Gillard on track to anger O'Farrell

WHAT is Julia Gillard doing, allowing her conflicted (at least in the perception stakes) Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese to sign off on a $2.5 billion agreement to build the Epping to Parramatta railway link in Sydney just 14 days before NSW Labor goes into caretaker mode?

It's either a political stunt designed to give NSW Labor something to crow about as it goes to the polls or it's a disgraceful locking-in of taxpayer funds before a certain change of government next month.

Neither scenario is particularly edifying.

Yes, the rail link project was an election commitment by the federal Labor government. But it was one met with widespread cynicism because the promise has been floating in the ether for more than a decade.

And Albanese is married to NSW Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt who, along with Premier Kristina Keneally, is desperate to square away a deal so Labor at least has something to campaign on. Given Tebbutt is fighting for her political survival in her inner city seat of Marrickville, under siege from the Greens, such an achievement is doubly important.

We aren't talking about a small amount of money. Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell has no intention of going ahead with the signed agreement, which means if it isn't binding, it's pure political spin to sign it now; if it is binding, it forces a new government to spend $500 million on something it doesn't want to do and commits $2bn of federal funds to a project the new government would rather spend elsewhere, such as on the North-West, South-West link.

Either way, Gillard has irritated O'Farrell -- incoming premier of the largest state in the commonwealth -- at the beginning of what the Prime Minister likes to call the "year of delivery".

Gillard might have delivered ink on paper to build the Epping to Parramatta rail link, but at what political price for delivery in other policy areas? You can bet after this pre-election stitch-up, O'Farrell won't play nicely with the federal Labor government when it comes to health reform, carbon emissions targets, education in schools, you name it.