People’s Forum: Michael Daley’s brain freeze in very ordinary display

Michael Daley Leader of the Opposition pictured at the People’s Forum. Picture: Damian Shaw

After a horror week, Michael Daley needed to make sure there were no mistakes in last night’s Sky News People’s Forum in Penrith.

Unfortunately, just when he was nearly through, he did slip — and it was a shocker.

Daley could not name the extra Gonski funding figure he promised at his launch, just saying he was lifting Gonski funding from 77 per cent to 100 per cent. It was as if his brain froze.

But then the Labor leader compounded his mistake by saying he was putting $3 billion into TAFE when he is only spending $64 million on free courses.

He had mixed the Gonski number up with the TAFE number.

You can bet today the government will be making hay of this.

And given there are probably only a couple of thousand votes in the hung parliament result, it was the worst possible outcome for Daley.

Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian has failed in not creating a narrative for this campaign.

But now she has one — the other guy just isn’t up to it. Daley has marketed himself as an ordinary man.

Last night, he was very ordinary indeed.