In the last few months there’s been an escalation in tensions between the NSW cabinet, when it makes a decision, and Labor MP’s, who fear a backlash in their electorates from that position.
At the centre of most of these tussles has been the Minister of Education Verity Firth. Firth holds her seat of Balmain by a slim 3.7% margin. On current polling she’d lose Balmain to The Greens. No doubt that, and recent local government elections in Leichardt (which falls in Balmain) that saw The Greens pick up 46% of the primary vote, have her spooked.
Residents of Sydney’s inner-west are famous for their negative attitudes towards development, something that puts them at odds with State government policies. Firth used to be able to ignore community demands that she publicly oppose projects the residents of Balmain didn’t support. It now looks like she’s scared and has started making statements that contradict the position taken by cabinet and her fellow ministers.
A couple of weeks ago Transport Minister took a proposal to cabinet to develop a light-rail line from Dulwich Hill to Lilyfield – straight through Firth’s electorate. The government fobbed off the idea by agreeing to “examine the cost the proposal”. Despite the tradition of cabinet solidarity, Firth said light-rail would be “absolutely great” and that she would continue to lobby for it.
The more adversarial stances have been taken against Planning Minister, and Firth’s factional enemy, Kristina Keneally. After ignoring community pressure to condemn the government’s plans to build the Iron Cove Bridge duplication and a new passenger terminal at White Bay, Firth has become more outspoken.
Yesterday she released a public statement condemning the decision by Keneally to approve a refuelling station for boats on the Balmain peninsula. It’s not a good look for the government, already damaged by continual leadership speculation, when its ministers openly attack each other. Although you can also understand that Firth is largely doing so out of desperation. Her inability to speak up on behalf of the community has let others do so. The Greens’ mayor on Leichardt Council, Jamie Parker, has publicly spoken out against the unpopular planning decisions while supporting the light-rail proposal and even promising the council would help fund it. This has given The Greens more political oxygen and made Firth look impotent.
It’s unsure if Firth will ramp up her attacks on what she sees as poor policy, even though it’s coming from her government, or if she’s been put back in her box. Either way it’s tough times ahead for her and she has every reason to be frightened about losing her seat.
Does the same polling, that shows Firth loosing, show Tebbutt loosing?
Not quite Marrickville.
But all I was doing was applying the statewide trend from Newspoll to Balmain, which I admit is not that insightful. But even taking into account the standard margin of error as well as variations between seats, Balmain’s as good a seat as any to make ridiculously early calls on =P.
I’d expect the swing to The Greens to be bigger in these sorts of seats anyway.
Firth jumping ship? Doesn’t surprise me, really. I think we might well see more and more ALP Pollies start to be more representative of their electorates at the cost of party solidarity in the coming year.
I wonder if the election will see the ALP candidates basically run as independents? I know we saw that happen with Howard in the last election (None of the Liberal propaganda had his face on it IIRC).
We saw a lot of candidates in the local government elections last year refuse to use NSW Labor Party logo’s and refer to themselves as “Independent Labor”.
The strategy might work for some backbenchers but I don’t think it would work for high-profile MP’s like Virth, who everyone knows are a part of government.
The Labor Party avoided using the word ‘Labor’ in most of their materials in the last election. It doesn’t do much good in a statewide context where you know they are Labor-aligned.
I wonder if Firth would consider jumping ship and just joining the Greens. It didn’t really for Ronan Lee in Queensland, but his seat was a conservative one. Perhaps Balmain voters might forgive her if she “sees the light”?
The Greens would tell Verity to bugger right off, go public, and win anyway.
Frankly, this left-right hate between NSW Labor is a myth. Keneally gets on well with both Firth and Tebbutt. In fact I think that one of Keneally’s close relatives works for Tebbutt.
I know it sounds good, and while factions no doubt have something to do with cabinet positions, Government’s generally just govern, they don’t do spiteful things to other factional members because they’re those fabled ‘factional enemies’ that we hear about. The issues here were simply that the Planning and Transport Ministers saw what they thought was a good idea and the local member did not, as it may be unpopular (which doesn’t make it bad policy). Same thing happened when Steve Whan opposed selling the Snowy River Scheme.
Couple of points;
“Frankly, this left-right hate between NSW Labor is a myth.”
I don’t believe this for a second. Not only is it obvious to anyone who’s been following NSW politics for more than 5 minutes that the Labor Party spends more attacking itself than the Opposition, you have plenty of on and off the record comments from past and current powerbrokers documenting inter-Labor enmity.
“they don’t do spiteful things to other factional members because they’re those fabled ‘factional enemies’ that we hear about”
Again, I think that they definitely do whatever is in their own political interests regardless of person they’re bringing down is from another party or another faction.
