Why shouldn’t Mike Baird get out while he’s on top?

NSW Premier Mike Baird will quit politics. Picture: Stephen Cooper

True to form, Mike Baird announced his shock retirement on Twitter.

“I’m retiring from politics,” it said, beneath his smiling, beach-bum handsome, profile picture. “It’s been an honour to serve you, NSW.”

Attached was a detailed statement that gave no real clues to reasons for his departure, except that he had been reflecting on his and the government’s future over the summer break.

I'm retiring from politics. It's been an honour to serve you, NSW. pic.twitter.com/eFInOqoC19

— Mike Baird (@mikebairdMP) January 18, 2017

There were, perhaps, better clues across on his Facebook page, where his most recent status update had proudly shared the news that he would be walking his daughter down the aisle this year.

His sister — author and journalist Julia Baird — has had a major health scare, as have his parents. The family is close.

Just maybe here is a politician with strong family and religious affiliations, who wants to get back to what matters most for those he cares most about.

After all, the prime mission of the NSW Liberals has been achieved — they needed to repair the state budget and revive the economy.

Sydney and NSW now lead the nation again as the generator of economic growth — the place to work and invest — and its budget is strongly in surplus as the government implements a massive infrastructure program.

Why not get out when on top? Baird was the Treasurer who oversaw most of the hard work and fell into the premiership when Barry O’Farrell was run over by a bottle of Grange.

Baird, a former banker, committed Christian and avid surfer, was effective and immensely likeable, taking the Liberals and the Nationals Coalition partner to a thumping election win.

He has done most of what he ever set out to do in politics.

This is not to say he is unblemished — far from it. His past year has been knocked off course by massive overreach in banning the Greyhound racing industry.

This was a case of the social media performer getting carried away with Twitter encouragement and losing touch with the mainstream.

It cost the government badly for month after month before he finally backflipped late last year.

The point is, however, that he made the right call in the end and probably had the political capital to get away with it.

Yet this moralising attitude — this patrician tendency towards nanny state laws — was infecting his government.

Forced council amalgamations created a vicious undercurrent that probably had an impact on the federal election last year, and lockout laws, despite minor relaxation, have undermined Sydney’s claim to be the party capital of the nation. There have also been restrictions on coal seam gas exploration and a green-inspired reluctance to protect people from sharks.

For all these worrying signs, and the way they had taken some of the gloss off Baird’s runaway popularity, there is little doubt he would have been able to take the government to re-election in 2019.

His party’s greatest concern now will be that without his charismatic — if slightly shop worn — leadership, the next election has suddenly become unpredictable.