mark o'brien

well, after a seriously total wipe-out of the coalition this weekend (wow!), it’s been fascinating to see all the reports of key liberal figures declaring that they knew it was going to be that way, which begs the question why they didn’t do something to change that…  the stupid elephant in the room of howard’s intended transfer of power to costello being one of them, not to mention climate change issues, work choices and a number of other stands they could have quickly made adjustments to in order to change the momentum.and, in a very smart move, which i should have seen coming but for some reason didn’t see, costello did the smartest thing he could possibly do by refusing the captaincy of the titanic, and is talking up a post-politics real-world gig.  after all, there’s absolutely nothing for him in taking the helm of a decimated liberal party which looks to be in opposition for at least the next 2 terms i would say.and, the worst possible thing happened in our seat of brand – labor actually rode on the coat tails of the big national swing to open up their margin in this seat, which basically means we’ll now be up for another 6 years of neglect…  i’m all up for being party loyal, etc., for those labor people who felt they just had to support the ALP, but the truth is that in our seat they would have been smarter to vote anything other than greens or alp, because they’ve just created a situation where the labor party can continue to take the area for granted.  i don’t say any of this because any great allegiance to either party – it just makes plain political sense.