But I wasn’t suggesting that Firth’s stance had anything to do with factionalism. I do agree it was about a local member saving her own skin by attacking her own government’s decisions and those of cabinet, of which she is a member.
Whether you believe this is a stronger sign of dysfunction than an open left-right split is up to you. But it’s hard to deny that it exists, whatever the reasons.
Clearly there is competition between the factions, but it’s not that the Members don’t like each other. To use your example, I know that Keneally and Tebbutt are quite good friends. Outside a couple of numbers men, there is no hate, certainly not from what I’ve seen. The media (and bloggers 🙂 ) love nothing more than a good preselection contest, fuelled by factional hate, but it’s never like is reported, I can promise you.
The spiteful thing; I’m saying that as ministers, they don’t formulate policy to deseat an opposite faction member. They formulate policy, which isn’t always popular, regardless of where it is and from what faction the sitting MP is.
Apart from a few key powerbrokers, NSW ALP MPs largely just do their work and vote along factional lines when told to.
Sounds boring but it’s true.
“I’m saying that as ministers, they don’t formulate policy to deseat an opposite faction member. They formulate policy, which isn’t always popular, regardless of where it is and from what faction the sitting MP is.”
This post was not supposed to suggest that Firth speaking up had to do with factionalism. So in this instance, I agree with you.
I’m not sure it’s a rule that holds true for every policy a minister, or Premier, comes up with though.
You’re right about the media enjoying talking about Labor vs. Labor. For example, in today’s Crikey Alex Mitchell writes:
“Both Ms Tebbutt and Ms Firth are high-profile members of the NSW Labor left. The dominant right-wing faction seems to take vicarious pleasure from conducting civic war in their electorates. Can you imagine State Cabinet agreeing to the sale of a public school in the heartland of one of the right-wing power brokers? It wouldn’t happen and, if it did, it would be rolled at the first opportunity.”
I have to take issue with Mitchell’s point, and this backs up your argument. The other prominent public school sell off is Hurlstone Agricultural High School, in the electorate of Andrew McDonald – a right-winger.
Is Andrew McDonald really in the Right?
He used to be a Greens member before he became an MP.
Factionalism isn’t as strong in this corner of town, I would argue if he’s in the Right it’s only by default.
Interesting. My comment was based on a discussion I had with a friend of mine in the Labor party during the Iemma bloodletting last year and who would take up Costa’s place in cabinet.
But your info about him being an ex-Green made me do some research.
Here he’s described as “candidate from the Right”.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24297546-601,00.html
And here he’s mentioned in the same group of possible candidates for a cabinet spot as well known Right members, Michael Danby and Tanya Gadiel.
But in this article he’s described as being close to left-wing members in Liverpool.
http://www.southwestruraladvertiser.com.au/news/local/news/general/the-way-forward-for-liverpool/1477059.aspx?storypage=2
Not sure whether to believe The Australia and the Herald or the South West Rural Advertiser.
I’ll stick with my label and add that I wouldn’t be surprised that a former Green who joined Labor would then join the right faction. The differences these days seem to be a lot less about policy (excluding the Catholic, social conservative clique) and more about how you think you can best get ahead.
“I would argue if he’s in the Right it’s only by default.”
I think you’ll find that’s true with a lot of Labor MPs.
Sadly, I have to agree that it is not about being “left” or “right” that determines your faction but whether you want to get elected. The left used to be strong in the Illawara, but this has been broken by a series of deals that the right engineered through 2001 and beyond. Firstly you have Col Markham losing his preselection to a former left colleague Noreen Hay (Col was no saint, but SOOO much better than Hay…). Then you have Sharon Bird ditch the left and join the right to get the nod for Cunningham via the N40 rule – over local preselection & left candidate Chris Christadoulou. Bird’s partner, Gino Mandarino was always thought to have designs on one of the seats himself, but after doing the factionally correct thing of publicly supporting local branch President Nev Hilton (prior to it being proved he owned a brothel and had underage girls working there), his career took a nose-dive. Of course, Bird lost to the Greens Michael Organ first time round, and if Organ had passed the Libs in 2004 he would have held the seat (the AEC was putting up 2PP’s to about 30% of the seat until they realised it wasn’t Organ vs Bird, and Organ had increased his margin her).
My point is, in terms of preselections the right will do over the left candidate which ever way works best. In terms of policy it depends on whether its any good, and what sort of standing the Minister has. Tebbutt is Deputy Premier and Environment Minister and can get stuff through Cabinet, but Firth before her had a harder time. Kenneally’s decisions will not favour Firth because the Govt is working to satisfy the development lobby, not necessarily retain the seat. And anyway, I’m sure they look it as “an ALP leftie or a Greenie – is there a difference when it comes to choosing a Government?”
“Is Andrew McDonald really in the Right?”
Yes, he is.