Check this out from today’s West Australian Newspaper – Windsor calls for mine tax cash for bush.
It looks like future MHR Brendon Grylls might have the
rug pulled from his plan to lead a Royalties for Regions balance-of-power block
vote after the next Federal election.
In Run Brendon, run (not for Forrest),
I predicted that Mr Grylls will take his bold, “I’ll form government with any
majority party as long as they promise to adopt our RfR policy” attitude to
Federal Parliament as the Member for Pearce next year after losing his bid for the
State seat of Pilbara.
However, given that the current balance-of-power Member for New England Tony Windsor reportedly said yesterday, "Why shouldn't a bit of the MRRT
go to regional areas," Mr Grylls might find a version of his Royalties for
Regions plan already in place before he has a chance to get to Canberra and take
the credit he personally deserves.
Watch this space...
Showing posts with label Brendon Grylls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brendon Grylls. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Run Brendon, run (not for Forrest)
Yesterday in the second part of the curse of imminent influence, I forecasted the end of the Federal Coalition and said WA Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls would be happy to lose in his run for the state seat of Pilbara next year's poll.
Predictably, I received a few “poo poo” emails overnight that argued with various levels of passion that the federal coalition will never be threatened and Mr Grylls was “totally committed to improving the lives of regional Western Australians.”
In response to the first point: the Federal Coalition has already been threatened - in 2010.
Admittedly, the Member for O’Connor’s one-man attempt to re-engineer the Nationals brand in 2010 failed, but he certainly made his intentions known. If Mr Crook had only a few others supporting him at the time, the remaining elected Nationals would have been faced with the difficult choice of joining the “Crook Nationals” in Government (as a partner to Labor) or holding on to the coalition in Opposition. I reckon we all know what would have happened in those circumstances.
With regard to the second comment, I agree - Mr Grylls is a passionate supporter of regional Western Australia. I just think he reckons he’s done all he can in State Parliament and wants to put his advocacy for the regions on a bigger stage. Don’t get me wrong, I think he would be very happy to win Pilbara and do another term in State Parliament. After all, if he did manage to pull that off, he’d be immortalised in the Nationals hall of fame and get to lead a bigger Parliamentary team with an even greater amount of power over their government partners (whoever that may be).
I laid out some arguments for that yesterday but I didn’t include Mr Grylls’ curious and early declaration that he doesn’t plan to live in the Pilbara electorate – even if he wins. Now, I’ve already credited him with being a fairly shrewd politician and even an average political mouth could have delivered a line like “I have a young family. If I win the seat of Pilbara, my wife and I will re-evaluate our living circumstances then.”
But he didn’t provide that easy answer.
Instead, he chose to give his competitors the opportunity to claim home-town knowledge and start their campaign with the corresponding home-town advantage. He is going to give his run a red-hot go, but his plan is to lose and then head off to Canberra as the new Member for Durack or my best guess, Pearce.
It won’t be O’Connor because Mr Grylls wants to increase the number of Nationals in Parliament and knows that an incumbent Member has the best chance of retaining a seat. The Nationals will put a candidate up in Forrest, but given Mr Grylls’ strongest connections are in the Wheatbelt and another high-profile person should be easy to find with the help of local State Ministers Redman and Waldron, Forrest is out too.
So other than city-based electorates, that leaves Durack and the much closer to Perth, very family friendly, Pearce.
Mr Grylls’ family currently lives in Merredin which is in the very southern part of the electorate of Durack - currently held by Liberal Barry Haase. Mr Haase is a colourful character who will, by then have been in Parliament for 14 years. Some voters think a change is as good as a holiday and given Mr Grylls will come with the promise of cash for infrastructure in Durack’s vast mining and pastoral areas, he should have a pretty good chance if he chooses to run in that electorate.
But Mr Grylls is a loving dad to two young children. A big electorate like Durack combined with the travel time to and from Canberra would be hard for him and his close-knit family. Interestingly, Mr Grylls recently bought a house in Northam, which is not only in the much smaller Liberal-held seat of Pearce, but also only 45 minutes drive from the commuter plane to and from Canberra. Northam itself is one of several areas Mr Grylls has declared a future "super-town" - and that means bucket-loads of Royalties for Regions money is set to pour in over the next few years (perfectly timed to make him a very popular man in the late 2013 federal election). Better still, the current MP for the electorate, Judi Moylan has already declared that she is not going to run again, so that adds the appeal of not having to campaign against a sitting member of the coalition.
Brendon Grylls was born in 1973. His stellar political career to date has already earned him the respect of many who came before him and a great number more of those waiting in the wings. He believes in his cause – and that is transparently more about advocacy for those in regional Australia than any particular tradition or ideology. He will turn 40 next year, a perfect point in a man's life to make a change in his career path, presumably in an upward direction.
Predictably, I received a few “poo poo” emails overnight that argued with various levels of passion that the federal coalition will never be threatened and Mr Grylls was “totally committed to improving the lives of regional Western Australians.”
In response to the first point: the Federal Coalition has already been threatened - in 2010.
Admittedly, the Member for O’Connor’s one-man attempt to re-engineer the Nationals brand in 2010 failed, but he certainly made his intentions known. If Mr Crook had only a few others supporting him at the time, the remaining elected Nationals would have been faced with the difficult choice of joining the “Crook Nationals” in Government (as a partner to Labor) or holding on to the coalition in Opposition. I reckon we all know what would have happened in those circumstances.
With regard to the second comment, I agree - Mr Grylls is a passionate supporter of regional Western Australia. I just think he reckons he’s done all he can in State Parliament and wants to put his advocacy for the regions on a bigger stage. Don’t get me wrong, I think he would be very happy to win Pilbara and do another term in State Parliament. After all, if he did manage to pull that off, he’d be immortalised in the Nationals hall of fame and get to lead a bigger Parliamentary team with an even greater amount of power over their government partners (whoever that may be).
I laid out some arguments for that yesterday but I didn’t include Mr Grylls’ curious and early declaration that he doesn’t plan to live in the Pilbara electorate – even if he wins. Now, I’ve already credited him with being a fairly shrewd politician and even an average political mouth could have delivered a line like “I have a young family. If I win the seat of Pilbara, my wife and I will re-evaluate our living circumstances then.”
But he didn’t provide that easy answer.
Instead, he chose to give his competitors the opportunity to claim home-town knowledge and start their campaign with the corresponding home-town advantage. He is going to give his run a red-hot go, but his plan is to lose and then head off to Canberra as the new Member for Durack or my best guess, Pearce.
It won’t be O’Connor because Mr Grylls wants to increase the number of Nationals in Parliament and knows that an incumbent Member has the best chance of retaining a seat. The Nationals will put a candidate up in Forrest, but given Mr Grylls’ strongest connections are in the Wheatbelt and another high-profile person should be easy to find with the help of local State Ministers Redman and Waldron, Forrest is out too.
