A real leader must always have the answers

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Picture: AAP

In a close election race, the winner is almost always the one finishing strongly. That is why Gladys Berejiklian probably will still be the Premier after tomorrow.

She won Wednesday’s televised debate in a canter. Quite surprisingly, Labor’s Mich­ael Daley was short on detail. The Premier was all over him. She showed an unexpectedly aggres­sive technique. The Opposition Leader did not expect it and looked like a man struggling with his brief.

The worry I have is that successful politicians thrive when the going is tough. But it is when you are constantly under pressure and nothing is going your way that voters and your peers will judge your ­capacity to lead.

When leaders debate, detail is important. It is not a good look to keep telling audiences you will get back to them with an answer. If you have a real grasp of the details and can give instant, accurate ­answers, you are a mile in front of anyone conceding they can’t do the same. If you can dominate a debate in the way a Keating, a Hawke, a Howard or a Wran could, you will be very hard to beat in any election.

Probably the best politician in the country right now is Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. He has set a winning template of under-promising and over-delivering. He obviously believes that promising to fix some unprotected rail crossings is better than promising to build new railways.

He has almost wiped out the Liberal Party in his state and it will be a very long way back for Victoria’s conservatives.

In state politics, in particular, if you can dig yourself in you may prove very difficult to dislodge.

In Western Australia, Mark Mc­Gowan is already in that position. He is as formidable as Andrews and the size of his recent victory must have sent a shiver down many a West Australian Liberal spine. WA has been a place where Labor has never really cracked the federal seats traditionally held by the conservatives. The May election should see the blue hold broken and with a few bright red spots certain to appear.

Whatever the result, you can see the amount of careful planning going into each step of a campaign.

Here we can read of the chaos in the “mother of parliaments”, Britain’s House of Commons. Barely a week goes by without Prime Minister Theresa May being defeated yet again on the floor of the house. Yet she still holds the job as she shuttles ­between London and Brussels working on the impossible dream — that is, a deal for a Brexit that a majority of the British parliament might swallow.

Any ­assumption that deal, if ­indeed there ever is such a thing, would have the support of the British people is a leap of faith I am at this point not prepared to make. The Brits really are in a mess over this. Both the major parties have had schisms and micro-­parties are being formed on both sides ­because of unhappiness over any deal so far proposed.

Now that they have discovered that the policy as originally cited by its rather dodgy creators, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, was an ­illusion, I have no doubt how Britain would vote if a second referendum were held. By a big majority, I believe they would say this has all become way too hard, so let’s just stay in Europe and put an end to the Brexiteers’ confusion and doubt. They should have ­realised long ago that following Johnson was dumb.

Things are no better on the other side of the Atlantic, where Donald Trump is still threatening to build his ridiculous wall. He can, as President, declare an emer­gency where none exists and use his very considerable powers to ­secure the billions required. That would be interesting because presumably House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her ­allies would take the legal route. Given that he has put so much time and effort into stacking the federal courts and the Supreme Court with conservative judges, it would be fascinating to discover if the Democrats could find a court where they had a chance of success.

Political leaders are also struggling in Europe. Paris has seen protests on 18 consecutive weekends. Originally these protests were mainly made up of farmers complaining about increases in the price of petrol. Now they are broadening every week to include any worker with a gripe about wages and conditions. Emmanuel Macron came to power promising a new kind of government, very different to those of the Gaullists and Socialists that have run France since World War II. When the crunch comes — and Macron is the perfect example — you can’t run a government without being a politician. That means you weigh up arguments and eventually come down on one side. The losers simply seek to regroup, whinge and whine, and try to reverse policy yet again.

In Germany the seemingly eternal reign of Angela Merkel is coming to an end. She has anointed another woman as her successor, but as her popularity wanes so does her power, and we are yet to see if she has enough oomph left to be able to hand-pick her ­successor. It is still the fact, though, that Merkel has been wonderful for Germany. She was able to be the driving force for the creation of a united Europe with the euro as its currency. By not having to trade in marks, the Germans saved themselves a fortune that is still mounting.

Merkel bristles at allegations by Trump that Germany, and indeed the rest of Europe, together with Britain, are not pulling their weight in defence spending. The Europeans would do well to listen to the US President, who has long decried the assumption from the Europeans that America will continue to be the world’s policeman.

Bristle though she might, it is hard to discard the view that for once Trump may be right.