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Filed under: Kristina Keneally, Nsw Politics, Nsw State Election, Politics

15 comments

Kevin Rudd’s much-criticised failure to look NSW Premier Kristina Keneally in the eye ahead of health reform talks last week was a supremely weird moment. Keneally is in the equally bizarre position of leading a party voters say they are going to crush in the polls but also decisively support her as preferred premier ahead of Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell.

Hey, where's the party? NSW Labor Premier Kristina Keneally's website

Rudd’s gaze-averting and fist-banging had all the hallmarks of a snub but taken with the Premier’s attempts to brand herself as Kristina Keneally and nothing to do with Labor, you have to wonder whether the incident may in fact have suited her strategy of putting distance between herself and the party.

With polls on the two-party preferred measure indicating voters are waiting with baseball bats for the NSW Labor Party in next year’s state election it’s perhaps understandable that they would want the focus to be on personalities rather than the party machines.

Keneally’s website launched a few weeks ago and on the home page there isn’t a single mention of the Labor party, save for a sheepish reference in the bottom right hand corner saying the site was authorised by the party’s state secretariat.

It is a breathtakingly brazen strategy that seems to assume voters will be so bewitched by the Keneally’s magnetic personality and media presence that come polling day everyone will vote for her and cast aside memories of the party’s tawdry behaviour and inability to organise anything that even remotely looks like actual policy.

Her slogan is “a new direction” - the precise direction isn’t clear but you’d be hard pushed to find any level-headed NSW voter who thinks the state is capable of going in any direction under Labor, other than backwards or down the gurgler. (Still “a new direction” is at least preferable - and mercifully shorter - than Morris Iemma’s risible “more to do, but we’re heading in the right direction” from 2007.)

But watch this space - or rather, watch the space between Keneally and the ALP machine from Rudd down over the coming months - and see if it keeps getting bigger.

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431Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself

390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin

336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer

313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking

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231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

15 comments

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- masealake says:
  
  02:56pm | 18/03/11
  
  Labor will not win in next states and federal election without a new direction to sooth voters broken heart, following a 70 years hung parliament eruption, no matter KARL Bitar has resigned as the ALP’s national secretary after strong internal criticism of his management of Labor’s 2010 election campaign.
  The voters’ hearts broken not only anger the one or two in election conducted, if we take a look at the careless tested below an example of what our $1.65 millions spending each of Politician care for community development are liked?
  It really should surprised to all communities very much when there were only one or two MPs respond to such greatest health/economic development from previous two letters sent through to all MPs in nation wide to convince the opportunity of “A Healthy Las Vegas Economy Model” for Australia communities .
  This health/economic convergence development is by far the largest in national, and international significance if we have our innovative knowledge, elements, resource that supported by this land, people and government.
  Again, what are innovative ideas $1.65 millions spending each politician, political parties, and governments have been in efficient, effective, and economical governance in their best efforts to enable communities to reach this opportunity?
  
  Masealake
  (Member of Inventor Association QLD since 1993) purplehealthy@gmail.com , Full details are linked to: http://www.streetcorner.com.au/news/showPost.cfm?bid=20747&mycomm=ES
  
  Reply
- Old Bert says:
  
  01:55pm | 16/03/10
  
  Keanelly, I wish to say, is an enigma, within the Labor Party. Put your fears aside, she WILL survive the hatred within the NSW parliamentary system, as you will all see over time. She has the attributes and personal presence similar to President Obama, in an Australian version, which is “cool”. She will accept Rudd’s idiosyncratic behaviour with grace, but has a sharp female intuitive knowledge of gender differences, in terms of Rudd. . Witness the “cuddle up” press release with Julia Gillard. There’s a conspiracy!! Seriously though, there’s a need within the NSW parliament to wake up to themselves, take a hit, and accept this is the most likely leader to get them out of the sh*t.
  
  Reply
- JR says:
  
  12:58pm | 16/03/10
  
  Reminds me a little bit of the ‘New Leadership’ posters with a picture of Rudd on them at the 2007 federal election, and the labor posters which had the candidate with Mike Rann at the last SA state election. Noticed they’re not like that this time around, due to Rann not being as popular as he once was as Premier. Something tells me this next federal election won’t have any posters of Rudd by himself floating about either. But to everyone in NSW, expect them of Kenneally next election.
  
  Reply
- Greg says:
  
  11:57am | 16/03/10
  
  Beattie used to do similar things..only advertising you ever saw was for Beattie, not Labor or his other ministers, so it looks like this is just another ploy from the Labor how to book. I hope NSW doesn’t make the same mistake QLD did….
  
