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Bringing Back Bad Memories

Tuesday, 6th June, 2006

I spent much of 1987 and the early months of 1988 living in Sydney working on the Unsworth Labor government's election campaign. Looking back now I can see it was an amusing and entertaining experience but at the time it was dispiriting and far from funny. Every day we seemed to lurch from bad to worse in our vain attempt to prevent an inevitable defeat.

The highlight (or should it be lowlight?) of my memories was the Saturday morning meeting with Party Secretary Stephen Loosely, advertising agent John Singleton, pollster Rod Cameron, Premier Barrie and his chief of staff Bob Sorbey when we finally admitted to each other that we had no chance at all of winning. Our mission, we decided, was to try and minimise the losses so Labor had some members left in the Parliament.

So what to do? Cheap beer always works suggested Singo. In went the promise to lower licence fees on low alcohol beer. Transport's the problem, said someone, so we'd better promise to lower train fares. Consider it done. But heh! Motorists stuck in a traffic jam as the train rattles past will be annoyed that there's nothing in lower fares for them. Reduced motor vehicle registrations joined the promises list.

And so we went on until the Premier said we should hang on a bit because we were spending hundreds of millions and the state couldn't afford it.

I recall a stunned silence from the rest of us but can't remember who actually told him that he needn't worry because we would never be in government and actually have to do any of the things earnestly being put into our policy speech. And if by some miracle Labor did manage victory then the answer would be easy. Just break all the promises.

I was reminded of those long ago days when I read this morning of Premier Maurice Iemma's decision to re-open the roads closed off to make the tunnel under the city profitable.