Jay and the silent mob

12:20 PM, 23/3/2010 .. 0 comments .. Link

This afternoon the SA ALP caucus will meet to vote on a new Cabinet, despite the final election result being up in the air. In normal circumstances, the victorious leader would have made his victory speech, the dust would be given a few weeks to settle, and then the Ministry would be established. Jay Weatherill’s bold move has thrown the entire Government-to-be into a raging chaos. Senior right wing power brokers would be furious that he had the temerity to even consider such a venture. Doesn’t he know that they run the show? Yes he does, and that is precisely why he has done it.

Before I examine the whole Weatherill saga, I want to applaud a few of the movements in the ALP cabinet. It appears that John Rau MP will finally be promoted to the Ministry, which will add intellectual weight to the Government, although it may not help stave off claims of arrogance. This was the very move that I suggested in a previous blog. Another welcome addition to the Ministry is rumoured to be Jack Snelling. Jack has all the makings of a fine Minister, although the Premier will need to choose his portfolio areas carefully. Jack has some very conservative views in a few social policy issues, but is overall a very humble and compassionate man. The Premier will want to make sure that Jack doesn’t become Atkinson Mach Two purely because of unfortunate portfolio selection. I feel it is a mistake to promote Grace Portolesi prior to her formally being elected. While it is assumed that she and the Government will be returned, acting so pre-emptively sends a message of arrogance once again. Why the hurry then?

The rushed caucus meeting is in direct response to the Jay Weatherill challenge. Right power brokers will argue that they need to nip the challenge in the bud etc. Any hopes of restoring this genie to the bottle are ridiculously misguided. The Rann leadership question was asked by Kerry O’Brien on election night. It was always going to be an issue. As I said yesterday, Weatherill is merely laying the ground work for a future challenge. It doesn’t matter if he is defeated today or next week, his ambitions will be a constant factor for the next four years. Given the impossibility of nipping this bud, why the rush?

The Labor right prides itself on being in control of every minutia of the SA ALP’s party operations. Over the past few years the Right has had such a dominate control over the numbers in the SA branch that they had no reason to doubt that anyone of note would challenge them. They assumed that internal party control, through union delegates etc, was enough to dictate the direction of the party as a whole. Weatherill knew that he never had a chance of ascending to the top through the normal party channels. The left is unlikely to gain “the numbers” over the next four years. For this reason, he has made the choice to introduce a third party into the debate; the public. His bid for the leadership was destined to fail internally, but at this stage it appears to be succeeding externally. The reason that the caucus meeting was called so swiftly was because the right powerbrokers are frothing at the mouth as a result of such public insubordination. They want blood, and they want it NOW.

I can’t see Jay staying in the Ministry after his defeat this afternoon. His movement to the back bench, along with the loss of Maywald, Lomax-Smith and Atkinson means the front bench stocks of the Government will start to wear thin. Kenyon, Bignell and Finnigan are really the only remaining possibilities. It appears that Ministers that were destined for the chop, such as Michael Wright, will now survive. Odenwalder and Vlahos are also possibilities, but they have only just been elected to Parliament. The Government will find that the cupboard will be quite bare if any newly promoted Ministers flounder and require sacking. Another worry for the Government is that Weatherill is unlikely to sit idle on the back bench.

Even before the election, cracks were appearing in the left/right factional relationship. Rob Lucas, for example, cited disenchanted Government advisers as the source of his media release regarding Daniel Romeo’s wage hike. This was clearly an attempt by members of the left to smear the right. Over the next four years, we are likely to see an escalation in this war. Both factions will need to be on their best behaviour, because any misdemeanours will probably be funnelled directly to the media, or to the Liberals as an intermediary. The right will probably go out of its way to discredit the character of Mr Weatherill in an attempt to destroy his leadership ambitions. The ultimate victor in this battle will be the side with the least skeletons in closets. Neither side is likely to emerge unscathed, however.

The worst aspect of this whole saga is that because of the timing, the new Government will find it almost impossible to re-establish a positive agenda for its third term. The next six months at least will be dominated by questions of leadership, and this question will not go away until Rann is ousted. Even if Rann is ousted, the questions won’t go away while Weatherill is not leader. The right of the party really needs to find a viable alternative to Kevin Foley if it wishes to squash Jay and his enormous ambitions.