Comrades,
Hands up anyone who knows there is an exercise in the Miracle of Democracy in New South Wales this weekend? No-one? Who could blame you.
Last week I stumbled into the Athens of the South just in time to see hundreds of multi-coloured ribbons tied to the gates of the Catholic Cathedral and hear that that buggerin' priest Georgey Pell had been sent down to the jailhouse in what my Learned Friend described as a "near-perfect judgement - no appeal points on sentence there". Then the long-time Chief Steward of Formula One, Charlie Whiting, pops an aorta in a great town to die in, then a report filters through on the bush telegraph while I was on the No.11 Melbourne tram of a "mosque shooting" in NZ [uh, oh - checking the time difference - it's Friday Prayers], that quickly turns into a massacre, in earthquake de-populated Christchurch of all the god-forsaken places, and that before we even got to the opening Grand Prix practice sessions. Then Dear Old Edmond Capon, 33 year long director of the Art Gallery of NSW, gives the game away and shuffles off this mortal coil after suffering though another long, bitter London winter, the day I get home. So you can see why the lack-lustre NSW election campaign for this Saturday's poll has struggled to be even a blip on the news radar, and remains all but unknown to the rest of the Wide Brown Land.
Little wonder with the two main competitors, the Tory Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the Pinko's leader Michael Daley. They're those kind of people who you see at Xmas every year, but you just can't place them. They both look and behave like Strange Auntie Glad and well-meaning boring ol' Uncle Mike. No one has made any major gaffs or stumbles on the hustings, or ranted any fatally stupid stump speeches, so that also accounts for the lack of hard news.
The only thing of any note in recent days has been the inevitable playing of the race card. Strange Auntie Glad wants immigration to Sydney cut by 50%, or 100% or whatever number she thinks of - turn them back at the gates, and send them all bush. But Uncle Mike has been busted by a covert video taken at a politics in the pub meeting last year before he became Opposition leader in the Blue Mountains, of all places, saying that the yellow peril are coming here to steal all our jobs. Yep, anyone of any stripe can appeal to the "fuck-off-we're-full" lobby as a vote winner. Forget white supremacy for the minute, oddly enough, some of the most xenophobic people in Sydney are the Hong Kong Chinese who came here pre-1997, and now all have voting age children. They are Tory to the bootstraps coming from the last bastion of the British Empire, and the Triads they bought with them are not to be messed with under any circumstances. And they hate the mainland Chinese immigrants more than anyone else. Go figure. In the country's multi-cultural capital, that's just one example of the real ethnic tensions that the pollies are very keen to exploit in any way they can. Fear campaigns always work, plain & simple. As PJK used to say "always back the horse called Self Interest". But the fact is that way more than a thousand people come to Sydney every week and never leave, and there's nothing anyone can, or should, do about that. Crikey, the No.1 issue surely must be that housing, transport and crumbling infrastructure in this heaving metropolis of five million is way, way off the pace, and has been decades.
A short back story might be required here for out-of-towners. Strange Auntie Glad came to prominence as Transport Minister under the ill-fated Mike Baird [he of attempting to unilaterally ban greyhound racing] Govt. and put in a shocker. A common commuter cry on station platforms became "where's me farkin' train, Gladys!". Then, on becoming Boss Cocky, she presided over the stupendous mess that is the vast multi-billion dollar road tunnel WestConnex project that she was hoping would be finished by now as an election wining showpiece, but it's still years off completion. Then there's the Tram to Nowhere, that's now officially running $500M over budget and 16 months behind time. A world class example of how not to do it; the multi-million dollar "variations" are the subject of Supreme Court cases, because they started building the tramway from the start instead of from the finish, then working back towards Central, learning by their mistakes along the way. The contractors are virtually on strike. As far as cluster-fucks go, it takes the biscuit hands down. And Don't get me started on the Metro Rail dream.
But all that really matters not a jot, as the election will be won an lost west of the Great Divide, due to the infinite wisdom of the Surveyor-General putting most of the really marginal seats out in the rural badlands. Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong are more or less carved up along class lines. The folks in the bush could simply not give a single blue root about whatever cockups are happening in Sydney. It's no concern of theirs; only to the point that they're also paying for it. The rise of conservative Independents in marginal rural seats, and the gathering support of the ult-right Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, who are attracting disaffected Country Party voters in their droves, is certain to cast the cat among the pigeons. If that's not enough, never mind the beserkers who will be elected to the upper house. Apart from three years in a failed tilt at the Senate, that 84-year-old god-botherer, The Rev. Fred Nile, has been sitting in the Legislative Council for 38 years now - and that's some pretty crazy shit right there. NSW has a long and proud history of voting out-and-out wack jobs in and in, again and again. It will be a schemozzle of a poll, uniform swings have gone out the window, and my favorite psephology website The Poll Bludger has Labor leading 50.6%-49.4% on the two-party preferred. That's knife edge if ever there was a sharp blade. I fear for NSW if, as expected, the Tories slip into coalition with a mob of loons to form a Minority Govt. for the next four, long years. It's NSW party policy for the Pinko's to not go so far as to even consider coalition with anyone. Labor has always stood its own here in the heartland, and always will. As it should be. And they continue to be the only party of the left, as the Greens become increasingly irrelevant, what with all their continual in-fighting, "toxic culture", and their problem of what to do with the unreformed Trots.
God only help the poor, long suffering voters of NSW if they stuff this one up and produce a Minority Tory Govt. But, that's the Miracle of Democracy for you. Voters always get the politicians they deserve. Strange Auntie Glad will have no hair left on her head as she pulls out great tufts; just ask Julia Gillard what it's like - she'll tell you. And if Labor don't get up in the current climate of a filthy bad taste in the mouth created by the Liberals and Nationals in general, then they've only got themselves to blame. It certainly looks like one of the three Chinese curses has well and truly arrived in the Year of the Pig - "may you live in interesting times".
Remember...vote early, vote often. And vote the bastards out.
