State of the State
On a national level, I consider the Liberal Party increasingly modelled on the Know-Nothing basis. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott standing up in public to declare that carbon dioxide is not the villain it’s portrayed as in the “[unsettled]” science of global warming is fatuous disingenuousness. How long Abbott can last in his role is unknown. The Liberals appear to like having a vicious unprincipled attack-dog as leader, but when the next election is called, will they still want him, or will they go for someone more measured?

The question is sort of more acute at the State level, insofar as New South Wales is less than two weeks from going to the polls, with the Liberals highly touted to take the government out of Labor’s hands. In their case, I can’t say as I’ve heard much from their leader, Barry O’Farrell, either before the election was announced or since. I have started to see some attack ads on television, but only one where O’Farrell himself stands up to say anything about policy, and I find his statement regarding the proposed Federal Carbon Tax hard to fathom. (If the tax is implemented nationally, how can a State Premier rescind it?) Regardless, despite the silliness in the advertising, O’Farrell has been very different from Abbott, mainly as he hasn’t been much of a presence at all, and when he does show up in the news, hasn’t got much to say. Well, the big stuff gets done in Canberra, anyway, I guess, not Macquarie Street.

I’m pretty well convinced that the Liberals will take government, though, and not looking forward to it. Although Labor have undeniably been inept, my own experiences don’t suggest they’ve been as bad as the newspapers and television programs say. I ride the buses and trains and travel throughout the city pretty extensively, and it all works well enough often enough. I haven’t had any bad experiences with the hospitals, although the horror stories that occasionally surface are pretty horrible. The MP for my area, Verity Firth, hasn’t been bad (although her husband getting picked up buying a tab of ecstasy was pretty stupid, especially for his timing), so I don’t have any motivation to vote Greens, let alone Liberal. So if Labor have been bad, it’s been mostly literally political. Their leadership spills, portfolio hand-offs, various scandals and, more recently, abundant resignations have tainted the brand. Is there any reasonable expectation that it won’t be much the same for the Liberals?

There’s an opportunity for the Greens, which I doubt will come to any substantial gain, let alone the government (which I have my doubts they’re ready for). Out in the western suburbs and rural NSW, the Greens are evil institutionalized, so their only shot exists in the eastern and inner west suburbs. The east will vote Liberal, is my prediction, and the inner west, often safe seats for Labor, will stick it out or go Liberal, but I anticipate that any gains made by the Greens will be here. Newtown, Marrickville, Glebe tend to lean harder left than other suburbs. If Verity gets dumped from her seat of Balmain, it’ll be because of her individualized campaign slogan: “Keep Verity” (i.e., Labor is awful but it’s not Verity’s fault). I know it motivates me.

But I’ll have to live with whatever government we do get, nevertheless.