kingdom come

Imre Salusinszky’s fluff piece on Peter Debnam pretends to find the Opposition leader’s unpopularity a ‘puzzle’. Maybe Salusinszky would’ve felt less clueless if he hadn’t shielded himself and his readers from the more negative details of the Debnam story. Such as, for example, Debnam’s unfounded slur on Bob Debus under parliamentary privilege and subsequent lack of apology to him. Or maybe Debnam’s newly-hatched plans for East Darling Harbour that business groups and Labor agree are ‘bizarre‘. And let’s not forget this little pearler (via Suki):
“I'm happy to have [people] demonstrate around the state, but you leave my wife alone, you leave the female members of my team alone,” Mr Debnam told reporters. He Tarzan. We Jane.
Salusinszky makes a desperate attempt to sell Debnam to us on the basis that he’s a “devoted family man” but this is neutralised by the fact that Morris Iemma is evidently a devoted family man himself. And I mean, even Saddam Hussein was apparently a “devoted family man”.
Dorkier than Howard, riskier and more impulsive than Latham, the only thing Debnam appears to have going for him is his underdog status. Unfortunately, in the absence of any other selling points, that won’t be enough.
In another column in the same paper, Salusinszky mocks Iemma with, "By 2016, it will be hard to tell the difference between NSW and the Kingdom of Heaven’. That’s funny. I thought according to the Federal Liberals, we’re already living in the Kingdom of Heaven. We’re constantly being told we’re rolling in rude economic health at a Federal level thanks to Howard. Dennis Shanahan (in the same paper) writes that "economic management remains as the only unsullied pillar of strength for the Coalition." But around the Labor-led states, we’re told we're living in misery. In Salusinszky’s story, Debnam contends that NSW is "confronted by four crises: a housing crisis, an economic crisis, a budget crisis and a water crisis". I guess that’s only when you’re wearing your State goggles. With your Federal ones on, all you can see is roses as far as the eye can see. Well, as far as the election booth, anyway.