Michael Costa, Queenslanders, NSW politics, and the return of the harpy ...

(Above: the best damn front page for The Australian we've ever seen. If they keep this up, heck we might even have to subscribe to the wretched thing. Or maybe not).

My partner rang up in a frenzy, wanting to know if I was aware that good old Michael Costa, sometime commentariat commentator, has returned to the pages of The Australian, offering his expert views on Chairman Rudd and his role in NSW politics. Or non role, since it's what he didn't do that's got him in the do do.

Rudd will pay for voodoo politics is the header, and what's amusing is that Costa reveals more about the dire state of NSW Labor than any outsider could manage.

My partner's major concern was that the world be told how Costa was directly responsible for the defeat of NSW by Queensland in the recent rugby league encounter, which, it seems, involved toads and cockroaches testing their masculinity.

As usual, NSW's masculinity came into question. They lost.

How is this relevant to Michael Costa?

Well he spends his entire column bleating about how a Queenslander didn't get down and dirty and sort out the internal ructions and mud slinging mess that is NSW Labor politics. And Costa himself one of the chief purveyors of said mud, such that he took his sand castles and stormed off to The Australian, leaving Mark Latham to occupy the Australian Financial Review.

Think about it a nano second. A Queenslander as the solution!

Sucks boo to that, because no one, especially a Queenslander, could sort out the festering incompetence in NSW, a herculean task way beyond a hundred year stint in the augean stables.

Does Costa protest too much as he bleats about being abandoned by the fickle Chairman Rudd and his airy promises of aid?

Unfortunately for Watkins and the dysfunctional ALP machine's predictable attempts to place responsibility for the failure on me and my negotiating style, Iemma's revelations finally provide a context. The "Costa won't negotiate", "Costa refused to do a deal" and "Costa is mad" myths no doubt will give comfort to the cabal of self-interested incompetents that brought down a popularly elected premier and replaced him with an inexperienced and ultimately disastrous leader in Nathan Rees.

You see, it's nothing to do with Michael Costa or the cabal of NSW politicians who ruled the roost! It's all Chairman Rudd's fault!

One things for sure. All the carry ons and cavortings won't actually give comfort to the citizens of NSW ruled over by the self-interested incompetents. (Did we ever mention Costa claiming $30,000 a year in country electoral allowances, and as a former trade unionist advising anyone in his position to do the same? See Costa's blues).

You can almost smell the crocodile tears. Here he is moping about Morris Iemma:

At a personal level these events are a kind of political morality tale. On one side is Iemma, an honourable man who was motivated by a misguided but strongly held belief in labour solidarity and doing the right thing by the ALP.

Uh huh. Sounds noble, positively heroic. But the key word of course is misguided. Not for Costa a strongly held belief in labour solidarity and doing the right thing by the ALP.

Not when you can sink in the slipper or swing the baseball bat, NSW Labor right style:

On the other side is Rudd, a person who made a promise and consequently accrued benefits without reciprocating when he was required to do so. It is about the selflessness and selfishness. It is about character.

Oh bring me that kettle, the pot wants to talk about character.

Remarkably Costa thinks its the marketing men who've done down politicians:

The new machine men think politics is as simple as borrowing techniques and strategies from the product marketing textbook. Politicians are now brands that can be subjected to brand management techniques. In their mind the same techniques used to sell soap powder can be equally successful in selling brand Rudd. It's a kind of voodoo politics that has turned techniques such as focus groups and polling on their head. Instead of using information derived from these techniques to adapt the message around a well-thought-out policy, they use these techniques to develop a policy.

One of the consequences of this type of voodoo politics has been a dramatic change in the status of politicians.

The rise in modern political techniques is strongly correlated with the decline in public confidence in politicians.

Actually the decline in public confidence in politicians shows a remarkable correlation with the NSW Labor party's time in power, and of course Michael Costa's role within it.

Meanwhile, like a vengeful harpy or perhaps one of the witches in Macbeth, Costa sits on the sideline and dreams of a medieval morality play:

The Labor Party is now dysfunctional, particularly in electorally vulnerable NSW.

If Rudd had honoured his promise to Iemma, he would have had a cashed-up state government delivering much needed infrastructure. Rudd had the political authority, after he decisively won the federal election, to deliver on his promise.

He chose to put his political popularity before the policy position. He chose to take the advice of machine men.

These same machine men no doubt are closely watching the opinion polls and planning to politically execute him if his standing in the polls continues to decline.

If this occurs, as in all good morality tales, he will have brought this on himself for not having the character to honour his promise to Iemma.

Yes, but would the trains have run on time, and the endemic corruption within CityRail been rooted out?

Not within Costa's lamentable time as minister for transport, until he moved on to the minister for stuffing up other things.

And now I'm going to have to endure hours of ranting by my partner about Costa and how he thinks a Queenslander could have sorted out the dung heap that is incompetent NSW Labor mismanagement, still indulging in bickering and ill-tempered in-fighting, as they work out who can hand over the most to their developer mates.

Time for them to head off to the back bench and eat some oranges for three years.

And while we're about it, my partner demands the sacking of a curt Gidley and a wet Kimmorley, whomever they might be. Together with the potion delivered to Phar Lap being fed to a Slater and other people who come from Melbourne.

Queenslanders from Melbourne, and Queenslanders to fix up NSW politics??!!

The head spins. I'm with Alice, chewing on the mushroom.

Dante had it right:

Here the repellent harpies make their nests,

Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
With dire announcements of the coming woe.
They have broad wings, a human neck and face,

Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees ...

(Below: an example of a harpy).

And now a musical tribute to NSW politics: