AAP General News (Australia)
12-10-2010
SA:Will the Rann-Foley team survive 2011?
By Liza Kappelle
ADELAIDE, AAP - Another year, and another top South Australian politician has been
bashed on the head.
This time last year, South Australian Premier Mike Rann was embroiled in a sex scandal
after being whacked in the face with a rolled-up newspaper, the treasurer was depressed
and their government was on the nose.
As this year ends, treasurer Kevin Foley has been bashed outside an Adelaide nightspot,
and the Rann government is still on the nose amid calls for leadership change and a string
of protests across the state.
A big question for political observers in 2011 is: will Mr Rann and Mr Foley step down
or will they be pushed?
Mr Rann insists he will lead his government into the 2014 election.
"I do know how to call it," the premier said.
Mr Foley defiantly says he will decide when he leaves, and that's not yet.
"I have had a terrific career, I've still got more juice in the tank.
"I apologise to South Australians if there have been elements of my behaviour that
they don't think befits someone of my position. I ain't perfect and I have made some terrible
mistakes."
Labor scraped into a third term of government in March 2010, on the back of a smart
marginal seat campaign and a questionable tactic designed to entice Family First voters
into preferencing Labor ahead of the Liberals.
One of the hallmarks of the Rann government's first two terms was unity and discipline.
But this has evaporated amid public rowing among cabinet ministers, backroom talks
between the right and left about succession, the protests and a motion for generational
change at the November ALP state conference.
Mr Rann and Mr Foley survived the challenge at the conference, which they entered flanked
by armed guards as protesters gathered outside, angry about budget cuts.
A day later, the spotlight was back on Mr Foley, after he was knocked to the ground
by a king hit outside the Marble Bar in the early hours of Sunday.
There are conflicting stories about his movements, but he told reporters that after
the ALP conference he went to his staff Christmas Party, then to a bar with some businessmen
before having a solo pizza.
The divorced father of two had embarked on a "lonely" trek home seeking one of Adelaide's
elusive taxis when he was bashed.
Tales offered up to journalists variously said he was alone and with women, and one
woman says he was behaving in a "sleazy and inappropriate" manner.
Businessman Ross Makris, who was with Mr Foley at one pub, said the treasurer was not
drunk and the "sleazy" claims were just "grandstanding" by a young woman.
Mr Foley says he was sober and these comments were both wrong and grossly unfair.
"I feel a bit victimised," Mr Foley told journalists.
"At the end of the day, I was bashed, and bashed seriously."
But the allegations beg the question about how the faux pas-prone treasurer, who famously
told a radio station he was not the sharpest tool in the kit, has made himself such an
easy target.
Haydon Manning, head of the Department of Politics and Public Policy at Flinders University,
says anyone who might have given Mr Foley's leadership the benefit of the doubt at the
ALP conference might now be thinking again.
"With the events surrounding the conference, the reports of backroom conversations
between leaders of the left and right factions and following the unfortunate circumstances
surrounding Kevin Foley, backbenchers must be wondering," Associate Professor Manning
says.
He says that if Victorians could dump the Brumby government just because they want
a change after a few years, the Rann government probably does not have much hope at the
next state election, in 2014.
"If I were a backbencher on a low margin, I'd be thinking we'd better look different
before the next election in 2014, he said.
Prof Manning thinks the very public calls for leadership change may have made it difficult
for Mr Rann to step down on his own terms.
"It now looks he's being pushed, and that push will either come with a heavy shove,
a vote, or he will recognise that it is time to move on.
"He may well dig his heels in and stand by the record of his government.
"All that adds up to a period of instability going into next year."
Clem Macintyre, head of Adelaide University's School of History and Politics, says
it is clear that there has been a breakdown of discipline within Labor.
"There is no doubt that the electoral result in Victoria will be sobering to the Labor
Party here. They would have expected the Brumby government to be returned. The fact that
Labor did well federally and then saw a six-and-a-bit per cent swing at the state level
suggests it could happen here.
"I think that is going to really concentrate the minds of the backbenchers and the
party, and if there is going to be a change before the 2014 election, then the time to
do it is next year."
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KEYWORD: YEARENDER SA
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