Henry ... this article from today's Australian gives a familiar shallow account of this crisis in NSW. Our journos are as lousy/lazy at their jobs as the Labor members of the NSW Parliament.

I will give you some background information ... Graham Frederick Richardson is the root cause of the debacle we now see in NSW. When he become Secretary of the NSW ALP in the 1970s he began a process of debauching the quality of the membership of the Parliament. He was partially restrained until the mid 1980s in this devil's work by Bruvver Ducker.

Bruvver Ducker ran the unions and although he was, personally, slippery and all the rest, he did have a strong sense of pushing Australia forward. Under Richo's administration the NSW ALP became institutionally corrupt. The corollary to this misadventure was the necessity to fill the Parliaments in Sydney and Canberra with nongs, clones of Richo, and (to trick the voters) a few bright but weak types like Carr and Iemma.

Richo (and his allies) needed to do this to prevent any impediments to their vigorous, unrestrained and single-minded pursuit of personal capitalist benchmarks.  I could tell you the name of the current well known ALP member of the Legislative Council in NSW who paid $30,000 to 'someone' in the early eighties to buy a seat in the Legislative Council. The Councillor hasn't stopped getting rich to this very hour.

I could tell you the name of the former member of the NSW Legislative Assembly who travelled back and forth to WA under the Brian Burke Administration bringing back, over time, millions in cash, which went to 'someone' and his allies in ALP headquarters.

I could tell you the name of the polished, well-educated and competent lady MP who was kept out of the NSW Cabinet because she refused to, ahem, spend supper and breakfast with a powerful member of the NSW Legislative Council.

I could tell you the name of the current NSW Cabinet minister who had another person sit his exams for him at University.

And on and on it goes ... all thriving under Richo both as Party Secretary and as Senator. (One day, Henry, I will tell you exactly what happened on the day Richo was ejected from the Parliament by PJ Keating. I can tell you that PM Keating had finished an incendiary meeting with the CIA station chief in Canberra before he sent for Richo. TRUE.)

To quote V.I.Lenin ... 'what's to be done? FACT: Our Kevin is facing one term as PM unless he gets control of this situation in NSW.

The first indicator of this will happen next Saturday, the 13th September, when NSW goes to the polls for local Council elections. Expect the ALP to get about 23% of the statewide vote.

As I am always right about these matters, Henry, here is advice for Our Kevin ... I won't send an invoice and he won't take my advice.

1. Have the ALP Federal Executive take over the running of the NSW party. This is possible under the rules.

2. Have the Executive clean out the state parliamentary party membership by pre-selecting all new people (amounting to about 60% of the total Labor held seats) for the next State elections.

3. Demand, publicly, that the NSW fixed term election law be repealed and that the NSW government go to the people in November this year.

4. Demand the resignation from parliament of a group of ALP persons in the NSW Legislative Council. Expel them from the ALP if/when they refuse to go. If the PM did this he would get all the kudos (and deservedly so) for putting (or trying to put) an end to this outrageous and insupportable, not to mention corrupt and incompetent, NSW Government.

Poor Nathan Rees means well and he seems a good bloke ... but the day has past when 'good blokery' can be the answer. Morris Iemma was the good bloke who was supposed to pull off that trick.

Of course all this would mean that at a state election the ALP would lose 25-30 seats in the state parliament and would be out for 8 years. Condign punishment.

For Kevin' sake this is better to happen now so the anger can be given where it belongs ... the NSW Labor Government. If this is not done, the anger will build up and be taken out on Kevin in October 2010.

Henry, Paris was worth a Mass for King Henry of Navarre ... surely Canberra is worth a bloodbath in Sydney for King Kevin of Australia.

Sir Wellington Boote