Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They say a week is a long time in politics, and, boy oh boy, hasn't it been a long week for the Liberals in New South Wales? 'Twas a mild, mid-winter Wednesday when we learnt that the Liberals failed to nominate over 140 candidates for council elections on 14 September—what a shocker.

Then the blame game began. The party president blamed the state director, who, of course, blamed him back. The state director was sacked, and now the New South Wales Liberals leader's job is under a cloud. To be honest, they all should go because in any normal job they would have all been punted by now, but, in a Liberal Party stacked with failed middle managers and washed-up consultants, we see those at fault still very much in charge. Then, in a moment of post-truth, their grand plan was to take the New South Wales Electoral Commission to court—a plan so cunning that it fell over days later.

What's been most perplexing is that some have been surprised by this saga. What short memories they have. Incompetence is in the modern Liberals' DNA. They are the party of robodebt and secret ministries, and they didn't order enough vaccines. They had sports rorts and wasted $5 billion on new submarines without getting as much as a paddleboard. Now they want to build nuclear power plants across Australia. Don't do it, guys. If you can't fill out forms, you can't run the country. The Liberals are a shambles, and New South Wales knows it.