Since well before Christmas the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has been dealing with crises: first the drought, then bushfires that ravaged her state, then the Covid-19 pandemic that has affected everyone.
Every morning at 8am Berejiklian fronts the media for her Covid-19 briefing, trying to project a sense of calm, order and empathy, urging the people of NSW to stick with the restrictions.
But behind the scenes the men in her team – and it does seem to be men – are indulging in a kind of sabotage that should have been left behind when they graduated from the Young Liberals or Young Nationals.
They leak against each other to the media, threaten each other with alleged dirt files, and indulge in the sort of “look at me” behaviour that no leader should have to put up with.
Instead of explaining the path out of the coronavirus lockdown Berejiklian finds herself answering questions from the media about their antics, like a parent summoned to the principal’s office.
This week it was the spectacular about-face with pike by her transport minister, Andrew Constance, who appeared to be about to transition to federal politics and then wasn’t, aided and abetted by her deputy premier and Nationals leader, John Barilaro.
Three weeks ago it was Berejiklian’s arts minister, Don Harwin, the leader in the upper house and her close confidante, who embarrassed her by being caught travelling between his Pearl Beach beach house and his city pad during the coronavirus lockdown.
Harwin quickly did the honourable thing and resigned, even though he insists his travel was within the rules. He was fined $1,000.
How the Daily Telegraph got tipped to the story – they captured pictures of him shopping in Sydney and hanging out at Pearl Beach – remains the subject of intense conjecture. But most Liberals are are looking among their own colleagues for the culprit.
“Hand on heart, it wasn’t us,” one Labor source said. “The Liberals catch and kill their own.”
Harwin was a big scalp for whoever weaponised the information. He’s a leading figure in the moderate faction and part of Berejiklian’s praetorian guard.
Fighting each other for so long, they can’t stop
The problem for the Liberals in NSW is that the factions within the party have been fighting each other for so long, they just can’t stop.
The war began in the 1980s while the Coalition was in opposition and reached a crescendo in the 2000s with industrial-scale branch stacking, punch-ups at branch meetings and regular disposal of parliamentary leaders.
Barry O’Farrell finally managed to put an end to the overt warfare after the moderates appeared to win the battle for control of the parliamentary party, and a truce was called inside the organisational structure.
But it has flared again in recent months.
Some of the renewed angst is based on ideology: there are deeply held divisions within the Liberal factions on social issues which surfaced during the federal debate over marriage equality and the state debate over removing abortion from the criminal law, even though the law had not been enforced for nearly 50 years.
But mostly the factions seem to be about control of the party machine and handing out the spoils of office. Some Liberals sheet home the problems of the recent past to Berejiklian’s reshuffle after the election in 2019, which left some key members of the right unhappy.
But it may also be something about the NSW division.
The Liberal party, like many organisations, has seen its membership dwindle in modern times.
The exact numbers are secret but the Australian reported last year that 1,300 people, mainly from Pentecostal churches, had joined, raising the numbers by 10%. That implies the membership is now at around 14,000. It’s a far cry from 1945 when the party of Menzies had 90,000 members, nationally.
Among that relatively small membership, there are those who plan their career in politics from the day they join the Young Liberals or Young Nationals.
These careerists seem to gravitate to state parliament, having served apprenticeships in ministers’ offices as staff and in politically aligned consultancies.
Perhaps they never learn to moderate the dark arts they honed while in university politics and the youth wings of the party. Some of the behaviours would certainly not be tolerated in most private sector workplaces.
Which brings us to Constance and Barilaro.
For those who haven’t followed this soap opera, in the last fortnight Constance, the state MP for Bega and a Liberal, and Barilaro, the state MP for Monaro and a National, both put their hands up to run for the federal seat of Eden-Monaro, which will have a byelection sometime soon, after Labor’s Mike Kelly said he was retiring for health reasons.
On Monday Barilaro pulled out. The seat has been won by Liberals in the past but no National has won, so Barilaro faced a very difficult task in a three-cornered contest, particularly if Constance ran.
But having said he was happy with his decision Barilaro then badmouthed the federal Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, by text for his lack of support of his candidacy and reportedly called his former friend Constance “a cunt”. He has declined to comment on the allegation.
Constance then declared he would not run, having made much of his decision to take the fight for his bushfire-ravaged community to Canberra.
An emotional Constance did a press conference on Monday: “When I said politics is stuffed in this country and some of the people in it needed to take a long hard look, I meant it and we’re now seeing that in such a great way on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
“I hadn’t signed up to contest federally to be called that type of smear.”
Barilaro and Constance turn on each other
Barilaro and Constance both had a reputation of playing rough politically and there was some glee among colleagues that they had turned on each other.
Others put Constance’s about-face down to the difficulties he would have faced in gaining preselection, as the seat includes some very conservative branches. Driven by Tony Abbott, the party has reformed its preselection processes to give the branches a bigger say.
Even more sinister suggestions emerged that there were dirt sheets circulating and about to see the light of day. One MP was said to have compiled files on his colleagues and to have boasted about them. Nothing has emerged and the Guardian is not suggesting that either man had reason to fear exposure.
Berejiklian has since announced that Constance will lose his House leader role so he can concentrate on the transport portfolio, prompting Labor’s Ryan Park to quip: “She’s punished the victim and rewarded the villain.”
But there is nothing Berejiklian can do about Barilaro, who is leader of the NSW Nationals, a separate party. He keeps his job unless colleagues think otherwise.
Several within the Coalition believe he has become increasingly erratic and makes public statements on the fly aimed at gaining attention but that harm the government.
Barilaro’s most notorious intervention was in 2017 when he said Malcolm Turnbull was out of touch and should resign during an interview with broadcaster Alan Jones on 2GB, midway through a difficult byelection in the federal seat of Bennelong, which the Liberals were struggling to hold.
A furious Turnbull accused Barilaro of trying to ingratiate himself with Jones. But the genie was out of the bottle and Barilaro ignited the narrative that would lead to Turnbull’s defeat in the party room.
In the last 12 months Barilaro has threatened to pull NSW out of the Murray-Darling Basin plan, backed logging in national parks, while defending brumbies in Kosciuszko national park, even though there is now overwhelming evidence their numbers are exploding and causing damage to the alpine park.
To top this week off, Barilaro was questioned over travel to his farm on 2 May in southern NSW after having publicly called for everyone in NSW to avoid travelling to the regions. The travel was later deemed permissible by police because his family was there and the trip took place after 1 May when the rules on visiting family had been relaxed.
Certainly Barilaro has a profile and gets plenty of media. But for a premier whose message is keep calm and carry on, Barilaro’s obsession to be in the news is not helpful.
The factional tensions will escalate as we enter the last two years of this term of NSW parliament and preselections loom. The question is whether Berejiklian is strong enough to keep her unruly ministers focused on the main game, like she is and like the public expect.
