If a day is a long time in politics, then a week is an eternity. There is still plenty of opportunity for Saturday’s election to be won or lost. Premier Gladys Berejiklian appears to be in the position where the poll is hers to lose, while Labor leader Michael Daley will need to produce something impressive to win it. With polls showing the parties are deadlocked, either result is possible (as is a myriad permutations) and, as we’ve seen in the past, the sentiment of undecided voters can be swayed in the space of a handshake in the dying moments of a campaign.
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Ms Berejiklian has shown her government to be solid and safe custodians, and - despite eight years in power and two relatively orderly leadership transitions - there is no particular sense that the Coalition has worn out its welcome. If anything, the construction sites and infrastructure projects around the city show the government has much work ahead of it should it secure a third term. The big-ticket items the Coalition has been campaigning on are still being built and, while the tunnels look impressive, voters are yet to feel the benefit of major road and rail upgrades.
Which is why, for all the activity, Ms Berejiklian has struggled to bring the voters along with her. She may not inspire much antipathy and there are worse political crimes than being seen as the state’s sensible school captain. The Premier has spent the campaign talking about transport, schools and hospitals with an emphasis on economic management and budget surpluses, but the electorate tends to respond to a leader who can articulate a more uplifting vision.
The stadiums controversy is a good example. For a year or more, the plans to rebuild both the ANZ Stadium in Homebush and Allianz Stadium in Moore Park have attracted criticisms that Ms Berejiklian has not successfully countered. Only after Mr Daley’s extraordinary promise to sack Alan Jones and the SCG Trust board, which seemed to take all the campaign momentum, did she strike back with a clear and cogent argument. The line that NSW can “have it all” was jarring, and the slick sales tactics of political campaigning do not come naturally to her, but Ms Berejiklian has shown she can be persuasive and she will need more of that in the days ahead. The Premier may feel she has been making the same points for months, but it means nothing if the voters don’t hear them.
Mr Daley, meanwhile, has certainly succeeded in attracting attention, although not all of it good. The interview with Jones was hailed by some as a masterstroke, and others as a sign of hotheadedness, and barely five months into the job as Opposition Leader he has proven a more formidable opponent than his predecessor. But questions linger over whether he and his team are ready to govern, partly because of how recently he was thrust into the job, partly because of past connections to tainted figures in the last Labor government and partly of his own making. Having to perform a U-turn on the luxury car tax, one of his signature policies, does not inspire confidence, and he is often fielding and deflecting questions about the lack of talent and experience on his team.
The spectre of minority government is also a concern, given the government’s slim hold on the lower house and pressures from minor parties. There is the shadow cast by federal politics, tainting the Coalition’s brand. Whichever side forms government, it will have to deal with a curious collection of crossbenchers in the Legislative Council and having a minority in the lower house will only be a recipe for delay and deadlock. One way or the other, such an outcome is best avoided. Both the Coalition and Labor want to rule in their own right, and they have six days to best make their case.
