No obvious replacement for a done and dusted Daley

NSW Opposition leader Michael Daley at breakfast in Maroubra yesterday. Picture: AAP

I contacted NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet last Thursday and asked him to pass on a message of congratulations to Premier Gladys Berejiklian, a woman I do not know personally.

Although this campaign was supposed to be close, there was never much doubt who would come out on top. Try as he might, Labor leader Michael Daley did not cut the mustard.

In the one televised contest organised by Sky News, Berejiklian showed a steely resolve. She was across the detail, a claim the Opposition Leader could never make. He was caught out on his incapacity to read all the briefs provided for him. No one can wing it all the time, least of all someone as intellectually fragile as Daley.

This was the campaign where the Premier, who had seemed shy and reluctant to enter the contest, demonstrated her killer instinct. Gone were the wishy-washy performances of the past. Instead we saw a woman brimming with confidence that she would win. And win she most certainly did. Someone as experienced as Daley should have known one-trick ponies never win.

The average voter in NSW would have been sick and tired of hearing about his stadiums policy and would start to wonder if he had any other policies. Good policies like air-conditioning classrooms failed to gather momentum because the stadiums policy was talked about so much.

The real embarrassment for Daley on election night was the dramatic swing against him in his own seat of Maroubra — more than 10 per cent. It remains to be seen if pre-polls and absentee votes counteract that huge swing against him. Bob Carr never had a swing like that when he was the member for Maroubra but that merely serves to underline the obvious: Michael Daley is no Bob Carr.

As Labor looks to the future, the cupboard is bare. Future leaders have not stepped up and unless one can be found or manufactured in a hurry, Labor’s future in NSW looks bleak.

Nationals leader John Barilaro did well to hang on in Monaro. In Labor’s supposed stronghold of Queanbeyan, Barilaro made inroads. He is going to prove particularly difficult to dislodge.

In their third election, you would have thought the Coalition might be vulnerable. It has good plans for big infrastructure projects that will augur well for the state’s economic future. Only that wretched light rail holds it back. Unfortunately it is the one project that has the Premier’s fingerprints all over it. Labor never really pinged the catastrophe on Berejiklian and that was a major failure.

For Labor the next problem is what to do with Daley. He wants to remain leader, but you could argue he should not be rewarded for a failure with which he is mostly responsible.

The problem is if you want to argue that way, you need to have someone else to run. I just can’t see who the phantom leader is right now.