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January 20, 2006
Bob Carr, the ex-Premier of New South Wales, on political life as a soldiering on:
It is a work in progress. It's always been the case ... every day as it was for Marcus Aurelius. Years from now I'll think fondly of the days when you get up and there's a bad poll on your leadership leading the news; and your leadership - in opposition or government - is being questioned. As you leave home you look at Helena and groan and think there's got to be a better job than this; and she says just go and sort them out.
You come into Parliament and you start dealing with the problems and issues of the day with the staff and the public servants; and you go into the caucus and you give them the homily of the week; and get them ready for Parliament; and you do your press conference rebutting the criticism and putting forward the alternative plan; and at question time, with your armour on, you stand up and you belt them away; you come out at 3.30 - blood and flesh spattered everywhere - and you're still holding the fort."
Soldiering on to hold the fort is about retaining power. Carr was a product and servant of the NSW right-wing Labor machine. What has always mattered in NSW is not the record of achievement but the raw fact of being in power. The achievement of the Carr Government has been to scrimp and save to pay back public debt at the expense of public works and keep the rating agencies on side.
They do not even want to make the state a better place for the citizens of NSW They are not concerned about democracy. If the political ethos of the NSW Labor Right is holding the fort, where then are the citizens of NSW? Outside the fort? Tis a protective conception of liberal democracy.
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