Susan Price, Sydney
The announcement by two key NSW Labor MPs — former treasurer and deputy premier Andrew Refshauge and former planning minister Craig Knowles — that they would be following former Premier Bob Carr into political retirement has sparked media speculation about a "factional bloodbath" within the top echelons of the NSW ALP.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout told the July 27 Sydney Morning Herald that Carr had "understood the importance of a pro-business approach to driving growth and development" in NSW.
In the July 28 Daily Telegraph, right-wing columnist Piers Ackerman wrote that Carr had given "Liberal voters a reason to vote for Labor". Ackerman also mused that Carr should consider asking Coalition Prime Minister John Howard to give him an overseas diplomatic post.
Unions NSW secretary John Robertson invited Carr to address a Unions NSW meeting on July 28, the day after Carr's resignation as premier — signalling that past conflicts between Carr and Unions NSW had been forgiven, particularly Carr's defiance of workers blockading NSW Parliament in 2001, when they tried to prevent him from pushing through harsh changes to workers' compensation legislation.
Incoming Labor Premier Morris Iemma was quick to announce the abolition of a vendor tax on real estate sales, unpopular with real estate and investor groups. Since then, according to NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon, Iemma has indicated he will push for a sell-off of the NSW softwood forest industry and waste management services.
Iemma was accused in 2003 of trying to buy votes by belatedly boosting community sporting grants on the eve of the 2003 NSW election and then announcing the recipients during the campaign.
Iemma has indicated that his "highest priority" is getting the Sydney rail network functioning properly. But the only new thing he has indicated he will do is carry out a "culture change" on the railways. Commenting on this in an article headlined "Show us what you can do", the August 2 Sydney Morning Herald suggested this might be "code for taking on the unions to change work practices".
From Green Left Weekly, August 10, 2005.
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