“We’re Not Victoria” Insist Extremely Nervous NSW Liberals
If you say so.
NSW Liberals are desperately trying to distance themselves from their Victorian and federal counterparts following the party’s disastrous showing in the Victorian state election.
The Victorian Liberals were thoroughly creamed in Saturday’s ballot, and the internal shitfighting is already well under way. The federal branch is insisting that knifing Malcolm Turnbull had nothing to do with the result in Victoria, while NSW Liberal MPs are tripping over themselves to take potshots at their southern colleagues in a frantic attempt to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to them when NSW goes to the polls in March.
“What was their campaign message? I’m a political junkie and I have no idea what it was,” Liberal MP Peter Phelps told The Guardian. “In relation to what NSW can learn it is this: people don’t give a damn about ideology provided that you are meeting their needs.”
Another anonymous MP accused the Victorian branch of engaging in “culture wars bullshit” and told The Guardian that the NSW Liberals were “far more centrist”.
Adding his voice to the chorus was NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance, who told reporters on Monday that “we’re not the commonwealth, we’re not Victoria, we’re very different.”
“We’re doing things differently,” Constance claimed. “We’re a progressive, accountable, mojo state where we’ve got great outcomes happening for everyone.”
(Sidenote: “The Mojo State” should definitely be on all NSW licence plates going forward).
Meanwhile, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had a message for Prime Minister Scott Morrison that could basically be summarised as “please, for the love of God, don’t drag me down with you”.
“I have never relied on anybody outside NSW and I don’t intend to start now,” she said pointedly when asked by reporters on Sunday whether she would call on Morrison to campaign with her ahead of the NSW election.
“The Liberal Party? Never heard of them! I’m from the Liberal Party. Totally different.”
“People don’t like to see instability,” she added. “People don’t like to see politicians focused on themselves, we know that.”
The NSW state election will take place on March 23, 2019.