How to destroy Labor's electoral chances

1. If you're a Labor Prime Minister, run up the flag for socialism and announce you'll nationalise the banks. That's how the popular Ben Chifley handed the reins to Menzies in 1949.
2. In case that's not enough, get the Communist Party to call a crippling coal strike. In 1949, the commos made sure of victory for Menzies.
3. If you're the ALP's Federal Executive, meet inside a Canberra hotel to decide Labor's policy, and allow a journalist to photograph the parliamentary party leader and his deputy on the steps outside, waiting to be told the decisions. That's how the "36 faceless men" wiped out Labor's chances in 1963.
4. If a Soviet spy is about to defect, pray that it's just before an election, and for good measure, publicise any allegations against Labor staffers. It worked with Petrov.

But let's fast-forward to the past year in good ol' Sydney.
Tyro Labor Premier Morris Iemma is beginning to realise he inherited a mess when he took over from Bob Carr. Hospitals, schools, public transport, water and other infrastructure desperately need more money.
Treasury is warning that tax revenues are turning down sharply in the slowing economy, and the state's AAA credit rating is at risk. How is the state to finance looming investment in electricity generation?
Iemma and his Treasurer Michael Costa decide there is no alternative to privatising electriticy generation. Costa, himself a former unions chief turned economic rationalist, tries to sell it to the Labor Party's state conference.

So, how to destroy a NSW Labor government:
1. Make sure important policy is determined in a shouting match between Costa and the current Unions NSW chief John Robertson.
2. Make sure the night's TV news contains images of trade union and party branch delegates jeering and screaming abuse, so the public sees the measured and intelligent formation of Labor policy.
3. White-ant Premier Iemma with a serious of damaging leaks to the press.
4. Make Costa's position untenable, and when Iemma sacks him, step up the white-anting of Iemma.
5. When Iemma quits, see his place is filled by an amiable but pliable dill. So our newest Premier is Nathan Rees. Most people ask: Nathan Who?
6. When Costa resigns as a member of the Legislative Council, make sure the rump of the Labor Party votes for you, John Robertson, to fill the vacancy.
7. Let the word get around that you'd make a great premier of NSW. Don't worry that you've never faced the public in an election.
8. In the meantime, a senior ministry is needed. How about two of them, Prisons and Public Sector Reform? Public Sector may be justified as appointing the poacher to be gamekeeper, but by what twist of moral reasoning can a bitter opponent of privatising electricity generation accept the task of privatising two of the state's prisons?
9. And then the affair of the $500,000 office refit!

Robertson and his stooges appear to have no idea of how seriously they have destroyed the NSW Labor Government.
The former unions boss will never be Premier. Even if he does grab a rusted-on Labor electorate so that he can shift to the lower House, and then wins the leadership, the Labor Party cannot win the next election. Nor the next, and probably not the one after that.
Robertson will have to settle for Opposition Leader. That's if the Labor Party doesn't come to its senses.

For the record: Your Grumpy Old Blogger normally votes Labor, but is unlikely to do so in the next NSW state election unless he sees some big changes.

Labor supporters cheer Bronwyn's return

Why do so many people take an instant dislike to Bronwyn Bishop?
Answer: Because it saves time

Well, blow me down and lock up the kerosene. Bronwyn's back, and in a shadow portfolio concerning the welfare of generally older people, Veterans Affairs.

I'm pretty sure the quip above came from then-Senator Gareth Evans, although a web search gives a few other, and probably incorrect, attributions -- just one of those problems you face when you seek information on the internet.

As a bit of a leftie, I should be rejoicing. Now I know there's little chance the Coalition will regain government in three years, and unless he stuffs up big-time, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should last at least three terms while the Libs thrash about like a dying dinosaur in quicksand.

But as I've written to friends since Rudd's November 24 victory, I'm not rejoicing. Our system of parliamentary democracy requires a strong and credible Opposition. The Libs are going the wrong way.

This grumpy old fella probably won't be around to see it, but he can predict a time when Australian politics will be a tussle between the Labor Conservative Party (preferably without the compassion bypass one now needs to be a Lib) and the Greens on the progressive side.

If mudslinging is such a failure, why is NSW Labor still flinging dirt around?

Should we be surprised that the Federal Labor Party, and its leader Kevin Rudd, are performing so well in the polls despite a week in which Prime Minister John Howard and his senior ministers have flung so much mud at them -- perhaps more than we've seen in any campaign this nation has known, even in the bitter conscription debates of the First World War?

As we know from the reputable ACNielsen poll published in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Rudd and the Labor Party now have the highest approval ratings ever of any Opposition coming into an election. It supports The Australian's Newspoll a week ago, but suggests support for the Labor Party and Rudd is accelerating.

Read the SMH report here.

The poll showing Labor has 61 per cent of the preferred two party vote, against the Liberal-Nationals Coalition's 39 per cent, and Rudd's 53 per cent as preferred Prime Minister to incumbent John Howard's 39 per cent, startled even me.

But I'm not sure that I agree that the public have rejected mud-slinging, as much of this morning's commentary suggested. I think that after more than 10 years in office, the Howard government is suffering from an "It's Time" feeling against it. And I think Howard will claw back at least some ground when he switches his campaign to economic credibility.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that in New South Wales the Labor Party backroom heavies have no compunction about running the most brutally abusive, mud-slinging campaign against Opposition Leader Peter Whatzisname I have ever seen.

It's disgraceful, and I mean that word. Journalists with access to Peter Debnam suggest he is shaken by the vehemence of these attacks, and is depressed about his failure to make inroads against Labor. In that case, one must admire the gutsiness of his fight to the finish for the election on March 24.

So where did the NSW Labor heavies find the model for this vicious television advertising? The answer: They copied the Coalition's ads attacking former Oppositon Leader Mark Latham in the 2004 Federal election, wiped out the name Latham, and inserted Peter Debnam's name in its place.

The story is confirmed by a report in the Australian.

So one might suggest, in the old phrase, the Libs have been hoist on their own petard (that is, blown up by their own bomb -- a petard was an explosive device used to blow in a city wall or a castle gate).