Touch of the Fumbles
Onfield malaise and off-field chaos: it’s fair to say 2019 didn’t quite pan out as our Fumbles correspondent had hoped, as we say a not-so-fond farewell to another wasted season.
Opinion
A conservative Right hijack of the SA Liberal Party may be fuelled by recent State Government decisions – but it’s been a long time coming, writes Tom Richardson.
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Liberal coffers have taken a hit as powerful supporters turn their back on the party, with a prominent hotelier admonishing the Marshall Government in an email to state MPs, and a major business backer protesting Treasury’s proposed land tax grab by withdrawing support for a lucrative fundraiser.
One of the state Liberal Party’s most senior officials could be the first victim of a factional takeover by the conservative Right, which has assumed control of the party’s governing body for the first time since the Nick Minchin era.
“Fear of the unknown” amid ongoing uncertainty about the Marshall Government’s looming land tax shakeup is strangling the property market, the sector says, as Treasurer Rob Lucas concedes even his best-case compromise scenario would not be “nationally competitive”.
South Australian bureaucrats have described a culture of “bullying, nepotism and favouritism” across the public service, with people appointed based on “who they know and not on merit”, in a staff survey described as “sobering and shocking” by the state’s integrity commissioner.
So this is the way the season ends – not with a bang… but an utterly shiteful embarrassment of a home-ground capitulation, made only slightly less apocalyptic by Port Adelaide’s own subsequent annihilation. Good times.
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