Disowning your own actions

Yesterday, new Planning Minister John Rau announced a major change in direction for his portfolio and in so doing took a major swipe at previous Minister Paul Holloway. This action shows that the incoming leadership team of Weatherill and Rau is acutely aware that a mere change of faces is not going to save the incumbent Government from electoral disaster. Weatherill and his team needs to identify where the old Government is on the nose and then apply the deodorant to these areas. This is a difficult process when you are steering a Government of almost ten years of age.

Newly elected Governments always have at least a few years worth of opportunities to blame all their constituent’s woes on the previous administrators. In Jay Weatherill’s case, the vast majority of problems facing South Australians have either been caused or have failed to be fixed by a Government that he has been a party of. Only inter-generational failures such as the management of the Murray can be fobbed off as the responsibility of others. While it is possible to blame your former colleagues for their mistakes, this is a dangerous political strategy.
While it is easy for John Rau to say that he has seen the light and is determined to implement a change of direction, actions speak louder than words. The voters will compare 10 years of ALP record with a maximum of 3 years of “new approach”. In addition, Rau cannot admit that Mount Barker was a mistake without taking action to rectify that problem. A new Government can perhaps argue that “it will take time for us to fix the mess the previous mob left us with”, but this approach won’t cut it with a new Minister. Admitting you made a mistake with regard to an existing and ongoing problem which will cost millions of dollars to rectify is not as a easy as reversing a stance on symbolic issues such as gay marriage. Financially, the new Weatherill/Rau team is locked in a tightly strapped straight jacket.

The transition from Kevin Foley to Jack Snelling as Treasurer clearly showed that a change of attitude alone is not sufficient to fix Governmental woes. While I am sure that Jack has been much more considerate and compassionate than Big Kev in his negotiations with the PSA, this means squat unless you have the dollars to reverse your unpopular decision. Foley would not have decided to wage war with the PSA because it was the easiest way out of a financial hole. He decided to do it because it was absolutely necessary to pay for the massive infrastructure spend that the Government has engaged in. Weatherill has basically inherited Old Mother Hubbard’s house. All of the major infrastructure goodies have already been announced by Rann and Foley, and when it comes time to cut the ribbon, Jay will be reminded that it was his predecessors that brought the projects about. The Left faction will demand that any loose change found during a Treasury rummage be spent on improving the rights of injured workers and the like. It isn’t all bad news for the Government, however.

While it is unlikely that the Government will be able to announce any huge capital projects in the lead up to the next election, nor will the Opposition. The departure of Rann, Holloway and Foley and potentially Hill and Conlon will give the new team a greater chance of distancing itself from unpopular past decisions. New faces will count for little, however, unless symbolic and inexpensive methods of changing direction are discovered. Gay marriage anyone?