So other than city-based electorates, that leaves Durack and the much closer to Perth, very family friendly, Pearce.
Mr Grylls’ family currently lives in Merredin which is in the very southern part of the electorate of Durack - currently held by Liberal Barry Haase. Mr Haase is a colourful character who will, by then have been in Parliament for 14 years. Some voters think a change is as good as a holiday and given Mr Grylls will come with the promise of cash for infrastructure in Durack’s vast mining and pastoral areas, he should have a pretty good chance if he chooses to run in that electorate.
But Mr Grylls is a loving dad to two young children. A big electorate like Durack combined with the travel time to and from Canberra would be hard for him and his close-knit family. Interestingly, Mr Grylls recently bought a house in Northam, which is not only in the much smaller Liberal-held seat of Pearce, but also only 45 minutes drive from the commuter plane to and from Canberra. Northam itself is one of several areas Mr Grylls has declared a future "super-town" - and that means bucket-loads of Royalties for Regions money is set to pour in over the next few years (perfectly timed to make him a very popular man in the late 2013 federal election). Better still, the current MP for the electorate, Judi Moylan has already declared that she is not going to run again, so that adds the appeal of not having to campaign against a sitting member of the coalition.
Brendon Grylls was born in 1973. His stellar political career to date has already earned him the respect of many who came before him and a great number more of those waiting in the wings. He believes in his cause – and that is transparently more about advocacy for those in regional Australia than any particular tradition or ideology. He will turn 40 next year, a perfect point in a man's life to make a change in his career path, presumably in an upward direction.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
coii (Part 2 - the end of the coalition)
In Part 1, I introduced and justified my so-called curse of imminent influence (coii) – basically what human nature does to 90% of political parties when they try to make the jump from a small ‘balance of power’ party to one capable of holding a majority.
Click here to read all about the coii.
Part 2 is actually a bit of a warning to the party that, like the Greens, is at grave risk of the coii because I think they are planning to declare themselves the next, next “third force in Australian politics”. That Party is of course, the Nationals. And if I’m correct, what will happen immediately before the coii hits them will be the end of the formal federal coalition.
Sound a bit far-fetched? Let me justify my claim.
The Nationals’ Member for the Federal electorate of O’Connor Tony Crook, aggressively took the seat from long-term Liberal Wilson Tuckey at the 2010 election. As we all know, this election resulted in a messy hung parliament. During the first few weeks of that parliament, Mr Crook tried to use his self-declared “independence” from the federal National Party to help the Labor Party form Government – on the condition it created a national “Royalties for Regions” (RfR) scheme.
However, Prime Minister Gillard found the votes she needed in a few slightly more independent independents and the national RfR scheme hasn’t eventuated… yet.
Royalties for Regions was the brainchild of Mr Crook’s Western Australian colleagues, lead by current Minister for Regional Development Brendon Grylls. It isn't overstating it to say RfR has been an absolute political boon for the Nationals in WA.
In short, the policy quarantines big wads of cash (the equivalent of 25% of WA’s mining and onshore petroleum royalties - around $6b) for the Nationals to spend at their discretion on things in regional parts of the State. I say “things” because the criteria for spending is, well fairly flexible and “at their discretion” because this money really is not linked to the State budget at all. In fact, I recall being in a Chiefs of Staff meeting in 2011 during which Brendon Grylls’ representative reported that, “The Royalties for Regions budget process is going very well”. I’m not sure it was meant to antagonise, but it certainly highlighted the very uncomfortable fact that 3 Nationals Ministers were deciding how to spend 25% of the Government’s money totally independently of the mainstream State budget that our 14 non-Nationals Ministers were wrestling over at the time.
Notably, this situation only came about because the WA Nationals chose to not enter into a traditional coalition with the Liberals prior to the 2008 State election. When the result was a hung Parliament, the Nationals did something quite extraordinary - threatened to form a government with the Labor Party. During a week of tense negotiations, the bold young Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls stood his ground, declaring that his Party would only form a government with a major Party if it would honour the terms of the Nationals’ pre-election RfR policy. There was some attempted horse-trading but in the end, Liberal Leader Colin Barnett extended his right hand and became the Premier of Western Australia – governed by an unorthodox Liberal-National “partnership” (not coalition).
Since then, Mr Grylls and his team have travelled around regional Western Australia throwing cash at projects that the government as a whole simply can’t afford – ironically because of the drain RfR is to the State’s wider budget. Virtually everything that gets built in a Western Australian country town now carries the “Royalties for Regions” logo and the Nationals have once again become the undisputed champions (and heroes) of the bush.
RfR has probably been good for country-based Western Australians, but it’s also been the best campaign fund the Nationals could have ever hoped for. And that is precisely why Queensland’s new Premier Campbell Newman has adopted the policy for new government – and why it will be part of a federal National’s policy platform in either 2013 or at the latest, three years after.
But for the Nationals to have enough weight in Canberra to force a majority Party to hand over what would be an absolutely enormous slush fund, they will have to have more than just Tony Crook’s vote to offer the Labor Party, or perhaps the Liberals as a “partnership, not coalition”.
Re-enter, Brendon Grylls and his youthful bullishness.
In the next WA State poll due in March next year, Mr Grylls will vacate his safe Nationals wheatbelt seat and stand for the currently safe Labor seat of Pilbara, in the heat of WA’s booming mining sector. By all accounts, he’s not likely to win it.
But as we’ve seen, Brendon Grylls isn’t as silly as he is courageous. He is fully aware of the potential to lose his seat in State Parliament and my hypothesis is that he actually wouldn’t mind if he did.
A few things lead me to that theory.
But I suggest Brendon Grylls is willing to lose in such circumstances is because he is planning to use his new high-profile martyr status to embark on something even more ambitious - become the lead advocate for a national RfR scheme and become a candidate for a Federal House of Reps seat at the soon-to-follow federal election.
If successful in that quest, he will be joined in Canberra on the big green comfy chairs by another ambitious and high-profile RfR supporter and friend, Barnaby Joyce - who is himself, planning to move to the lower house where he can use his vote to directly influence government spending.
Assuming Tony Crook can get re-elected in O’Connor and Premier Campbell Newman does some good politics with the Queensland RfR scheme, there will be at least three Nationals in the next House of Reps bold enough to cross the floor to squeeze a Royalties for Regions commitment from Prime Minister Abbott – or perhaps even Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her new Labor-National government…
Either way, the word “coalition” will be replaced by “partnership” before the 2016 election – mark my words.
The growth of the Nationals’ influence as a result of the Royalties for Regions scheme in WA and Qld will provide the adrenalin required for a whole new bunch of ambitious Nationals to stand, win and declare that they too will soon become the next, next third force in Australian politics - starting with Messer’s Grylls, Crook and Joyce.
My only advice to the “new Nationals” - beware of the coii!!