  Reply
- HermanT says:
  
  09:53am | 16/03/10
  
  I am a Labor Voter, while I think Keneally is ok, its not her I will be thinking of in the polling boooth. It will be the mess New South Wales is in. Since she has been in office we now have to pay more for car rego, even though many many of us don’t live in Sydney. It was all incomitence and now we pay. For the first time, I will not be voting Labor in the state elections. I will be thinking of how all this bungling has affected me, my family and my State. Keneally as a person may or not be ok but its her partys action we all see and feel.
  
  Reply
- Me says:
  
  09:03am | 16/03/10
  
  I think everyone is reading too much into that little exchange, nobody seems to have seen the rest of their discussion.
  
  But let’s remember why Kristina Keneally is even Premier of New South Wales in the first place. She is there because Nathan Rees had the audacity to take on and try to smash the influence of the corrupt Joe Tripodi and the other cancerous elements of the NSW Right.
  
  When Rees was given the power to appoint and sack his own cabinet ministers, and Tripodi was sacked, the powerbrokers on the Right suddenly found their places in the pecking order under threat. Motivated by nothing more than self interest they moved to replace him to protect their own positions, and Keneally was entirely complicit in these machinations.
  
  Rudd has not forgotten this, he is genuinely irritated at the entire NSW Labor leadership, and with good cause. Keneally may be popular right now, in her honeymoon period, but it will wear off quickly, and it doesn’t absolve her from her complicity in Rees’ assassination and her close association with the elements of the party that are festering from the inside out.
  
  Reply
- Paul says:
  
  08:37am | 16/03/10
  
  @darren Umm just don’t vote dude. Are the Libs still taking political donations?
  
  Reply
- Darren says:
  
  08:28am | 16/03/10
  
  I am concerned that we apparently have a large number of creationists in the NSW Libs front bench - can’t stand ALP, don’t trust Libs - and couldn’t vote Green! - what am I to do!
  
  Reply
Zeta says:

08:39am | 16/03/10

You could do your research and find these ‘creationists’ on the front bench are a myth concocted by the ALP. There is only one guy on BOF’s frontbench you could even vaguely associate with the Christian Right, former Prosecutor Greg Smith, Shadow Attorney General.

Now the guy has some wacky beliefs, and remains a tight friend of the Right to Life movement; but he also happens to be the best lawyer in the NSW Parliament, and he’s making really smart decisions, like commiting to no new gaols, ending the pre-election law and order auction, and aiming for diversionary programs as a preference for non-violent offenders.

When you consider the state NSW is in, do we really care if someone is a screaming fundy so long as they make good policies?
- Paul says:
  
  07:01am | 16/03/10
  
  Check the TAB odds punters -Labor will smash the milkshake sippers on the Right. (And the sneaky extremist Christian Right they conceal) Even the Greens could beat ‘Humphrey B’ Barry O’Farrell - he’s gesturing wildly but sayin nuthin.
  
  Reply
Matt says:

11:44am | 16/03/10

Maybe you should be checking the political opinion polls rather than the TAB, Paul - they have been saying that Labor is dead in the water for the last 3 years.
- Bruce says:
  
  10:10pm | 15/03/10
  
  It has got to be one of the strangest interviews. I am not sure what Kevin Rudd was thinking. But it looked dam rude to me. Did he know the cameras were on him. He usually knows when there is a camera around. Maybe women premiers are second rate ? Or was this a “mucho” thing, you know bein’ tuff, gettin’ on with serious business ?
  
  Reply
- Wayne Fehlhaber says:
  
  06:42pm | 15/03/10
  
  The disgusting images of an arrogant NERD posing as our P.M. behaving like a dog during a meeting with N.S.W. Premier , Kristina Kenneally , was enough to sicken a toughened wharfie devoted to Labor.
  N.S.W. will sweep Labor from office into oblivion where they will wander for decades. Much as i felt sympathy for the Premier, i can’t see her being able to rescue Labor from it’s justice at the hands of the electorate.
  
  Reply
- Andrew Goff says:
  
  06:27pm | 15/03/10
  
  The NSW Labor party is godawful. But trolling liberal staffers make me wish there were a third alternative.
  
  Reply
- Min says:
  
  05:53pm | 15/03/10
  
  C’mon guys rudd, roxon, garrett, keneally the political duds. Do we really want to vote them in so they can tax us crazy and waste our money? I thought we were the smart country.
  
  Reply