Off in their own parallel universe …

… there are a number of ALP functionaries claiming that Saturday’s election result was something other than a damning rejection of them.

NSW premier Kristina Keneally is one of them.  She blames the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, for the federal ALP’s poor vote in her state – in particular its failure to invest in infrastructure in Sydney:

”One of the issues that would have been in the minds of voters as they went to the polls yesterday is that they had gone for three years without seeing the Rudd government invest in infrastructure in Sydney.”

Interesting perspective that.  For one thing, I’d have thought it is her own state government’s job to provide infrastructure rather than the federal government’s.  Secondly, she has her own election coming up early next year – I’ll guarantee that she’ll be singing the praises of the state government’s massive investments in such infrastructure then.  I would say that if people in Sydney were beating Labor up federally over infrastructure, it is going to be very ugly for Ms Keneally and her government come their election time – quite a bloodbath I foresee there actually.

As well as the premier, a number of party strategists were also looking to deflect blame for a state swing of almost 7 per cent against Labor.   The leaks about prime minister Julia Gillard’s role in Cabinet discussions about policy that she started running away from after removing Kevin Rudd from the job are getting a good run – Keneally backs ALP national secretary Karl Bitar in claiming they were a major factor damaging Labor’s campaign:

‘It really did make it difficult for Julia Gillard to speak about her positive plans, her vision, her message and her commitments,”

Well, maybe it would have – except that I wasn’t aware that she actually had any sort of vision or plans.  For that matter, neither did Opposition leader Tony Abbott.

Federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten, one of the architects of the coup against Mr Rudd, blamed it on the poorly performing ALP state governments in NSW and Queensland.  I think there is quite a bit of truth in that, but it certainly does not help the federal ALP distance itself from that when its own behaviour pretty much mirrors the despicable behaviour of the ALP backroom boys in Sydney.  It’s hardly surprising when voters then think Julia Gillard and co are more of the same.

NSW officials tried to put a positive spin on the NSW campaign by saying the target-seats strategy had been a success.  So, it could have been much worse – 7% swing against is a win compared to what it might have been.  Wait till the state election, then I think they’ll see the voters take out their baseball bats and really give it to NSW Labor. I tend to agree with the ABC’s election analyst Antony Green here, when he says:

”State Labor was not on the ballot at this election. The Keneally government should not be thinking about 7 per cent but about the 25 swing against it at the recent Penrith byelection.”

Can’t wait, and I’m not even a NSW voter, just an interested observer in seeing the truly shithouse NSW government get what it has deserved for a number of years.