The possible aftermath of the NSW election

In any case Labor's complacency was misplaced based as it was on the premise that it would always have enough rusted on followers to ensure electoral victory. Unfortunately for Labor, it had forgotten the aphorism attributed to Lincoln about fooling the people all of the time something it tried to do when it should have been trying to persuade voters it represented the quality represented by a word that also begins 'C,' Competency.

It would be easy to feel sympathy for Keneally as a Premier who tried hard but didn't have the support of a good team. That sympathy would be misplaced and though compared to O'Farrell she is a pretty pollie what people want is a practical pollie.

Unfortunately for Keneally, on becoming Premier she inherited the blunders committed by some of her departed colleagues and colleagues who remained in Parliament. The blunders existed in many areas, for example: planning, health, roads and transport to name but a few. These blunders caused severe financial problems for voters not only in the Sydney Metropolitan area but also in suburban and rural areas and also helped give the lie to Government claims that it was a good economic manager.

• Planning.

The common perception is that planners are in thrall to developers and while that might not be totally true, the call for affordable housing has becoming the shibboleth of every group looking to buy or rent a house. And they have every reason to cry out when they see developers continuing to develop large luxury housing estates but little affordable housing. It also raised the question in their minds as to whether the stories of corruption in planning were true. That aside Labor made a big mistake by not listening intently enough to what, arguably, represents the largest group of voters.

• Health

For months both the press and electronic media almost daily carried horrendous stories of mismanagement in hospitals and hospital services. Stories of pregnant women who couldn't get attended to and people who attended at casualty but were sent home due to shortage of staff or misdiagnosis of their problem who then died a short time later. And this happened in both rural and urban electorates. When Labor then used spin-doctors to try and sugar coat its bad management, both metropolitan and rural voters said enough is enough.

• Roads

Researching this subject in the rural Eden Monaro area of NSW, I found total dis-satisfaction with Labor because of its failure over many years to improve the arterial Monaro Highway on which the areas rural industry relies, as does its tourism industry. And in rural Northern and SE NSW I found a similar situation not to mention that even Sydneysiders had major complaints about poor road planning and maintenance. These complaints are too many to detail.

While O'Farrell must avoid repeating these blunders of Labor's blunders, what other dangers will he face? One need not look far to find them. Not only could the Liberal-National Coalition get so swept up in their success that they become arrogant they could also be seduced by the idea that they can do no wrong. They would be naive to think so. While Politics can be a seductive mistress, many a politician has found to their cost, that it can also be a destructive mistress.