by PAUL COLLITS – WHO’DA thought? I figured I had written my last article on the recently departed NSW premier.
She has hardly left the building first time round and she is, apparently, being forced on us again.
- Having got rid of Abbott, the Liberal Left now has its perfect replacement.
- Nothing much will change for Warringah, were Gladys to win.
- They will still be represented by a Leftie female.
It is almost beyond belief, the gall of the Liberal Party. Australia’s greatest ever prime minister (or, in the minds of many, at least a contender) thinks we are all “grieving” for Gladys, and Australia’s greatest ever opposition leader (with some stern competition) thinks she should be supported in his old federal seat.
Gladys for Canberra stinks, however, as much as that other guy for Canberra back in 1987. (Joh Bjelke-Petersen, for younger readers). Something that John Howard, no doubt, well remembers.
SALIVATING
The Canberra Liberals are salivating. Having got rid of Tony last time around, now they have the perfect replacement.
Nothing much will change for the people of Warringah, were Gladys to win the seat.
They will still be represented by a Leftie female – there isn’t a sliver of very thin paper between the incumbent’s political philosophy and the former NSW premier’s.
I don’t like Steggall’s politics much. Then again, I don’t care much for her potential opponent’s.
I understand what is going on, and why. The Libs want to win back a seat they should never have lost, possibly to retain government in Canberra, and they seemingly have the perfect, Leftie, female pollie to pull it off.
It is just the brazenness of it. She hasn’t even been exonerated yet by ICAC, and may well not be.
And yes, I understand too that at least some of the noise in support of Gladys in Canberra these past weeks has been to provide cover for the Libs’ refusal to contemplate the need for an anti-corruption watchdog in the capital.
I always think in these circumstances – if politicians didn’t continue to be corrupt, we wouldn’t need anti-corruption bodies. But there you go.
Gladys has been called a “hot mess”. For those in the know, a hot mess is: “… a person or thing that is spectacularly unsuccessful or disordered, especially one that is a source of peculiar fascination.”
BARMY
Gladys to a tee, as The Betoota Advocate has it. Check out the memes. It is the sort of press of which Tim Paine would be proud.
Perhaps the Barmy Army will have some jingles on Gladys to present to the patrons at the Sydney Cricket Ground in early January.
There is one problem for the Libs, as Terry Barnes at The Spectator points out: “Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have both backed Gladys Berejiklian to stand as the Liberal candidate to take back Tony Abbott’s old seat of Warringah from insurgent candidate, now MP, Zali Steggall.
“Berejiklian would be a great get for the Liberal parliamentary team [Barnes’ words, not mine] but, kangaroo court or not, she would stand despite lack of an official ICAC finding clearing her of culpable wrongdoing (which, on past form, may take ages – even if counsel assisting’s submissions give an informal indication in coming weeks).
“Given that, however unfair it is to Gladys, would selecting her be wise?”
Indeed.
So, which set of Liberals (and Nationals) should we believe? Birmo, ScoMo and Josh? All of whom say they are desperate for Gladys to join them in Moscow on the Molonglo.
Here is Simon Birmingham, the ideological leader of the Liberal Party’s Left federally: Finance Minister Simon Birmingham told the ABC on Monday morning that he would support Ms Berejiklian should she decide to nominate.
“I would love to see Gladys do so, but that is entirely up to her,” Senator Birmingham said.
“She has been a friend of mine for many decades and I think she has immense talent.”
When asked whether he believed there was an integrity-sized question mark over her head, Mr Birmingham said Ms Berejiklian was a person of “great integrity”.
“Gladys has shown exceptional leadership in public office and an ability to make tough and difficult decisions when required,” he said.
CONDUCT
She is a person of great integrity. Let that sink in. Ministerial Code of Conduct, anyone? Immense talent?
Then, there was the prime minister himself: He reinforced his position in Sydney on Monday, where he said Ms Berejiklian had been the victim of a “pile on”, and [that if she wished] to join the team, she would be “very welcome”.
“She is a person of great integrity,” Mr Morrison said.
“If she wants to have a crack at Warringah for the Liberal Party, I suspect that the people would welcome that in Warringah.”
Mr Morrison said Ms Berejiklian had not been “found” guilty of anything, but failed to acknowledge that ICAC’s findings are yet to be handed down.
“There is no suggestion of criminal conduct… I don’t call (the ICAC process) justice,” Mr Morrison said.
There is that phrase, “great integrity”, again. I sense a narrative being developed here. Propaganda, perhaps. I have seen “pile-ons”. This is not one of them.
The media’s treatment of Gladys, outside the rigorous Yoni Bashan of The Australian, has been lamentably soft, and biased in her favour.
SYCOPHANTIC
One observer from the Left called The Australian Financial Review’s treatment of her as “sycophantic”.
Or perhaps we should listen to some of the ICAC testimony about her by her former colleagues (like Baird and Barilaro, who were clearly not impressed), as well as her trusted bestie in her own office, who appeared to be aghast at the predicament she placed them in.
If they had actually known at the time that they were in a predicament. That is the point.
