Pretty Premier, petty politics

Grahame Morris

Syddney Morning Herald

15 March 2011


Labor is now heading towards its campaign comfort zone ... abuse and nastiness propped up by millions of dollars of trade unionists' money.

The union cavalry has arrived. Those Labor ads are paid for by poor old union members. Those helping Labor candidates in electorates are paid union people.

A candidate can only spend $100,000 on his or her campaign to cover advertising, posters, direct mail, office space, staff, functions yet union bosses can spend millions.

Labor must think its true blue collar working base is so fragile that they had to send the leader to talk to the wharfies last week. There's a campaign first.

They got an earful of silly bile from Kristina Keneally about the future of children being threatened while teachers, nurses and police would all lose their jobs under Barry O'Farrell.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Coalition last week passed the 100 new policy mark (they're on the Liberal website) but the community wouldn't know it because most journalists covering the campaign would prefer to be commentators than reporters.

Why analyse and report on policy announcements when you can commentate on a leader's weight loss, or opinion polls, or gush over how the Premier smiles in front of cameras.

A perfect example appeared at the weekend. O'Farrell was releasing policies about fixing hospitals, the third most important issue in the minds of voters. It was on page 14 with a small head-and-shoulders picture of O'Farrell.

Keneally again did nothing of substance yet there were six pictures of her under the heading "Laughing on the outside, a brave leader toughs it out". How ducky!

There's no doubt newspapers and television are choosing more pictures of Keneally than they are of O'Farrell.

That's why the bruisers in the ALP handed her the job. She is good at the froth and bubble, but there's very little real substance there compared with past NSW premiers.

There's no doubt she is more photogenic than O'Farrell. But, while O'Farrell may not be pretty, if we look at the mood of the NSW people, he's pretty effective.

Grahame Morris was chief of staff to the former Liberal prime minister John Howard.