RSS Feed
December 23rd, 2011 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
A bounce in the polls for Labor hides the many problems facing new Premier Jay Weatherill next year.
Source: AdelaideNow
LABOR circles are filled with equal parts relief and optimism at the end of a tumultuous year.
The party had child pornography charges levelled at one of its MPs, knifed a long-term premier and polled so bad it rivalled State Bank levels.
Labor will be glad 2011 is now almost behind it and voters who grew to loathe the former leadership team of Mike Rann and Kevin Foley are again willing to listen to the party’s message.
It is remarkable Labor has emerged from a year of such scandal and treachery with enough support it could win an election this weekend.
An Advertiser poll last month showed Labor trailing the Liberals 49-51 state-wide but leading in metropolitan Adelaide and the seats where elections are won and lost.
Newspoll yesterday showed Labor trailing the Liberals 48-52, about the margin that scored it a win at the 2010 election.
Unquestionably, the change of face from Mr Rann to new Premier Jay Weatherill has provided a circuit breaker.
Despite the successes of Adelaide Oval, the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and Olympic Dam – all state-building projects that will leave generational legacies – the Government’s support flagged with Mr Rann.
In policy terms, little has substantively changed as a direct cause of Mr Weatherill’s ascent to the leadership.
He has continued the “big build” agenda of the past decade and made many announcements, including the Port Adelaide waterfront takeback and increased city shop trading hours, that had long been in the pipeline.
He can personally claim credit for establishment of the independent commission against corruption and partial rollback of hospital parking fees.
Certainly there has been a shift in style. The “announce and defend” approach is gone and Mr Weatherill’s rhetoric focuses on bringing the community with him, rather than telling them to just trust the Government and take their medicine.
It remains unclear what degree of Labor’s return to popularity is attributable to dislike for Mr Rann and how much is genuine affection for Mr Weatherill.
THE coming by-elections in Ramsay and Port Adelaide are likely to be instructive.
But the biggest test for Mr Weatherill will pivot on the Rann legacy.
The challenge for him is delivering on projects that are half-complete while having little money to start anything new.
Next year will likely be remembered as the one where SA lost its prized Triple A credit rating.
The full impact – both financial and political – of the mid-year Budget review handed down by Treasurer Jack Snelling this month is yet to be felt. The numbers in it are staggering. Debt is rising, deficits have blown out and recurrent wage costs are rising.
Much of this is a legacy of the big-spending and election-buying of 2006 and 2010 and there is every risk that profligacy will finally bite next year as Europe’s financial crisis worsens.
Many voters still have a residual suspicion about Labor’s ability to handle the economy and the Liberals will remind them of the State Bank catastrophe at every opportunity.
All those factors make effective delivery of the Government’s building agenda critical. Cost blowouts or botched execution of those programs, will add to the sense of a government – already with a reputation for internal division and scandal – out of control.
The state has already seen with the desalination plant and state aquatic centre that there is ample opportunity for trouble in major construction.
The change of leaders showed what many in Labor suspected – the public trusts them to run a competent government but wasn’t sold on its personalities.
To this point it is hard to argue that Labor has not lived up to its side of the administrative bargain.
However, next year could give the Opposition loads of ammunition to question past decisions and Mr Weatherill and Mr Snelling will find themselves forced to defend ghosts of the past.
Related posts:
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
