Regrets, I've had a few
In his first interview since being dumped as premier, Nathan Rees tells Andrew Clennell of the conditions he set to serve in the Keneally cabinet.
Nathan Rees would have read of his successor, Kristina Keneally, crying in a Herald interview last week. Now his eyes well up when asked if his wife, Stacey, was relieved that he was no longer premier, after 15 months of seven-day working weeks and intense scrutiny.
''I won't. I won't. I'll get misty,'' he says. He tells the Herald photographer Peter Rae not to capture the moment. ''Don't you dare ... She's obviously happy we'll be able to spend a bit more time together.''
Rees is giving the Herald his first interview since, a fortnight ago, he declared that anyone who replaced him would be a ''puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi''. within hours, Keneally had won a caucus ballot to take the top job from him.
Now, he claims to have ''no bitterness'' at his demise, that he is perfectly happy as a humble backbencher. ''I'm just going to be doing my best for the people of Toongabbie, that's that. With a bit of luck, I'll get to ask an occasional question in the house [of Parliament]. I've already got the doorknocking plan mapped out for early in the new year.''
Asked about his political ambitions, at just 41, Rees says he would not rule out a move to federal politics, but claims earnestly that the main thing is to represent his electorate.
''I was hit in the bum by a rainbow being elected member for Toongabbie; anything after that is a bonus.''
But didn't he want the power to effect change like he had as premier or minister? ''Tell [that to] the elderly pensioner who needs the hole in the wall fixed at her Department of Housing home, because it hasn't been fixed for years. she gets bloody cold and bloody hot because no one's been able to arrange to have the wall fixed; that's what matters to her,'' he says.
The big picture always matters, Rees notes, to those with a strong interest in politics, ''but for most people getting about paying their rent, paying their mortgage, it's the little stuff that matters.''
Rees complains he was white-anted throughout his premiership. of John Della Bosca, the former health minister who he blames for contributing to his downfall, he says: ''I've never been able to fathom his hostility to me.''
While he's not going ''to bag colleagues or do spoiling'', Rees wants it noted: ''There were clearly elements who weren't happy with me in the job and that did make it difficult to get on with it.''
He admits he wanted to be in the Keneally cabinet but only ''under the right circumstances''. This is despite his statement on the morning he was ousted as to what his removal would mean: ''... let there be no doubt in the community's mind, that any challenger will be a puppet of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi''.
Of that comment, he says only: ''I think my actions and commentary over recent weeks will be judged by the NSW community and that's the only judgment I'm interested in.''
He refuses the invitation to expand on his views of Obeid and Tripodi.
It is understood that Rees told Keneally that he would only serve in her cabinet if Tripodi and Ian Macdonald - two ministers whom he sacked - were not returned to the cabinet, if political donations reform was continued and if the Labor national executive intervened in the party's NSW branch.
Macdonald (but not Tripodi) was returned to cabinet and Keneally left Rees on the backbench.
Rees acknowledges that he erred as premier in selling the Government's message. He says, for example, that when announcing the $5.3 billion CBD Metro, he should have argued the point better that a start to a metro system was a prerequisite to building a large subway network, at a time the Government could afford it. ''We got hammered for that, no question.''
He points to geotechnical work at Parramatta Park - the site of the Herald interview - as a sign that the western metro would go ahead. ''This is all happening, it's not a hologram.''
He denies that the project - essentially at the expense of a north-west rail link - is not needed, that it is a duplication of the western rail line. ''You could say that about the addition of a lane to a highway, you need more capacity, it's as simple as that.''
He admits a major mistake in the mini-budget he brought down 13 months ago. the attempt to impose a charge on parents for school bus transport abruptly ended any honeymoon for his premiership. the decision was reversed after the damage was done.
He blames the media for some of his woes. apart from transport, he says, things aren't so bad in NSW. ''News outlets want a reaction. the easiest reaction to conjure up is anger. It's much easier to conjure up anger than joy, or pity or sorrow, whatever it may be.
'''The reality of government at state level is that the vast bulk of the work that goes on is just keeping the system moving and working, reliably and efficiently. there is no contemporary news interest in showing an emergency department working efficiently or someone else getting a triple bypass or an angioplasty.
''There's no day-to-day newsworthiness in a kid from difficult family circumstances with a rumble in their belly coming to school [and] that kid actually getting through year 12.
''I think there are certainly areas we can improve on - transport's the key one, no question about that.''
But in independent measures of the state's performance in health and education - such as elective surgery lists and literacy and numeracy results - NSW leads the way, he claims. Crime was stable or falling in 16 out of 17 categories and government finances were AAA-rated.
''If you didn't have NSW sitting next to those stats, you'd say 'Jesus, that joint's doing all right', wouldn't you?''
Rees was elected to Parliament in March 2007 after years as a ministerial adviser and installed as premier in September last year on the recommendation of the Labor powerbrokers mark Arbib, Karl Bitar and Luke Foley.
He had served as the water and emergency services minister for a year and a half.
Should he have become more seasoned in a portfolio such as health or transport?
''It would depend entirely on how long you're in another portfolio and what you manage to do in it, or not do in it. Health makes or breaks ministers. I put my hand up for health when Morris [Iemma, whom he replaced as premier] was talking about a reshuffle. I would have been very happy in that portfolio.''
He claims now he never had any dream of becoming premier. ''There's 7 million people in the state; at the end of the day, I'm a rationalist. if you have your heart set on any one position in the state or the country, the likelihood is that you're going to miss out.
''That's what's going to happen to 6.99 million people, they're going to miss out. So to have your heart set on something like that, and to be that emotionally engaged and attached to a goal like that, you're setting yourself up to be a very disappointed person.''
He says that Iemma - who resigned as premier after failing to get the Labor Right faction to support his proposed cabinet line-up - was probably more hurt than him at losing the premiership.
''I think it would have been more disappointing for Morris. He was emotionally close to all the [Right] people to a much greater extent than I was ... Any party that can't demonstrate to the people that it can govern itself will struggle to govern generally, a situation I found myself in.''
Andrew Clennell is the Herald's state political editor.
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