Sat 26 March saw N.S.W. State election and state-wide trashing of the Labor Party. Defeat expected, & to be thorough, but not this landslide. Greens 1 seat - Balmain! after a week of counting; Labor 20; Coalition 69 Greens 1 Independents 3 total seats 93. The map of N.S.W. is entirely blue save patches of red in Sydney and a tiny splotch of green. In the Legislative Council the balance of power is with the Christian Democrats, and the Shooters and Fishers (shooters having teamed with fishers to, er, soften their image). The National Party holds from Hawkesbury to the Hunter, and most to north and south of that. Which means parochial electorate representation, and that might or might not be, on occasion, positive. Even Pauline Hanson seemed possible for an upper house/ Legislative Council seat, though she now looks like losing to the Greens. Overall: despite the small-l liberal bias of new Premier Barry O'Farrell, this is a dreadful outcome for the homeless, the environment, for social justice, for public utilities. (O'Farrell talks transport and rail, but emphasises Sydney. This a a big state, with regional voters screaming for trains. He'll need to listen).
Yet Sussex St, having lumbered this result on Labor, showed last week that it has learned nothing from being trashed. Kristina Kenneally offered in her election night concession speech that 'we had walked away from the electorate'. Despite the core truth of the admission the NSW Labor met on Thursday and unanimously elected John Robertson as new leader, unopposed, all clearly having been instructed to not oppose. (That must be true - Paul J Keating and Morris Iemma said so). It's clear that the electorate, or much of it, saw the rolling of Rudd and installation of Gillard at Federal level as down to N.S.W. powerbrokers in Sussex Street, and resented this. It's also clear that the electorate realised that it was because of the Labor powerbrokers that there had been 3 premiers in the State in as many years. What does this say about electors? In my view it shows we/they understand systems far better than we/they used to. People are learning about this vexed complex valuable thing called preferences. They voted against a party machine, just as they had voted down a different party machine 8 year ago that threw out a reasonable leader because he was depressed, and replaced him with a swimming dude. I don't think the outcome necessarily shows every elector intended a landslide. People vote with both the local and state-wide perspective when they have their 4 yearly Saturday outing to the local school. Sadly, in this process good MPs - Steve Whan was one - got caught up on the landslide.
Point of interest: it is very hard to get a straight answer on election results through a Google search. Or to find a map of electorates. Now that is very odd. And a Point of correction: the N.S.W. election outcome was dramatic, a landslide, a fascinating trainwreck. It was neither a bloodbath, a massacre, nor a slaughter. It was certainly not a tragedy. To use these words is a travesty, given the real bloodbaths and massacres happening right now in other parts of the planet.
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