Another terrible day for the NSW ALP

The Rees Government is starting to resemble the famous ‘dead parrott’ sketch, this dear readers is a dead government. So many fronts, so much bad news. If it hangs around until 2011, the Rees Government will destroy Labor in NSW for a generation, if not forever.

Here are some of today’s highlights:

• NSW Treasury Secretary, John Pierce, has quit just days after the disastrous mini-Budget; effectively a vote of no-confidence. In normal circumstances, this resignation alone in the midst of an economic crisis would be enough to rock community confidence.
• the Daily Telegrpah has horror stories about the Rees Government charging private hospitals for blood transfusions, which means they will charge donors like me for the blood we give for free (so maybe I should charge the Red Cross for my donations?) and funding cuts for places like the Rape Crisis Centre
• The SMH has acres of coverage which reveal that Rees is just a puppet, how NSW became an economic basket case, more on the political manipulation around the seat of Cabramatta, and the NSW Government’s hatred of everyone who lives north of the harbour.
• Paul Kelly also has a stinging attack on Rees, ‘State of Dysfunction’, which points out the implications for the national economy and Rudd’s political future
• Andrew Bolt had a piece yesterday arguing that the Rees Government was the worst state government since Joan Kirner’s, ouch! But the comparison is pretty unfair to Kirner. Nevertheless, how Victorians must be relishing our misfortune. 

How much longer can this disaster continue? It is hard to imagine this horrible government lasting until March 2011; but it is also hard to see how the agony and destruction can be swiftly curtailed.

Part of the problem is that the disaster has been years, if not decades, in the making. The NSW Right has reigned supreme since the 1960s and, in a political version of the old saying about dynastic families, it has gone from sods to clods in just a few generations. So much so that, bereft of leadership talent, it had to recruit lefty Nathan Rees to be its frontman.

The NSW ALP now has no capacity for regeneration. It is in-bred, riddled with nepotism and totally inwardly focused. It is stuffed.

Perhaps, the forthcoming electoral disaster will see the drones and drongos swept away and replaced with some new talent. Don’t hold your breath.

Update: Health Minister John Della Bosca has made a lame attempt to justify the ludicrous charging for blood decision. Really, you can only hope he doesn’t believe this nonsense. I’ve also written to the Red Cross telling them that I will no longer donate blood when as a privately insured patients I might get charged for blood if and when I need it (or have the ‘costs passed on to me’ as they say). If there is now to be a market for blood then us donors ought to get paid as well. That’s the inevitable logic of the Della Bosca decision and he needs to face up to it and start funding the Red Cross to buy blood. Australia’s unique approach to blood donation has probably been dealt a fatal blow. It’s regrettable, but there it is.