If I didn’t know the people involved, this article might have been
relegated to the unsubstantiated tips and rumours section, and rightly
so. But I do know the people involved, and though I can’t name them, our
conversations have led me to believe that Bob Carr’s departure as NSW
Premier wasn’t entirely his own work.

Either that, or he repaid someone a very big favour. Of course that’s
not the way the Premier of Spin and his many loyal leggies have played
it – but it wouldn’t be the first time the public has been hoodwinked.
And it would help explain the great unanswered question of NSW politics
over the past month.

Here’s what I know: Mr X, a man I know well and trust, swears that Mr
Y, a friend of his (who I know slightly) told him a couple of months
ago that Morris Iemma had been told by the Sussex Street machine he
would be Premier before the end of the year; that Bob Carr’s time was
up. Mr X says the reaction at the time was the same as everyone else’s
last month – Morris who? But he was assured Carr would be tapped on the
shoulder before much longer.

Mr Y is, shall we say, party related, and therefore in a position to
know. Plenty of people are good at predicting the future in retrospect,
but this conversation took place in early autumn. Mr X tells me that
and I believe him.

Was Bob Carr pushed? It’s a little hard to believe and a source much,
much closer to the action says no. But could he have been nudged? That
is not impossible – and you can hold the wink. Certainly a remarkable
amount of work had been done behind the scenes well before Carr trotted
out his “beautiful weekend in Sydney” story. A great many ducks had
been lined up in a very neat row well before Carr went public so that
Mr Nobody had the job almost before Carr had finished speaking.

Consider this possibility: The ever-ambitious machine men realise
the trains won’t be any better in 2007 and the hospital system may be
worse while NSW continues to under perform on the national economic
ladder. They figure the public really will have had enough of Premier
Bob’s many promises and their only chance of winning is by presenting a
cleanskin who hasn’t made any promises to break and won’t have any
trouble blaming all the difficulties on the previous administration.

Perhaps something like that scenario is gently discussed with Bob Carr.
Maybe it’s just a wink, not even the nudge. Somehow or other, it looks
like Carr made up his mind to quit a good two months ago and some
strange characters knew it.

The result is that in the first flush of Premier Whathisname’s reign,
it looks like the foxes are back in charge of the hen house. Fast Eddie
Obeid and Smokin’ Joe Tripodi, not perhaps the most presentable
representatives of the great Australian Labor Party, suddenly had more
profile than, well, since the former was strangely getting the numbers
up for a village election in the back blocks of Lebanon.

Premier Who looks like someone who has had greatness thrust upon him
along with a script to read. That script took preparation. I have
listened to a calming ALP voice who reckons it’s not as bad as it
looks, that Eddie might not be around after the next election and Joe’s
light will again dim, but it’s a very strange Premier State at present.

That’s partly the effect of it functionally becoming a one-party state.
Perhaps the most hilarious political poll I’ve seen outside Zimbabwe
was the one that showed the voters still preferred absolutely any ALP
candidate to John Brogden. So where’s the Crikey Army in the bowels of
the Labor machine when it’s needed? Did anyone spy someone daring to
wink at Bob Carr as the leaves were turning? Or was it just a nervous
tic?