A Year of the Iemma Era

Has it really been only a year since Bob Carr resigned as NSW Premier? In some ways, it feels like yesterday, but in many more, it's like another age - especially as John Brogden followed him so soon afterwards.

It's not surprising that nobody has a very clear sense of Carr's legacy yet. After all, it's only this year that the first thorough appraisal of the Wran government was published. Unlike Wran, it cannot be said that Carr necessarily left on a high note. One of the things that currently makes looking back on his time in government so difficult is that we tend to forget that, prior to the previous election, Carr was bulletproof. He was talked of as Prime Ministerial material; one of those golden politicians who can do no wrong. The Opposition just weren't in the game. In his final term, problems started to creep in as imperceptibly as Carr eventually crept out. Whether these problems were postponed during the earlier time or were inevitable at some point will be the things historians in ten or twenty years will get to pick over.

The current government have worked hard to attempt to differentiate themselves from the Carr era, and attempts by the Opposition to describe them as the `Carr-Iemma Government' have been largely unsuccessful. Naturally, it's just as hard to objectively assess Morris Iemma's first year in the job. It certainly hasn't been an easy one, but many of the policy focuses he announced at State Conference were surprisingly progressive - domestic violence, mental health, caring for the disabled. Time will, of course, tell how successfully these policies will be implemented - as will the public at the ballot box, though given the rabble that currently occupies the Opposition benches, I honestly can't see too many people - even politically sympathetic people - trusting them to take over control of Australia's most powerful state.