IT'S RAINING ETHICS: Lobby storm-cloud forms over NSW Liberals glory hole

New South Wales Liberals are on the verge of one of the most spectacular electoral wins in the history of Australian politics in next year’s election.

The rage against the Sussex Street machine is such that 10% swings against the government are now considered by the Opposition and Government as a minimum in next year’s election.

The sense of betrayal, being duped, conned, cheated, deceived and ripped off was perfectly captured in two brilliant TVCs by the Liberals. One an animated ad, another a straight-to-camera piece by anti-Muslim yob Angry Anderson, whose tatts and chipped teeth disguise the recording artist millionaire racist within. We recall we might have contributed to the Angry fortune by buying the “Bound for Glory” track during Melbourne’s depressed early 1990s.

Anderson once told a parliamentary inquiry that “Aussies fight with fists” and asserted it was the other cultures who introduced weapons to street-fights. From the anti-Chinese riots of Lambing Flat where armed “Aussies” butchered Chinese migrants and onwards, there have been plenty examples disproving Anderson’s racist rant.

Angry Anderson really is a class act, even selling his image for $50,000 for a poker machine attracting criticism from wowser Senator Nick Xenophon. We tasked the militant youth wing of the VEXNEWS Investigations Unit with finding quotes of Angry ripping into pokies and couldn’t find much but we did find plenty of quotes from his close chum and critic-silencer Les Twentyman who described a pokies facility as a “loaded gun at the head of the community.” Nonsense, of course, because pokies are actually a harmless low-cost form of entertainment for the vast majority of people but we love a good humbug angle.

For all that, the rich yob made a brilliantly effective Liberal spokesman. The ad was chillingly effective as Anderson – whose royalties have reportedly totalled $10 million plus – presented as a convincing Sydney battler and the script brilliantly captured the mood of betrayal for Labor in Sydney. A sense of betrayal so strong that even a promise of billions for rail infrastructure seemed to regarded as a personal insult by half the city. “You know they hate you when promising ‘em nothin’ works better than a $3 billion rail link,” a Labor insider explained.

Within the NSW Liberals though, there is much angst about whether they had sufficiently capitalised on the ground from the shock and awe air cover provided by these devastating ads.

One Liberal told VEXNEWS:

There are a lot of very pissed off Libs in NSW with rank and file party members wondering how the party only picked up a net one seat.

People are mystified how head office only got candidates out in certain key seats like Lindsay and Greenway after the campaign started. How different things may have been.

NSW Liberal president Campell got out in the Nick of time, no pun intended, after setting up a lobbying company with VP Michael Photios. People now know why they and their supporters were so keen to rort state pre-selections instead of getting ready for a critically important federal election.

There’s an ethics concern – of a serious kind rather than the confected nonsense we’ve read from Dr Cannold about the Governor-General’s ability to do her job – arising within the Liberal party about the early emergence of Liberal-aligned lobbying companies in Sydney that will attempt to match the massive financial success of Hawker Britton which was sold to the listed Singleton company (in which mega-millionaire John is no longer a big shareholder) for a sum in excess of $30 million.

This is why Bruce Hawker smirks so much, it is widely believed by his critics. We love Brucey here, so we’ll hear none of it and look forward to being invited to his private Tahitian island and brought dacquaris by his buxom Pacific serving wenches. Only kidding.

“If BOF isn’t careful, the jellied fruits of victory could be ashes in his mouth.”

The Honourable Peter Collins QC MP is also on the job. He’s setting up Barton Deakin consulting which is conveniently located in the same building as the NSW Liberal secretariat, in the same way perhaps as kiddie porn artist Bill Henson set up shop in 104 Exhibition Street, the Victorian Liberal HQ.

Demonstrating just how supportive likely Premier Barry O’Farrell is of the new venture, he agreed to open the premises and enjoyed the boozy launch, according to observers.

Peter Collins QC is also seen as a keen self-pleasurer, having been the last NSW Attorney-General to appoint himself a QC. The late Socialist Left ally Jim Kennan QC, much celebrated and recently departed nincompoop former Victorian Labor minister did the same thing in 1987 while Attorney-General, only barely interrupting a lifetime of preaching to others about ethics at dinner parties. It is always those who preach loudest about ethics who have some twisted, dirty little secret hidden in plain view, but that’s another story we’ll come back to when jackass ethicist Leslie Cannold has to apologise for slurring the Governor-General on the basis that she couldn’t ethically discharge her duties because she has a son-in-law in the federal Parliament when the Solicitor-General comes back saying it’s ridiculous.

Nasty gossips around Macquarie Street tell VEXNEWS that Coleman achieved a little infamy as Opposition Leader for getting to know his Rural Media Adviser extremely well indeed when visiting places like Dubbo and Wagga, which required overnight stops in seedy motels.

Coleman’s then missus got sick of his country members’ tours and eventually settled down with former Victorian Treasurer and national party president Alan Stockdale, who did much to restore Victoria’s financial health after the disastrous Cain years.

Meanwhile, there appear to be a thousand flowers blooming as every ex hack, spiv and anyone who’d ever been in the NSW Young Libs for five minutes figures out a way of making a quid out of introductions, fundraising, government facilitation and such.

One NSW Liberal warned:

“If BOF isn’t careful, the jellied fruits of victory could be ashes in his mouth. He needs to settle in for a long innings of the kind that will make history in New South Wales. He’ll need to shun the lobbyists from the temple, not be opening up their offices and running errands from the $500 per hour, ten grand a month retainer crowd. If ICAC could bounce Greiner, it could do the same to any Premier.”