PS. There’s another piece of this puzzle that I didn’t get to include in the main body of my post. The Nationals’ recently appointed a new Federal Director – a politically astute guy who was integral to the successful implementation and operation of the WA Royalties for Regions scheme and takes with him all the knowledge and support required to replicate RfR in every state (and even federally)….
Click here to read all about the coii.
Part 2 is actually a bit of a warning to the party that, like the Greens, is at grave risk of the coii because I think they are planning to declare themselves the next, next “third force in Australian politics”. That Party is of course, the Nationals. And if I’m correct, what will happen immediately before the coii hits them will be the end of the formal federal coalition.
Sound a bit far-fetched? Let me justify my claim.
The Nationals’ Member for the Federal electorate of O’Connor Tony Crook, aggressively took the seat from long-term Liberal Wilson Tuckey at the 2010 election. As we all know, this election resulted in a messy hung parliament. During the first few weeks of that parliament, Mr Crook tried to use his self-declared “independence” from the federal National Party to help the Labor Party form Government – on the condition it created a national “Royalties for Regions” (RfR) scheme.
However, Prime Minister Gillard found the votes she needed in a few slightly more independent independents and the national RfR scheme hasn’t eventuated… yet.
Royalties for Regions was the brainchild of Mr Crook’s Western Australian colleagues, lead by current Minister for Regional Development Brendon Grylls. It isn't overstating it to say RfR has been an absolute political boon for the Nationals in WA.
In short, the policy quarantines big wads of cash (the equivalent of 25% of WA’s mining and onshore petroleum royalties - around $6b) for the Nationals to spend at their discretion on things in regional parts of the State. I say “things” because the criteria for spending is, well fairly flexible and “at their discretion” because this money really is not linked to the State budget at all. In fact, I recall being in a Chiefs of Staff meeting in 2011 during which Brendon Grylls’ representative reported that, “The Royalties for Regions budget process is going very well”. I’m not sure it was meant to antagonise, but it certainly highlighted the very uncomfortable fact that 3 Nationals Ministers were deciding how to spend 25% of the Government’s money totally independently of the mainstream State budget that our 14 non-Nationals Ministers were wrestling over at the time.
Notably, this situation only came about because the WA Nationals chose to not enter into a traditional coalition with the Liberals prior to the 2008 State election. When the result was a hung Parliament, the Nationals did something quite extraordinary - threatened to form a government with the Labor Party. During a week of tense negotiations, the bold young Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls stood his ground, declaring that his Party would only form a government with a major Party if it would honour the terms of the Nationals’ pre-election RfR policy. There was some attempted horse-trading but in the end, Liberal Leader Colin Barnett extended his right hand and became the Premier of Western Australia – governed by an unorthodox Liberal-National “partnership” (not coalition).
Since then, Mr Grylls and his team have travelled around regional Western Australia throwing cash at projects that the government as a whole simply can’t afford – ironically because of the drain RfR is to the State’s wider budget. Virtually everything that gets built in a Western Australian country town now carries the “Royalties for Regions” logo and the Nationals have once again become the undisputed champions (and heroes) of the bush.
RfR has probably been good for country-based Western Australians, but it’s also been the best campaign fund the Nationals could have ever hoped for. And that is precisely why Queensland’s new Premier Campbell Newman has adopted the policy for new government – and why it will be part of a federal National’s policy platform in either 2013 or at the latest, three years after.
But for the Nationals to have enough weight in Canberra to force a majority Party to hand over what would be an absolutely enormous slush fund, they will have to have more than just Tony Crook’s vote to offer the Labor Party, or perhaps the Liberals as a “partnership, not coalition”.
Re-enter, Brendon Grylls and his youthful bullishness.
In the next WA State poll due in March next year, Mr Grylls will vacate his safe Nationals wheatbelt seat and stand for the currently safe Labor seat of Pilbara, in the heat of WA’s booming mining sector. By all accounts, he’s not likely to win it.
But as we’ve seen, Brendon Grylls isn’t as silly as he is courageous. He is fully aware of the potential to lose his seat in State Parliament and my hypothesis is that he actually wouldn’t mind if he did.
A few things lead me to that theory.
- Mr Grylls is the Leader of his Party. There’s no higher position unless the Nat’s form a coalition with the Libs and he became Deputy Premier of WA – but that has already been ruled out, and Mr Grylls likes the freedom he gets by not sharing a Party room.
- He is already a hero within the National party, personally credited with reviving it from near-death. The ballsy gamble Mr Grylls took in holding out until he secured a promise from Colin Barnett to implement RfR has been a huge political coup and now seen as the way forward for the National Party all around the country.
- He’s young, but already been in State Parliament for 11 years. It must be pretty boring to sit on comfy blue chairs all day listening to others waffling on about things that simply fail to hold the attention of a successful and ambitious gen-xer like Mr Grylls.
But I suggest Brendon Grylls is willing to lose in such circumstances is because he is planning to use his new high-profile martyr status to embark on something even more ambitious - become the lead advocate for a national RfR scheme and become a candidate for a Federal House of Reps seat at the soon-to-follow federal election.
If successful in that quest, he will be joined in Canberra on the big green comfy chairs by another ambitious and high-profile RfR supporter and friend, Barnaby Joyce - who is himself, planning to move to the lower house where he can use his vote to directly influence government spending.
Assuming Tony Crook can get re-elected in O’Connor and Premier Campbell Newman does some good politics with the Queensland RfR scheme, there will be at least three Nationals in the next House of Reps bold enough to cross the floor to squeeze a Royalties for Regions commitment from Prime Minister Abbott – or perhaps even Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her new Labor-National government…
Either way, the word “coalition” will be replaced by “partnership” before the 2016 election – mark my words.
The growth of the Nationals’ influence as a result of the Royalties for Regions scheme in WA and Qld will provide the adrenalin required for a whole new bunch of ambitious Nationals to stand, win and declare that they too will soon become the next, next third force in Australian politics - starting with Messer’s Grylls, Crook and Joyce.
My only advice to the “new Nationals” - beware of the coii!!
PS. There’s another piece of this puzzle that I didn’t get to include in the main body of my post. The Nationals’ recently appointed a new Federal Director – a politically astute guy who was integral to the successful implementation and operation of the WA Royalties for Regions scheme and takes with him all the knowledge and support required to replicate RfR in every state (and even federally)….
Thursday, March 15, 2012
CCC issue showcases WA’s great planner, err Premier
I don’t blame Leader of the Nationals Brendon Grylls for his decision to risk everything and run against a popular Mayor in the Labor-held seat of Pilbara at the next election. I mean, just imagine how frustrating it is being him – or for that matter, any other ambitious subordinate of our hyper-cautious, slow-moving statesman Colin Barnett.
A case-in-point is the growing furore around whether or not Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan lied or indeed just honestly stuffed up when by incorrectly recalling the precise time of when he first learned of last year’s Roleystone fires. I get the “integrity” issue – our top cop shouldn’t lie to a formal inquiry - but even in the unlikely event that it was intentional and not just flawed memory, is this really a matter that should occupy the resources of the State’s Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC)?
Speaking from Singapore with Paul Murray on Perth radio 6PR today, the integrity-focussed Premier confirmed he didn’t think it was worthy of a CCC investigation:
The uncomfortable, yet true answer to this question is unfortunately the same for so many other points of inertia that is causing damaging internal conflict and frustration as well as external reputational issues to the WA Government – and it is quite simply, Colin Barnett.
Let me justify that claim.
As I demonstrated in “Humpty Dumpty fell – do something about it or stop whining and get over it!”, the Premier’s tendency to clumsily think out loud before shoring up a plan of action has caused more than a little uncertainty within government and industry regarding the future of WA’s energy sector. Although in that case, the Energy Minister hasn’t helped by insensitively “napalming” the State’s corporate knowledge in the area, the one guy who genuinely could have made things happen 3 years ago, is still just talking about it.
After a quick (and I mean literally 5 minutes) search of Hansard, here are some of the things the Premier has thought-out-loud about the CCC during his last 3 years of no public action:
But Colin Barnett has another good quality that unfortunately compromises his ability to get things done as Premier – a paralysing fear of having his personal integrity questioned. This is indeed a double-edged sword for him, especially with regard to the CCC issue.
Every rational person would agree that we need a strong, independent body to ensure corruption at crime does not pervade our community. I’m certain most of those people would also agree with the Premier – that the CCC should focus its limited resources on the most serious end of the spectrum. But alas, in our adversarial system of government, the Premier knows that as soon as he stands up to commit to the changes he has talked about for 9 years, he will be accused of compromising his integrity and that is an inevitability he has not yet been able to personally reconcile.
A case-in-point is the growing furore around whether or not Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan lied or indeed just honestly stuffed up when by incorrectly recalling the precise time of when he first learned of last year’s Roleystone fires. I get the “integrity” issue – our top cop shouldn’t lie to a formal inquiry - but even in the unlikely event that it was intentional and not just flawed memory, is this really a matter that should occupy the resources of the State’s Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC)?
Speaking from Singapore with Paul Murray on Perth radio 6PR today, the integrity-focussed Premier confirmed he didn’t think it was worthy of a CCC investigation:
“However, I’m staying out of it… Allegations have been made and in my opinion the CCC has no choice but to enquire into them. I just hope they can do so as quickly as possible.”And why does the CCC still have “no choice” but to waste its precious time on yet another nonsensical witch-hunt that will do little other than cast a shadow over the reputation of our hard-working emergency services?
The uncomfortable, yet true answer to this question is unfortunately the same for so many other points of inertia that is causing damaging internal conflict and frustration as well as external reputational issues to the WA Government – and it is quite simply, Colin Barnett.
Let me justify that claim.
As I demonstrated in “Humpty Dumpty fell – do something about it or stop whining and get over it!”, the Premier’s tendency to clumsily think out loud before shoring up a plan of action has caused more than a little uncertainty within government and industry regarding the future of WA’s energy sector. Although in that case, the Energy Minister hasn’t helped by insensitively “napalming” the State’s corporate knowledge in the area, the one guy who genuinely could have made things happen 3 years ago, is still just talking about it.
After a quick (and I mean literally 5 minutes) search of Hansard, here are some of the things the Premier has thought-out-loud about the CCC during his last 3 years of no public action:
“It is certainly my hope, and I think most members would agree, that the resources of the Corruption and Crime Commission and the very extensive powers of the CCC should increasingly focus on dealing with organised crime. That is certainly the intent of the government.” - Thursday, 28 May 2009
“The Liberal–National government will also target organised crime, with the introduction of anti-association legislation aimed at groups who come together to engage in criminal behaviour. We will also broaden the powers of the Corruption and Crime Commission in this area.” - Tuesday, 23 February 2010
“We have also seen the issue… of what might be seen to be normal disciplinary processes dragged into the Corruption and Crime Commission and gain a level of public and media interest that is perhaps unwarranted. Again, that is another area of full reform that we will be entering into as a government; that is, the role of the CCC will be more related to organised crime, and there will be a balancing out of the matters that should go to the CCC—presumably, criminal or serious corruption issues—and the matters that are more of a disciplinary nature and should be dealt with by the Public Sector Commissioner.” - Tuesday, 22 June 2010
“The government’s legislative agenda also includes legislation to allow the Corruption and Crime Commission to focus more on organised crime…” - Tuesday, 15 February 2011
“The Liberal–National government makes no apologies for its tough law and order agenda… As promised, the government will target organised crime this year… The government will also introduce amendments to the Corruption and Crime Commission Act to extend the CCC’s powers to investigate organised crime.” - Tuesday, 21 February 2012In the Premier’s defence, some might argue that he’s busy and three years simply isn’t long enough for anyone to work out about how to modify the parameters of such a complex issue. Hmm… that argument might float if it wasn’t for yet another awkward truth – Mr Barnett started thinking about these issues at least 9 years ago, when as Leader of the Opposition, he said this during the second reading of the enabling Bill:
“The Opposition is supportive of the Government’s measures to build a more effective mechanism to fight corruption and crime. This Bill establishes a particularly powerful body… In that sense we must be conscious as legislators to examine and find the correct balance between the powers needed to control corruption and the potential threat those powers may in turn mean for the rights of individuals to maintain their livelihoods, their freedoms and their reputations… We should also be conscious that the CCC will have wide-ranging powers that will extend not only to police and public servants but also to judges, ministers, members of Parliament, public officers and police officers. That is acceptable, but in this business we all know how easy it is to make allegations. Allegations can be made by people outside this House, and sometimes they are made by people from within this House. If an allegation is made against a public figure, particularly in Australia, it is very hard to defend. Great damage can be done to people in public office and to their families by scurrilous and unfounded allegations…” - Wednesday, 4 June 2003For me, the most frustrating part of drawing all this together is that I know the Premier is a good bloke. I also know he’s smart and considered, and I for one want those qualities in the guy representing our great State domestically and particularly abroad, as he is today.
But Colin Barnett has another good quality that unfortunately compromises his ability to get things done as Premier – a paralysing fear of having his personal integrity questioned. This is indeed a double-edged sword for him, especially with regard to the CCC issue.
Every rational person would agree that we need a strong, independent body to ensure corruption at crime does not pervade our community. I’m certain most of those people would also agree with the Premier – that the CCC should focus its limited resources on the most serious end of the spectrum. But alas, in our adversarial system of government, the Premier knows that as soon as he stands up to commit to the changes he has talked about for 9 years, he will be accused of compromising his integrity and that is an inevitability he has not yet been able to personally reconcile.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Approvals reform failure (Part 1)
Two extraordinary public statements have been made in the last month and while those making them were fairly polite about it, their comments point to a massive and inexcusable failing of the Barnett Government to deliver on a key election commitment – reform of the State’s embarrassingly bureaucratic approvals process.
