LABOR WINS NSW
NSW Labor is on track to form a majority government after Chris Minns ousted former premier Dominic Perrottet at the state election on Saturday. Labor is projected to take at least 47 seats, and there are a further nine left to call when counting resumes today, Crikey reports. “The people of NSW voted to put in a government that put people at the heart of all decision-making, and we will not let them down,” Minns told supporters on Saturday night after he received a congratulatory call from Perrottet.
Minns thanked Perrottet for his service and said that the “respect and civility” in the campaign was a model for the way democracy can be done right across the country: “I can’t say that every election campaign in the future will be conducted the same way but from now on no-one will be able to say that it can’t be.”
Some key losses for the Coalition include former trade minister Stuart Ayres’ seat of Penrith, and the seats of Riverstone, Heathcote, East Hills, Monaro, Parramatta and South Coast. Attention over the coming days will turn to the Liberal leadership after Perrottet stood down, but former treasurer Matt Kean — Perrottet’s most-tipped replacement — has bowed out of the race, the SMH ($) reports. For more on how the night unfolded, you can read Crikey’s coverage here.
FAULT LINES
Conservatives around the country are licking their wounds and trying to figure out how best to detoxify the Liberal Party brand as they reckon with the defeat of their last remaining government on the Australian mainland. Liberal Party insiders cited by The Australian have blamed Dominic Perrottet for not doing enough to prevent cross-contamination with the former Morrison government after the federal election last year.
Elsewhere, Liberal Party frontbencher Natalie Ward laid blame with the conservative faction of her party and the distraction of impropriety across the party. “It’s most of the conservative candidates who have lost their seats to start with. Secondly we’ve had … the Barilaro gift that keeps on giving. That’s been a huge problem,” Ward told Sky News. Former NSW premier Mike Baird echoed that sentiment on Nine, saying factional wars distracted the party from offering Perrottet the support he needed, while Liberal Party Senator Andrew Bragg told the ABC that the party will need to move its focus away from the margins and stop obsessing over “culture war” issues. No doubt we’ll hear further prognoses through the week.
DOUBLE BILLS
The Albanese government’s safeguard mechanism bill is getting closer to securing Senate approval, the AFR ($) reports, as the government heads into its final sitting week before it’ll release its May 9 budget. The Greens will have final say on both bills, with opposition from the Coalition to both and support from the Jacqui Lambie Network on both. The Greens say there’s no chance the housing fund will get their support in its current shape.
The Fin reports that Greens Leader Adam Bandt and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen spent time over the weekend trying to hash out a deal on the safeguard mechanism. The Greens’ partyroom met on Sunday for an update and is expected to meet again today to deliver a verdict. Late last week, it was reported that Bandt and Bowen were advancing negotiations in “good faith, and that Bandt was trying to get the partyroom to swallow a compromise, so there is likely to be news before the week is out.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Today is the day. Succession’s fourth and final season will air at midday on Binge in Australia, more than one year since Shiv’s (Sarah Snook) husband, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) tipped off Logan Roy (Brian Cox) to the threat of a coup as he planned to sell the company to streaming giant “GoJo” and its CEO, Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård). Logan, you’ll remember, cut Kendall, Roman, and Shiv out of their super-majority voting rights in a last ditch effort to cash out of the company in full, leaving them with nothing while they were in Tuscany for their mother’s wedding.
In an interview with The New Yorker last month, the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, was asked whether current events could be seen in parallel throughout the show’s fourth season. He said: “Sometimes when you’re in the writers’ room and having one of those ‘Can we do this?’ thoughts — for good and for ill, mostly ill, the last half decade has invited writers to not worry too much about pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable political public corporate behaviour. If you read the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, you’d have a good sense of where we thought the show would go because it’s trying to reflect the world.”
SAY WHAT?
You can’t chase the Greens, and the teals and the Labor Party to the left, try and replicate their policies — you actually have to have some points of difference.
Chris Kenny
The Sky News host was one of few conservatives lamenting the Coalition’s failure to cater to the rightward fringes of its base, blaming Perrottet’s loss on his government’s pursuit of a climate policy.
CRIKEY RECAP
The ‘remarkable’ twist in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation proceedings
“Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation proceedings took a “remarkable” twist on Thursday when the court learnt the former Liberal staffer had, at the eleventh hour, changed his mind about calling his original criminal lawyer to give evidence.
“The high-profile case, in which Lehrmann claims he was defamed by journalists Samantha Maiden, Lisa Wilkinson and their respective employers News Corp and Network 10 over interviews with Brittany Higgins published February 15 2021, is currently locked on the question of whether Lehrmann should be granted an extension of time due to his failure to file the proceedings within the usual 12-month limitation period.
