may go to Labor.

A best-case scenario for Berejiklian tonight is the loss of three to four net seats. She needs six to lose her majority, but Daley needs 13 for a majority for him.

Worst-case scenario for the government is the loss of 10 seats, but absolutely everything would have to go Labor’s way for that to occur. Nine losses would be enough to see Labor form a minority government with the Greens and independents, maybe even a Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP or two.

During the past few years, the Coalition’s policies, including control of public service wages and asset sales-funded infrastructure building, have helped the economy enormously.

This has contributed to exponential growth in house prices that has, in turn, fed government coffers. But house prices are coming down and there will be budgetary challenges ahead.

In the end, if a hung parliament occurs today, it is because Bere­jiklian has failed to sell the case for the government to keep forging forward the way it has been. It will also be because people are concerned that Daley is just not up to the job as premier and Labor has not spent long enough in the wilderness.

It will be, in effect, a vote for no one.

Berejiklian’s government record suggests she deserves to win in her own right. The fact she hasn't managed this is down to her failure to bring the community with her, the federal government, growing pains and a Trump-like feeling in the bush.

A slim majority or a minority government could cause problems for the Premier as she seeks to dole out cabinet spots in a week or two from now. She will also face whispers within her team about the poor campaign and ­narrow win.

As for Daley, he may have missed the chance of a lifetime with some silly comments and an inability to remember detail. A couple of errors of the proportion of Mark Latham’s John Howard handshake in the 2004 federal election — ironic since Latham is now a candidate for One Nation, expected to re-enter politics in the state upper house.

As former Liberal premier John Fahey, who lost government by 200 votes in one seat in the 1995 NSW election, told The Australian at the start of the campaign: “The big difference (with 1995) and why I think she’ll get there is there’s always got to be a (credible) alternative.”

Fahey did not think there was. That may prove the case tonight.