Around a month ago, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) released what they called a “Blueprint for Approvals Reform in Western Australia”. This document, masterfully crafted to not offend the sensitive types on the 24th floor, explains that the 300 or so junior mining companies that form AMEC are happy with the work of Mines Minister Norman Moore, but deeply “concerned” about a number of approvals issues that still require "immediate attention". The 20-page document is thorough in its endorsement of the work that has been done within Minister Moore’s remit and polite but clear in its condemnation of the lack of outcome across all other relevant agencies.
But perhaps even more telling is the article on page 14 of the ‘Property’ section in today’s West Australian newspaper titled “Landcorp calls for streamlined approvals process”. While Landcorp’s focus isn’t on mining approvals, the message is fundamentally the same as that in AMEC’s polite slap across the face – in 3 years, the Barnett Government has failed to deliver the approvals process reforms it promised in order to win industry support before winning the 2008 election. Landcorp’s Chief Executive Ross Holt, is quoted in the article explaining that the State’s cumbersome environmental and aboriginal heritage approvals processes are to blame for the slow release of new land in WA.
This subtle but pin-pointed attack on the Government’s failure to make more progress in this regard is extraordinary for two reasons – when in opposition, the Barnett Government explicitly claimed that high housing prices in WA were a direct result of the Government’s failure to release new land quickly enough to keep up with demand; and Landcorp, for those who don’t already know, is just the trading name of the Western Australian Land Authority – i.e. one of the Government’s own agencies.
Hmm… when a mining lobby group claims the Government has failed to deliver on a key election promise, it’s easy for the Premier’s people to dismiss as nothing but greed, but when one of the Government’s own agencies like Landcorp publicly agrees… well, where there’s smoke…
And smoke there should be - coming out of the ears of Minister Grylls and Minister Moore who have consistently tried without success to convince their recalcitrant Leader and many ignorant Ministerial colleagues of the one thing they know to be true – fix this core issue and the Government will win many powerful friends in property development and mining (as well as the public who would probably enjoy cheaper land and more infrastructure from mining royalties).
But alas, the Premier’s bureaucratic mindset and somewhat anti-liberal ‘protect-public-servants-at-all-cost’ dogma has ensured the openly maligned leadership of the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) has not only stayed in place, but continued to snub the desperate calls from industry for meaningful improvements to its approvals process efficiency and transparency.
In the three years since the election, Minister Moore’s wisdom and strength has delivered an entirely new Department, a Director General who immediately engaged and won the support of his stakeholders and the creation - from scratch - of a fully transparent, highly efficient online approvals system. In contrast, the Premier’s proud but foolish decision to allocate the equally complex and challenging Environment portfolio to the “youngest female Minister in political history” provided the hierarchy of DEC with the opportunity to dig in and lead the overwhelmed new Minister down the garden path. Desperate to placate her fawning Premier’s obvious desire for public-sector stability at all cost, Minister Faragher did her best to reform her intractable Department with carrots, not having the experience or influence to wield the dirty big stick that was actually required.
After a couple of years of reform inertia, the young Minister’s pregnancy opened the door for the Premier to cordially replace her with someone willing and able to finally jump on top of the wild brumby that the DEC had become and break its spirit…and with an analogy like that, wouldn’t you think it would have been a perfect job for pragmatic, rough and tumble country-boys like Terry Redman or even Troy Buswell#? So who did the Premier choose to throw down the gauntlet and go head to head with the bolshie DEC leadership forcing them to the reverse the entrenched anti-reform culture within? Hmmm, the well-dressed and affable Mr Bill Marmion, from Nedlands, of course.
[Clink! - the sound of the western suburbs chardonnay set toasting the ascent of yet another]
Oh, environment… never an easy portfolio for a conservative Minister – but with a Premier who would rather throw ideology out the window than upset a public servant, it would take someone truly extraordinary to oversee the changes required in that portfolio. (Premier: see not-so-subtle suggestions above).
The other area Landcorp head Ross Holt and the membership of AMEC said needed attention was the process around protecting Aboriginal Heritage in our State. And my goodness, does it ever.
As I conceded in “Stolen Wages outcome illuminates deeper issues” the Indigenous Affairs portfolio has also been a bit of a poison chalice for Minister Peter Collier. However, with regard to the approvals reform issue the lack of ability of the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA) to follow the DMP and get its online approvals system running is entirely a result of Minister Collier’s lack of willingness or ability to use his alleged power-broker status to influence his Cabinet colleagues.
I witnessed this first hand at a pre-budget meeting where former DIA Director General, Patrick Walker pleaded the case for a measly $400,000 to allow his department to complete a prototype of their online approvals tracking system that would have resulted in a transparent process similar to that of the Department of Mines and Petroleum. Sadly, Minister Moore was unable to attend this meeting and without anyone else wise and courageous enough to point out that this relatively small expenditure would help meet an important election commitment, it was put in the “not to be funded” column for that year’s State budget. While Mr Walker was simply too professional to link his disappointment at being hung out to dry by his own Minister with his soon-to-follow resignation, the bewilderment on his face at the time spoke volumes.
In fairness to the apparently craven Minister Collier, he only had carriage of the portfolio for a few months prior to that meeting. Since budget preparations had begun some time earlier, much of his attention had been appropriately focussed on securing funding for his other long-standing portfolios of Training and Energy. It’s therefore not unreasonable to apportion a large part of the failure to deliver the promised heritage approvals reform to Deputy Premier Kim Hames.
However, regardless of which Ministers have or haven’t had the strength, courage and intellect to fix their patch, the Western Australian approvals process as a whole remains far from the fully transparent, efficient system that this Government promised to deliver. Considering both the Liberal and National parties share a very tenuous hold on government and only managed that with the help of significant campaign contributions by property developers and mining executives, one would think keeping groups like AMEC and Landcorp happy would be top priority for Mr Barnett and his office full of well-paid political geniuses.
[Clink! – the sound of the eastern suburbs beer bottle blokes toasting another nail in the coffin]
Around a month ago, the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) released what they called a “Blueprint for Approvals Reform in Western Australia”. This document, masterfully crafted to not offend the sensitive types on the 24th floor, explains that the 300 or so junior mining companies that form AMEC are happy with the work of Mines Minister Norman Moore, but deeply “concerned” about a number of approvals issues that still require "immediate attention". The 20-page document is thorough in its endorsement of the work that has been done within Minister Moore’s remit and polite but clear in its condemnation of the lack of outcome across all other relevant agencies.
But perhaps even more telling is the article on page 14 of the ‘Property’ section in today’s West Australian newspaper titled “Landcorp calls for streamlined approvals process”. While Landcorp’s focus isn’t on mining approvals, the message is fundamentally the same as that in AMEC’s polite slap across the face – in 3 years, the Barnett Government has failed to deliver the approvals process reforms it promised in order to win industry support before winning the 2008 election. Landcorp’s Chief Executive Ross Holt, is quoted in the article explaining that the State’s cumbersome environmental and aboriginal heritage approvals processes are to blame for the slow release of new land in WA.