“Last week Lehrmann claimed the reason he didn’t file within time principally owed to legal advice he received from his former criminal lawyer Warwick Korn on the day Higgins’ explosive allegations were published, which he said was to the effect that he shouldn’t pursue defamation proceedings until any potential criminal matters were resolved.”
What are the fringe candidates fighting for in the NSW election?
“Fringe and conspiracy-promoting figures and groups are once again predicting that this weekend’s NSW election will see them swept into power on a wave of popular support, despite their repeated failed attempts to make an impact at previous elections.
“Excluding an attack on LGBTQIA+ protesters near a church earlier this week, the NSW election campaign has been largely unaffected by the efforts of extreme candidates to insert themselves into the action.
“Issues like health, infrastructure, cost of living and gambling have dominated policy debate rather than vaccines or LGBTQIA+ rights. Similarly, polling gives most fringe candidates a near-zero chance of being elected. Still, here are the parties and candidates hoping to beat the odds.”
‘Dirty tricks’ allegations in regional NSW seat
“Allegations of ‘dirty tricks’ have emerged in the regional seat of Murray, which the Nationals are trying to claw back from independent Helen Dalton. Upper house Nationals MP Wes Fang posted a video to Facebook on Saturday which he said showed Murray taking down a corflute promoting her rival Peta Betts.
“The video showed Dalton holding a pair of scissors. Another man, wearing a Dalton hat, can be heard saying, ‘Don’t know what happened there.’ A corflute can be seen on the ground, outside the Griffith Public School.
“ ‘Helen Dalton is not fit, to be a member of the Parliament of NSW,’ Fang said in the social media post. A spokesman denied the video showed Dalton messing with the sign. ‘The gentleman involved didn’t work for Helen, he worked for another independent,’ the spokesman told Crikey.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
NATO condemns Putin for ‘dangerous’ nuclear rhetoric (Al Jazeera)
Biden declares emergency after deadly southern storms (The New York Times)
Police monitor first Hong Kong protest since 2020 (BBC)
Unions demand Chris Minns make public sector wages and conditions a priority (The Australian)
Investors brace for another week of turmoil as Mad March ends (Bloomberg)
Pressure mounts on Netanyahu to pause judicial overhaul (Reuters)
The Wires That Bind — out now (Quarterly Essay) The country is at a crossroads. In The Wires That Bind, inventor, engineer and visionary Saul Griffith reveals the world that awaits us if we make the most of Australia’s electric energy future.
THE COMMENTARIAT
Labor is just pretending to be tough on climate change — Ross Gittins (The SMH) ($): “Labor talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk. Last week’s ‘final warning’ from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — and the Albanese government’s refusal to be moved by it — should be a game-changer in our assessment of Labor’s willingness to do what must be done. The IPCC’s message — driven home by UN Secretary-General António Guterres — was that we’re almost out of time to avoid much of the worst climate change. Whatever plans we had to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we must step them up, and speed them up.
“Regarding last year’s federal election, the message is that Labor’s plan is complacent and compromised, and the Greens and teals were right to demand much tougher, faster action. But not only did Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen show no sign of getting the UN’s message, he announced his refusal to negotiate with the Greens to make improvements to his ‘safeguard mechanism’ legislation.”
Dutton’s leadership in trouble if Liberals lose Aston — Simon Benson (The Australian) ($): “Peter Dutton will have to hold his nerve this week in the hope that the Liberals’ crippling defeat in NSW isn’t followed by a second and more catastrophic defeat, with Saturday’s Aston byelection now said to be closer than thought. Following the routing of the NSW Liberal division, on the back of a federal election loss, defeat in Victoria and the slaughter in Western Australia, the party’s position overall is severely weakened. And while the NSW loss has nothing to do with Dutton, a defeat in Aston would be dangerously destabilising for his leadership and would spell disaster for the party.
“It would further confirm what the NSW result reveals and that which is patently obvious to most senior Liberal figures at a national level: Dutton, as the federal leader, cannot afford to remain indifferent to the organisational decay of the party at a divisional level. That said, doomsday analysis for the Liberal Party can easily be overstated. And the Liberals are still likely to hold Aston. The party has been here before, recovered, and recovered remarkably quickly when it went from rock bottom in 2008 to almost win the 2010 election.”
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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The Save Sorry Business coalition is holding a day of healing at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra as part of its efforts to resolve loss and damage from the collapse of the funeral insurer ACBF/Youpla.
Eora country (also known as Sydney)
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The NSW election count will continue as nine seats remain uncalled.
