Leaping The Scully Gully

It was Jason of Stoush.net who first suggested that former minister of practically everything and current NSW Police and Utilites Minister Carl Scully might have been the source of the letter which had Friday's Daily Telegraph bellowing CITY TUNNEL CORRUPTION BOMBSHELL. I thought he had a bloody good point. So too, apparently, did Alex Mitchell, who had it on the front page of the Sun Herald two days later.

The fact that the calls are for the scalp of Scully, and not for whoever actually did leak the draft Cabinet minute - which, let's not forget, was the real act of bastardry (not to mention out-and-out corruption), says a whole lot about the internal cabinet culture. Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports that Michael Costa refused to respond to `Alex Mitchell's Sunday Special', while Joe Tripodi said `Mumble mumble full support ... Christ, is that Andrew Fraser over there?'. Does there appear to be much political will to find the leaker? No, not really. It says it all. To his credit, however, Morris Iemma has embraced the old credo of `disunity is death' and has put his support behind Scully rather than becoming the latest in a conga line of former friends and supporters to turn their backs on him. In Macquarie St, as in Hollywood, as Judy Garland once put it, people tend to stay away from trouble, because they think it's contagious.

From my perspective, Scully appears to have been infected by groupthink and a lot of other political diseases - you don't end up on the NSW Right without catching a few - but in the end, he seems to be a bloke who has tried - not succeeded, but tried - to do a good job, but has been shat upon mightily by a hell of a lot of people who purported to be his friends. He's got a right to be angry, and if there is corruption to be unearthed, I hope the right heads roll and some good comes out of this whole fiasco.

(If you've never come across the concept of Groupthink before - I highly recommend you read up on it. Especially if you happen to be a NSW Cabinet minister. Or any cabinet minister, really.)