This subtle but pin-pointed attack on the Government’s failure to make more progress in this regard is extraordinary for two reasons – when in opposition, the Barnett Government explicitly claimed that high housing prices in WA were a direct result of the Government’s failure to release new land quickly enough to keep up with demand; and Landcorp, for those who don’t already know, is just the trading name of the Western Australian Land Authority – i.e. one of the Government’s own agencies.
Hmm… when a mining lobby group claims the Government has failed to deliver on a key election promise, it’s easy for the Premier’s people to dismiss as nothing but greed, but when one of the Government’s own agencies like Landcorp publicly agrees… well, where there’s smoke…
And smoke there should be - coming out of the ears of Minister Grylls and Minister Moore who have consistently tried without success to convince their recalcitrant Leader and many ignorant Ministerial colleagues of the one thing they know to be true – fix this core issue and the Government will win many powerful friends in property development and mining (as well as the public who would probably enjoy cheaper land and more infrastructure from mining royalties).
But alas, the Premier’s bureaucratic mindset and somewhat anti-liberal ‘protect-public-servants-at-all-cost’ dogma has ensured the openly maligned leadership of the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) has not only stayed in place, but continued to snub the desperate calls from industry for meaningful improvements to its approvals process efficiency and transparency.
In the three years since the election, Minister Moore’s wisdom and strength has delivered an entirely new Department, a Director General who immediately engaged and won the support of his stakeholders and the creation - from scratch - of a fully transparent, highly efficient online approvals system. In contrast, the Premier’s proud but foolish decision to allocate the equally complex and challenging Environment portfolio to the “youngest female Minister in political history” provided the hierarchy of DEC with the opportunity to dig in and lead the overwhelmed new Minister down the garden path. Desperate to placate her fawning Premier’s obvious desire for public-sector stability at all cost, Minister Faragher did her best to reform her intractable Department with carrots, not having the experience or influence to wield the dirty big stick that was actually required.
After a couple of years of reform inertia, the young Minister’s pregnancy opened the door for the Premier to cordially replace her with someone willing and able to finally jump on top of the wild brumby that the DEC had become and break its spirit…and with an analogy like that, wouldn’t you think it would have been a perfect job for pragmatic, rough and tumble country-boys like Terry Redman or even Troy Buswell#? So who did the Premier choose to throw down the gauntlet and go head to head with the bolshie DEC leadership forcing them to the reverse the entrenched anti-reform culture within? Hmmm, the well-dressed and affable Mr Bill Marmion, from Nedlands, of course.
[Clink! - the sound of the western suburbs chardonnay set toasting the ascent of yet another]
Oh, environment… never an easy portfolio for a conservative Minister – but with a Premier who would rather throw ideology out the window than upset a public servant, it would take someone truly extraordinary to oversee the changes required in that portfolio. (Premier: see not-so-subtle suggestions above).
The other area Landcorp head Ross Holt and the membership of AMEC said needed attention was the process around protecting Aboriginal Heritage in our State. And my goodness, does it ever.
As I conceded in “Stolen Wages outcome illuminates deeper issues” the Indigenous Affairs portfolio has also been a bit of a poison chalice for Minister Peter Collier. However, with regard to the approvals reform issue the lack of ability of the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA) to follow the DMP and get its online approvals system running is entirely a result of Minister Collier’s lack of willingness or ability to use his alleged power-broker status to influence his Cabinet colleagues.
I witnessed this first hand at a pre-budget meeting where former DIA Director General, Patrick Walker pleaded the case for a measly $400,000 to allow his department to complete a prototype of their online approvals tracking system that would have resulted in a transparent process similar to that of the Department of Mines and Petroleum. Sadly, Minister Moore was unable to attend this meeting and without anyone else wise and courageous enough to point out that this relatively small expenditure would help meet an important election commitment, it was put in the “not to be funded” column for that year’s State budget. While Mr Walker was simply too professional to link his disappointment at being hung out to dry by his own Minister with his soon-to-follow resignation, the bewilderment on his face at the time spoke volumes.
In fairness to the apparently craven Minister Collier, he only had carriage of the portfolio for a few months prior to that meeting. Since budget preparations had begun some time earlier, much of his attention had been appropriately focussed on securing funding for his other long-standing portfolios of Training and Energy. It’s therefore not unreasonable to apportion a large part of the failure to deliver the promised heritage approvals reform to Deputy Premier Kim Hames.
However, regardless of which Ministers have or haven’t had the strength, courage and intellect to fix their patch, the Western Australian approvals process as a whole remains far from the fully transparent, efficient system that this Government promised to deliver. Considering both the Liberal and National parties share a very tenuous hold on government and only managed that with the help of significant campaign contributions by property developers and mining executives, one would think keeping groups like AMEC and Landcorp happy would be top priority for Mr Barnett and his office full of well-paid political geniuses.
[Clink! – the sound of the eastern suburbs beer bottle blokes toasting another nail in the coffin]
Friday, March 9, 2012
Labor call spells end to cordial Lib-Nat relations
Daniel Emerson’s report in the West Australian Newspaper (McGowan vows no deal with the Nats) marks the beginning of the end for the Royalties for Regions scheme as we know it. Today’s publication of Labor leader Mark McGowan’s pledge that he “would not govern with the Nationals under any circumstance” will kick off a very ugly feud between the WA Liberals and their current “partners” in Government, the Nationals.
Mr McGowan’s courageous declaration will be music to the ears of many Liberal MP’s who have quietly cursed and muttered obscenities under their breath since their leader signed an unconventional partnership agreement with the Nationals in 2008. A number of senior Liberals firmly believe that Colin Barnett conceded far too much in agreeing to the quantum and autonomous nature of the Royalties for Regions scheme.
Basically, Liberal Ministers and backbenchers alike have spent the last three years trying to sell the difficult message that they can’t afford to spend money in their local electorates because of our burgeoning state debt liability. Meanwhile their Nationals colleagues have been traversing the State in the comfy leather seats of the Government jet, handing out RfR branded t-shirts and balloons and granting wishes to anyone who was prepared to hail King Brendon and his royal guard.
Now that Mr McGowan has publicly doused the bridge to the Nationals with fuel and thrown a lit match, the Premier will come under extremely strong pressure from his parched Liberal subordinates to radically reduce the RfR commitment and loosen the purse strings for some Liberal-led initiatives.
At the same time, the Nationals’ bargaining power has been all but decimated by Mr McGowan’s promise to not negotiate with them to form a Government. The guts of it is that the Nationals’ Leader Brendan Grylls had everyone over a barrel at the last election – no one could form a Government without the support of the Nationals and under Mr Grylls’ leadership, no one was going to get their support without agreeing to the currently unsustainable and somewhat irresponsible partisan political cash-cow known as Royalties for Regions. This time around, he won't have the ability to coax the Liberals into a bidding war against Labor - the Nationals will have no alternative but to agree to whatever is offered.
