Excerpted from Crikey’s Bernard Keane:
For three years Barry O’Farrell has been an excellent premier of a state that desperately needed both good government and an end to the blatant corruption that became a feature of New South Wales Labor’s last years in power.
Like any politician, he was not above compromise and deal-making — his pandering to Legislative Council crossbenchers like the Shooters Party and Fred Nile was faintly sordid. The circumstances in which James Packer was given his way on Barangaroo — enabled by both O’Farrell and Labor — leave a particularly unpleasant taste in the mouth.
But O’Farrell got NSW back on its feet economically, even if he and Treasurer Mike Baird routinely overstated the fiscal task they had been left by Labor — the Iemma, Rees and Keneally governments might have been debacles but they kept their fiscal discipline. Prime Minister Tony Abbott likes to claim his is an “adult” government that will “under-promise but over-deliver”, but O’Farrell’s was the real thing. He projected an image of moderate reformism, intelligence and, above all, calm competence. He looked set for a long and successful premiership.
Now all that’s finished, brought undone by an inexplicable memory lapse over what will now be the most famous bottle of wine in Australian political history, a 1959 Grange delivered by Sydney business identity, Liberal fundraiser and Independent Commission Against Corruption star Nick Di Girolamo after O’Farrell’s 2011 victory. O’Farrell denied receiving it — or thanking Di Girolamo for it — to ICAC yesterday. Then O’Farrell’s thank you note, slightly pro forma but with a joke about the year (when O’Farrell was born), turned up.
O’Farrell either lied or forgot; he denied misleading ICAC today, and instead insisted he’d had a “massive memory fail”. Then he quit. There are few who will seriously entertain the idea that he lied: O’Farrell, in various shapes and sizes, has been an MP for nearly 20 years and always been a straight talker.
Politicians accepting responsibility and being consistent is an increasingly old-fashioned concept. From the Prime Minister on down, we’ve become used to politicians who believe statements they’ve made in the past are mere inconveniences, to be explained away or disregarded in the quest for political advantage. Other politicians may have tried to weasel out of it and conjure up a form of words to justify the lapse. To O’Farrell’s considerable credit, he accepted responsibility, reflecting a standard of ethics in public office far higher than NSW voters have had to endure.