Some punchlines:
- Barilaro recalls “unusual” features of club’s proposal, ICAC hears;
- Barilaro made no bones about the fact Berejiklian should have told colleagues of her relationship with her then boyfriend, Liberal MP Daryl Maguire;
- She should have not taken part in discussions by the high-powered expenditure review committee (ERC) – which as treasurer she chaired – in relation to funding two projects Maguire particularly championed in his electorate of Wagga Wagga;
- Barilaro believed neither he nor his cabinet colleagues would have let it come before ERC in the way it did had they known of Berejiklian’s interest;
- Mike Baird tells ICAC that Gladys Berejiklian should have declared her relationship;
- Mike Baird “incredulous” Gladys Berejiklian had secret relationship and says it should have been disclosed, ICAC hears;
- Berejiklian’s staffer and friend: “I just had no idea, and I was somebody who I felt that I had worked closely with her for a period of time.”
Who on earth could ever trust Gladys again? She is proven to have hidden important information from her own team.
She is alleged to have fiddled grant making processes. She has shacked up with a shady character, for years, and continued to do so even after she forced him to resign from the NSW parliament.
Certainly, lilies were gilded during her buttock-clenching time on the stand.
MISSING
This is the Liberal Party’s preferred candidate for Warringah. Am I missing something?
Surely, they don’t take us for mugs that much. Or perhaps they do. They have certainly worked hard to polish her image.
Yet her record as a cabinet minister and as premier is that peculiar combination of massively inept and dangerous for her State.
She appointed extremists to cabinet – just look at Dominello (seeking to create a bio-digital papers please regime), Speakman (invading the bedroom with his lunatic sexual consent madness), and Kean (killing off the fossil fuels sector on which our economy depends), for starters – or, at least, her puppeteer appointed them.
She has been presiding, or at least sitting, at the cabinet table during the following disasters for NSW:
- The greyhound industry fiasco;
- The shutting down of a global city and the crushing of the night economy in that city through her government’s manic lockout laws;
- The destruction, at huge cost, of a perfectly functional football stadium;
- The waving through of legislation that her now-friend Tony Abbott once called “infanticide-on-demand”;
- Her continued employment of the likes of Gareth Ward (until he got too much) and Don Harwin (sacked then recalled, in the twinkling of an eye);
- Her tawdry deals and U-turns, like that over the intended destruction of the Powerhouse Museum in Pyrmont;
- The coming destruction of what is left of the heritage of historic Pyrmont;
- Her embrace of woke causes;
- The “detested” policy of forced council mergers (just look at the Central Coast);
- Her acceptance, indeed, her institutionalisation of rampant pork barrelling as politically legitimate (even when sort-of above board and not personally benefiting her then lover);
- The threatened walkout by the Nationals over koalas;
- Her appointment of a former communist as Head of the Public Service,
- The smiting of small business in the city during the creation of Ghost Town George Street Project, aka the city light rail vanity project (which went over budget by nearly a billion dollars) that no one wanted or needed.
Speaking of light rail, now we have this:
A huge section of Sydney’s multi-billion dollar light rail network will be out of action for up to 18 months due to a “significant” design issue.
Twelve trams that service the city’s Inner West were found to have serious cracks and as a result were being decommissioned, NSW Transport Minister Rob Stokes announced on Friday.
FIASCO
And all of this is apart from Gladys’s alleged feathering her then partner’s political nest in Wagga Wagga while skirting all manner of due process.
And we don’t even need to mention her COVID mismanagement, the Ruby Princess fiasco, her continued support for the Health Hazzard and his unelected offsider, who so loves a lockdown and who promises a new world order of mask wearing and vaccines, the catastrophe of South Western Sydney’s military rule, and her very own creation of a two-tiered society (that will hopefully come to an end next week).
Immense talent? Great integrity? Exceptional leadership? Berejiklian? What are these people smoking?
Gladys 2.0. A strange old week in Liberal Party politics.PC
I wish Tony Abbott would come back and contest the seat again as a lot of people liked him in the electorate. The media had me thinking it was GetUp that put a lot of effort into getting rid of him that Zali won the seat.
The adulation (Gladulation?) of Gladys confounds me. Thank you for detailing her flawed record as Minister and Premier. As one who lives near to Warringah electorate, I can say that Zali is doing in that electorate what Maxine Mc Hugh did in John Howard’s electorate at the end of his term thirteen years ago. And we all know who went on to win THAT seat. Zali is putting out frequent statements and boxed ads in various local papers and magazines. This is what a committed MP or candidate should do to roll out his or her identity and policies to the electorate in between elections. From the Liberals and other possible contestants for the seat of Warringah I hear and see nothing. If anyone (Liberal or otherwise) wishes to be a serious contender, they should have their act together already and start putting themselves out in the public arena as a local candidate with local issues being mentioned wellll before the election date is announced. The fact that a major Party has not started to cultivate a presence in this area shows a distinct lack of commitment and I believe that the electorate will punish them.
Gladys was an idiotic “selection “ of Morrison with the assistance of Alex Hawke !
Andrew Clennell , Mark Latham Ben Fordham all said beware at an early stage!
The whole Liberal campaign has been frustrated by this ongoing Gladys saga!
So do you need more proof of how crooked Morrison and The LNP are and have become even more so under Clapper boy ???? Zali Steggall is no better and it is time that the entire system was overhauled .
Liberal Party supporter for 60 years, sadly have only just realised how left wing Gladys was & voted for her last election, they kept it well hidden in my opinion.
Bravo Paul. A+ COMMENTARY