So what will happen now?
Metropolitan Liberal MP’s will think this is a golden opportunity to claw back some money for election promises in their local areas and as of today, start vigorously vocalising that view to the Premier and his bumbling bureaucratic office.
The brash and brave Mr Grylls I described in a previous blog (Pilbara play proof Lib-Nat partnership a mistake) will be loudly banging his RfR drum in the Pilbara using any suggestion by Colin Barnett to change the scheme as the principal reason country voters - including those in the other Labor-held seats of Kimberley, Albany and Collie-Preston - have only one choice in 2013 if they want the regional spending spree to continue. And for those country voters, it’s a compelling case.
Regardless of Colin Barnett’s newest arbitrary and bizarre morale high-ground of “not campaigning during this election year”, he is going to have to. On the back of the Labor Party’s clever declaration for all-or-nothing, the Premier will be either drawn into a head-to-head fight with Brendan Grylls on regional funding or eventually get rolled by his increasingly frustrated Party room colleagues who will be desperately hoping the new guy will listen to the concerns of Mr Barnett’s under-appreciated and repressed backbench soldiers.
The only possible way out this inevitable mess for Mr Barnett is some very unlikely charm and nimble negotiating to stitch up a formal coalition with the Nationals right now.
Mr McGowan’s courageous declaration will be music to the ears of many Liberal MP’s who have quietly cursed and muttered obscenities under their breath since their leader signed an unconventional partnership agreement with the Nationals in 2008. A number of senior Liberals firmly believe that Colin Barnett conceded far too much in agreeing to the quantum and autonomous nature of the Royalties for Regions scheme.
Basically, Liberal Ministers and backbenchers alike have spent the last three years trying to sell the difficult message that they can’t afford to spend money in their local electorates because of our burgeoning state debt liability. Meanwhile their Nationals colleagues have been traversing the State in the comfy leather seats of the Government jet, handing out RfR branded t-shirts and balloons and granting wishes to anyone who was prepared to hail King Brendon and his royal guard.
Now that Mr McGowan has publicly doused the bridge to the Nationals with fuel and thrown a lit match, the Premier will come under extremely strong pressure from his parched Liberal subordinates to radically reduce the RfR commitment and loosen the purse strings for some Liberal-led initiatives.
At the same time, the Nationals’ bargaining power has been all but decimated by Mr McGowan’s promise to not negotiate with them to form a Government. The guts of it is that the Nationals’ Leader Brendan Grylls had everyone over a barrel at the last election – no one could form a Government without the support of the Nationals and under Mr Grylls’ leadership, no one was going to get their support without agreeing to the currently unsustainable and somewhat irresponsible partisan political cash-cow known as Royalties for Regions. This time around, he won't have the ability to coax the Liberals into a bidding war against Labor - the Nationals will have no alternative but to agree to whatever is offered.
So what will happen now?
Metropolitan Liberal MP’s will think this is a golden opportunity to claw back some money for election promises in their local areas and as of today, start vigorously vocalising that view to the Premier and his bumbling bureaucratic office.
The brash and brave Mr Grylls I described in a previous blog (Pilbara play proof Lib-Nat partnership a mistake) will be loudly banging his RfR drum in the Pilbara using any suggestion by Colin Barnett to change the scheme as the principal reason country voters - including those in the other Labor-held seats of Kimberley, Albany and Collie-Preston - have only one choice in 2013 if they want the regional spending spree to continue. And for those country voters, it’s a compelling case.
Regardless of Colin Barnett’s newest arbitrary and bizarre morale high-ground of “not campaigning during this election year”, he is going to have to. On the back of the Labor Party’s clever declaration for all-or-nothing, the Premier will be either drawn into a head-to-head fight with Brendan Grylls on regional funding or eventually get rolled by his increasingly frustrated Party room colleagues who will be desperately hoping the new guy will listen to the concerns of Mr Barnett’s under-appreciated and repressed backbench soldiers.
The only possible way out this inevitable mess for Mr Barnett is some very unlikely charm and nimble negotiating to stitch up a formal coalition with the Nationals right now.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Pilbara play proof Lib-Nat partnership a mistake
The Premier’s “take a cold shower” comment to WA Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls this week is symptomatic not only of Mr Barnett’s tendency to highlight his superiority complex on talkback radio but also of a very messy, imminent problem for the wider government.
Of course, Mr Barnett would say that he was just trying to give some well-meaning advice to a valued friend and colleague, but his warning to Mr Grylls’ over his decision to run for the Labor-held seat of Pilbara at the next election runs much deeper than friendly advice. Quite simply, the Liberal Party will do all it can to stop the Nationals getting another seat in the Legislative Assembly, including that of retiring Labor MP Tom Stephens.
The Nationals have a well-earned reputation in Mr Grylls’ current electorate of Central Wheatbelt so they should retain that seat regardless of the candidate – be it current Upper House Member Mia Davies or anyone else. The threat to the Liberal Party is if Mr Grylls wins the seat of Pilbara, the Nationals will extend their size (and influence) in the Lower House and presumably increase their ability to manipulate Government spending in the next term.
Mr Grylls obviously believes his personal star power combined with the bucket loads of money the Government has spent in the Pilbara thanks to “his” Royalties for Regions scheme will deliver the seat to the Nationals. However, given the outright hatred the Labor Party holds toward the Nationals in that part of the world and their desperation to win Fremantle back from the Independent former Green MP Adele Carles, the Labor Party is likely to do a preference deal with the Liberal Party to disadvantage the Nationals in Pilbara. Unless Mr Grylls secures more than 50% of the primary vote, that deal would just about guarantee he will lose his seat in Parliament come 2013 and the Liberal Party will pick up Pilbara from Tom Stephens.
Mr Barnett wasn’t offering friendly advice - he was suggesting a threat to Mr Grylls’ Parliamentary career.
Both the Royalties for Regions program and Brendon Grylls himself have been problematic for Colin Barnett. There is wide discontent among his Liberal Cabinet colleagues who are often forced to go cap-in-hand to the much wealthier Nationals Ministers to effectively beg for money to fund their pet projects. And the current National team play hard-ball politics with who gets what. Consequently, the Premier is under growing pressure to reduce the proportion of Government spending controlled by the Nationals who would undoubtedly argue for the status quo or even more and if they were to secure another Lower House seat in the next Government.
In terms of Brendon Grylls the man, the Premier, who is hell-bent on trying to develop his image as a wise and considered statesman, is often frustrated by the brash impatience and naked ambition of his younger Nationals counterpart. In EERC meetings, where Ministers and their Department heads pitch to a star chamber of senior Ministers for funding, Mr Grylls is vocal, animated and often showers the room with expletives when he perceives a funding request to be poorly considered or not in the political interest of the government.
