Asquithian said:
I think Broggers is a good chance this time round...This does not at all mean i like him., i think much like most of the state liberals he is hopeless and lost. However due to the state of the State he is a good chance...
Barry O Farrel is a much better pollie. Broggers is an opportunist. Broggers will also move NSW Law and order even further to the Right Wing. It was pointed out by my crim teacher that Bob Car has moved law and order to the extreme right wing, and that means the liberals have to 'out do' labor.
This means bad things for the NSW criminal law. For moonlight this means more destruction of commonlaw and the inplemention of GRID SENTENCING where the judge loose ALL his discretion. Whereby sentencing becomes a mathematical equation destroying all flexibility the law may have. This means that the SC will do its best to write its was out of parliamentarian intervention that tries to take away its discretion ,which it did was the Carr government legislation (which looks like it was written as smoke and mirrors, it looked tough but it allowed the courts to write its way out of the mathematical equation)
For example...The section of the sentencing act that highlights the mitigating and aggrevatying factor...Brogs came out on radio saying that there were 12 reasons in the act that allowed courts to be soft on crime ie mitigating factors...Bob Carr came out and said there are 18 aggrevating factors
I mean this illustrates hes a shallow political points scorer. Chika is a much better person than Brogs.
The coalition does have a much better chance at the 2007 election than last time, however despite what some people say, unfortunantly the Carr government has an even chance or better of being re-elected.
The problem in NSW politics is electoral geography. In 1991, the Griener government achieved a primary vote 5.6% higher than Bob Carr's ALP yet they ended up as a minority government and had to rely on the support of independents to govern for four years. In 1995 the coalition under John Fahey achieved a primary vote 2.6% higher than Carr's ALP and the primary vote was over 51-49 in the coalition's favour yet this still produced a majority Labor government.
The ALP can still win the next election with a primary and 2PP vote well below that of the coalition. There is not a huge number of seats that the coalition can realistically win from the ALP at state elections and there are many independents in normally safe coalition seats who are being supported by the ALP and without holding these seats, it makes it much harder for the coalition to win government.
Bob Carr is also a bit of a gerrymander, he has re-located several government departments into marginal seats in regional areas and has deliberately altered the number of seats in the legislative assembly to advantage the ALP. MPs also have generous mailing allowances and are able to send mail to constituents who are not in their electorate, this advantages MPs in seats undergoing re-distribution. Labor MPs will be able to use their generous mailing allowance to massage their electorates into voting for them ahead of the next election.
Ironically, given that Bob Carr has made essentially no contribution to improving the economy of NSW, the prosporous state of the economy may also be helping to re-elect the government.
Within Sydney, the Liberal party only holds only two seats south of Sydney harbour and it will be their task to win a huge number of seats in Sydney. The ALP also holds a quite high number of regional seats and the coalition will need to win back many of these seats.
Since 1995 the coalition has lost the seats of maitland, strathfield, ryde, georges river, tweed, murray darling, camden and monaro to the ALP. The demographically conservative seats of Manly, tamworth, northern tablelands and port macquaire are held by independents.
The coalition will need win back almost all of these seats to have any chance of forming government. The problem is that due to electoral gepgraphy which benefits the ALP, there are very few seats that the coalition has a realistic chance of winning in addition to those they have already lost. there are probably only about 5 seats such as bathurst, kogarah, drummoyne etc. that they can win. the best scenario is really only a small majority for the coalition, even if they achieve a primary vote of landslide proportions.
this is all a shame because their front bench is clearly much more talented than what the ALP has to offer. brogden, o'farrel, debnam, tink etc.would all do a very good job (although it is difficult to imagine anyone doing a worse job than carr's team at present) i much prefer the nsw coalition leadership to that of canberra
then again the alp may just be un-electable if their appaling managment of the state continues. i am quite certain that bob carr is getting ready to retire as he has bought what appears to be a retirement home in NZ and his wife has sold her business. if bob carr thinks there is is reasonable chance of losing the next election he will retire. then of course it will depend on the new leader. considering that most of his ministers appear incompetent, there is no clear leadership candidate
personally i would very much like to see the end of alp control of nsw, and i would even trade coalition control of canberra for this. i do, however, miss the time when the coalition has people like nick griener and john fahey as leader with people like metheral and baird as ministers. these were the good old days with true liberals in control of the party and when nsw actually worked. the last coalition government was visionary and actually achieved some things such as the sydney olympics. in contrast the present government has a complete lack of vision and is only focused on achieving short term goals rather than policies that will help the state over the long term.
the present government has failed to invest in the future and have simply tried to milk profits out of our utilities and infrastruture. this is why there are presently water shortages and our transport is in crisis. it is also why there will be a huge budget deficit this year and why we are soon likely to have power shortages. the government has failed to look to the future over the past 8 years and we are now paying the price for it. you cannot run the state into the 21st century using what they inherited.
before he "won" the 1995 election. bob carr promised to abolish tolls of the m5 and m4 and also said he would resign if hospital waiting lists increased. he also made very unpopular move of downgrading the state's governor. in 1999 he was elected with an increased majority. this is why the election of a coalition government in 2007 is far from a certainty.
there will be a by-election in dubbo in the weekend because of the dealth of independent member tony mcgrane. the first step to winning government in 2007 will be winning back this seat for the national party. the alp is not contesting the seat so they have a good chance.
