The saying goes that disunity is death in politics, but for Dominic Perrottet it is just about all he’s got.
The NSW Premier has become hostage to a public inquiry that now eclipses his government.
Instead of accounting for his own role in the saga over a $500,000-a-year job that was a tipping point for the public, he has been fighting by the inch over his role in the appointment while it sapped his authority.
“I can’t see what else you could expect to happen,” said one MP on Monday when asked if he thought a challenge would ever eventuate. “We are in a plane and the trajectory is clear – we are going to crash.”
But after reports smattered across papers for weeks that senior MPs have been giving serious thought to booting the Premier, no contenders are declared.
Factional gremlins
Factions have long been the gremlins in the Liberal Party machine and are most visible when political times are tough.
When asked if they thought that the Treasurer, Matt Kean, might have been plotting against the Premier, one of Mr Perrottet’s supporters said: “Yes.” But they said the same could have been said at more than one point in the recent past.
Mr Kean, who leads the party’s moderate faction, denied any such plans this week.
Some Liberals from this grouping of the party seem to be working in opposition to Mr Kean, who they deride as the choice of Greens voters and inner-city residents.
Many of these MPs are close to Natalie Ward, a former commercial solicitor and rugby union enthusiast married to the Liberal-aligned lobbyist David Begg. Some ministers are making a show of calling on Mr Kean to make way for a woman; Ms Ward is looking for a safe seat.
The party’s centre-right, the crumbling political home of PM Scott Morrison, is losing its base and trying to cut a deal. Factional boss David Elliott is searching hurriedly for opportunities after facing the axe from cabinet but also his seat after a redistribution.
And the party’s hard right, Mr Perrottet’s loyalists, is in a fight with its core supporters, who say the Premier sold out to Mr Morrison in a preselection deal that cut out votes by party members.
These groupings are complicated by enmity and distrust between their members that runs deep and stands between Mr Perrottet and a tap on the shoulder.
The five groups openly worked against each other on Saturday during an election for party leadership positions.
The rivalry has made for a febrile atmosphere where leaks, including an anonymous complaint about bullying, have suddenly proliferated, suggesting some tough months ahead in government whatever else.
Death by exposure
The man at the centre of the $500,000-a-year job that has kicked it all off, John Barilaro, has already quit politics and can only be moved so much by the parliamentary inquiry into his appointment.
But political exposure could soon hit Mr Perrottet if it continues to occupy the centre of attention.
On Monday, questioners noted how quickly Mr Barilaro, a former deputy premier, went from testifying at a secret ICAC inquiry to getting a submission to cabinet about his future job and resigning from politics. He denied ever benefiting from inside information or other privileges relating to his time in politics.
A former premier of Victoria, John Cain, said inquiries are less about details than the authority of a government.
“What will be seen as the severity of a minister’s sins are a matter of how the government is travelling and how the minister is travelling,” he said.
Mr Perrottet has been damaged badly by his refusal to account for what he knew about the job for his old deputy.
On Monday, Mr Barilaro filled in some details when he said he had played an open hand with senior ministers about his intentions to apply for the post.
Always checking in
He said he had told Premier Perrottet that he intended to apply for the job and was given words of encouragement.
“He was always checking in on me,” Mr Barilaro said.
Most damaging of all for a government that seems like it has something to hide was the seeming remorselessness of one of its formerly senior members.
“I had my credentials and application publicly derided in what is nothing less than an abuse of my privacy,” Mr Barilaro said.
He added that a poorly managed recruitment process could not be held against him when he had already left government: “I’m the victim out of that … I’m not the perpetrator.”
Other issues, like Mr Barilaro’s denial that he had previously seen a document that bore his digital signature, might have done as a scandal in a time when ministerial accountability was not so debased.
But as a growing number of Liberal MPs are concluding, that is all very much beside the point.