Conversely Mr Barnett, who as Premier made reinstating a jacket and tie dress code for Parliament one of his first orders of business, likes to play it cool and mull quietly in the corner leaving others to jump up and down in what he considers, an undignified manner.
But the tensions in the Liberal-National partnership are much deeper than dress-codes and unparliamentry langauge.
Mr Grylls has often upstaged Mr Barnett’s life-long ambition to run a professional, moderate bureaucracy. The urgency inherent in 39 year old Mr Grylls means he IS prepared to occasionally throw the baby out with the bathwater if it means reaching his short-term goal. As someone who has come so far aching with ambition to conquer the summit, he is often frustrated to be blocked at the top by someone who must appear to him as a boring father-figure. His Gen X risk-taking mentality has paid enormous dividends for the kid from the bush with a cruel lisp and the decision to have a stab at the seat of Pilbara underscores his “if you’re going to go out, go out with a bang” approach to politics.
His supposed ally, but true nemesis in his race to the top of the hill is the slow-moving, overly cautious, bureaucratic Colin Barnett. Mr Barnett wants to be remembered as an academic who put good public policy ahead of political ambition. He longs to be remembered as a modern-day Charles Court and with his new-found enthusiasm for the Queen, probably wouldn’t mind following Sir Charles into a knighthood either. Consequently, he tries to keep bad news away from the front page at all cost and is desperate to ensure his leadership is not connected to anything other than full and proper process – something Mr Grylls is happy to at least partially sacrifice in order to get a timely outcome.
Mr Barnett’s philosophical approach to government is diametrically opposed to that of Mr Grylls. And the differences between the men are reflected in the mood of the parties they lead. The National Party has a can-do attitude and is keen to make the changes they want now, even if it inflicts a bit of short-term pain. The Western Australian Parliamentary Liberal Party is defensive and reactive. To use the Premier’s own analogy, his team is batting, not bowling – and it looks like he thinks it’s a test match, not Twenty20.
The fight over the Pilbara will be a high profile and somewhat destructive battle for the Liberal-National partnership but unless someone smart negotiates a formal coalition agreement ASAP, the broader differences between the parties and their respective leaders will cause a much greater chasm in any future alliance.
PS. Paige Talor from the Australian Newspaper followed this up with a great article published on 3 March 2012. You can read that here
Of course, Mr Barnett would say that he was just trying to give some well-meaning advice to a valued friend and colleague, but his warning to Mr Grylls’ over his decision to run for the Labor-held seat of Pilbara at the next election runs much deeper than friendly advice. Quite simply, the Liberal Party will do all it can to stop the Nationals getting another seat in the Legislative Assembly, including that of retiring Labor MP Tom Stephens.
The Nationals have a well-earned reputation in Mr Grylls’ current electorate of Central Wheatbelt so they should retain that seat regardless of the candidate – be it current Upper House Member Mia Davies or anyone else. The threat to the Liberal Party is if Mr Grylls wins the seat of Pilbara, the Nationals will extend their size (and influence) in the Lower House and presumably increase their ability to manipulate Government spending in the next term.
Mr Grylls obviously believes his personal star power combined with the bucket loads of money the Government has spent in the Pilbara thanks to “his” Royalties for Regions scheme will deliver the seat to the Nationals. However, given the outright hatred the Labor Party holds toward the Nationals in that part of the world and their desperation to win Fremantle back from the Independent former Green MP Adele Carles, the Labor Party is likely to do a preference deal with the Liberal Party to disadvantage the Nationals in Pilbara. Unless Mr Grylls secures more than 50% of the primary vote, that deal would just about guarantee he will lose his seat in Parliament come 2013 and the Liberal Party will pick up Pilbara from Tom Stephens.
Mr Barnett wasn’t offering friendly advice - he was suggesting a threat to Mr Grylls’ Parliamentary career.
Both the Royalties for Regions program and Brendon Grylls himself have been problematic for Colin Barnett. There is wide discontent among his Liberal Cabinet colleagues who are often forced to go cap-in-hand to the much wealthier Nationals Ministers to effectively beg for money to fund their pet projects. And the current National team play hard-ball politics with who gets what. Consequently, the Premier is under growing pressure to reduce the proportion of Government spending controlled by the Nationals who would undoubtedly argue for the status quo or even more and if they were to secure another Lower House seat in the next Government.
In terms of Brendon Grylls the man, the Premier, who is hell-bent on trying to develop his image as a wise and considered statesman, is often frustrated by the brash impatience and naked ambition of his younger Nationals counterpart. In EERC meetings, where Ministers and their Department heads pitch to a star chamber of senior Ministers for funding, Mr Grylls is vocal, animated and often showers the room with expletives when he perceives a funding request to be poorly considered or not in the political interest of the government.
Conversely Mr Barnett, who as Premier made reinstating a jacket and tie dress code for Parliament one of his first orders of business, likes to play it cool and mull quietly in the corner leaving others to jump up and down in what he considers, an undignified manner.
But the tensions in the Liberal-National partnership are much deeper than dress-codes and unparliamentry langauge.
Mr Grylls has often upstaged Mr Barnett’s life-long ambition to run a professional, moderate bureaucracy. The urgency inherent in 39 year old Mr Grylls means he IS prepared to occasionally throw the baby out with the bathwater if it means reaching his short-term goal. As someone who has come so far aching with ambition to conquer the summit, he is often frustrated to be blocked at the top by someone who must appear to him as a boring father-figure. His Gen X risk-taking mentality has paid enormous dividends for the kid from the bush with a cruel lisp and the decision to have a stab at the seat of Pilbara underscores his “if you’re going to go out, go out with a bang” approach to politics.
His supposed ally, but true nemesis in his race to the top of the hill is the slow-moving, overly cautious, bureaucratic Colin Barnett. Mr Barnett wants to be remembered as an academic who put good public policy ahead of political ambition. He longs to be remembered as a modern-day Charles Court and with his new-found enthusiasm for the Queen, probably wouldn’t mind following Sir Charles into a knighthood either. Consequently, he tries to keep bad news away from the front page at all cost and is desperate to ensure his leadership is not connected to anything other than full and proper process – something Mr Grylls is happy to at least partially sacrifice in order to get a timely outcome.
Mr Barnett’s philosophical approach to government is diametrically opposed to that of Mr Grylls. And the differences between the men are reflected in the mood of the parties they lead. The National Party has a can-do attitude and is keen to make the changes they want now, even if it inflicts a bit of short-term pain. The Western Australian Parliamentary Liberal Party is defensive and reactive. To use the Premier’s own analogy, his team is batting, not bowling – and it looks like he thinks it’s a test match, not Twenty20.
The fight over the Pilbara will be a high profile and somewhat destructive battle for the Liberal-National partnership but unless someone smart negotiates a formal coalition agreement ASAP, the broader differences between the parties and their respective leaders will cause a much greater chasm in any future alliance.
PS. Paige Talor from the Australian Newspaper followed this up with a great article published on 3 March 2012. You can read that here
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