Mike Baird Set To Become NSW premier

[icyfroth]

NSW Treasurer Mike Baird is expected to replace Barry O'Farrell as premier.

The Liberal Party room will meet at 3pm on Thursday when it is expected Mr Baird will be elected unopposed as the state's 44th premier.

After Mr O'Farrell on Wednesday spectacularly announced his resignation from the top job, Mr Baird and Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian emerged as favourites to replace him.

Liberal sources said Ms Berejiklian had the slight edge over her rival in the party room, but in the end, she decided to run for deputy leader on a joint ticket with Mr Baird.

Her decision avoids a messy factional fight between the party's left, who are strongly backing Ms Berejiklian, and the right, who were lining up behind Mr Baird.

Health Minister Jillian Skinner and western Sydney MP Stuart Ayres have publicly thrown their support behind the Baird/Berejiklian ticket.

Community Services Minister Pru Goward pulled out of the running for the deputy position, only hours after saying she would nominate.

At Thursday's meeting, Liberal MPs will formally accept Mr O'Farrell's resignation and confirm the new premier.

If Mr Baird is successful, he will become the state's sixth premier in almost 10 years.

Mr Baird said earlier that maintaining party unity was important.

"It is important that we all come together, clearly unity has been a hallmark of what we have been about in the past few years," he told the Seven Network.

Mr O'Farrell has previously named Ms Berejiklian as the best candidate to succeed him.

But Mr Baird has the backing of right faction MPs, who have been impressed with his aggressive push to privatise the state's assets.

Mr Baird is the son of Bruce Baird, who was a lower house federal MP in John Howard's government, and represents the northern beaches electorate of Manly.

Ms Berejiklian is the daughter of Armenian immigrants and holds the north shore electorate of Willoughby.

After the ballot, a ministerial reshuffle will be on the cards.

But, in line with a coalition agreement, the role of deputy premier will still be held by Nationals MP Andrew Stoner.

Mr O'Farrell resigned after giving misleading evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption about a $3000 bottle of wine.

From Here

But Mr Baird has the backing of right faction MPs, who have been impressed with his aggressive push to privatise the state's assets.

Omg out of the frying pan into the fire. I wonder if  BOF had to go to make room for a more amenable to privatisation premier.

[pct001wine]

At least he'll be cheaper to bribe

[boris1gary]

Bairds history in NSW State Govt......what a dud...another dud in a long list of Liberal Duds....and there isn't really much left to privatise

Liberal Treasurer, Mike Baird has threatened to cut 8000 jobs if the Government is required to pay a 0.25 per cent superannuation increase. [9 August, 2013]

It is revealed that the NSW Government made a $1 billion dollar mistake in its sums and the Budget is actually in surplus. [31 October, 2012]

Barry O’Farrell, and NSW Treasurer Mike Baird have stated that they are delivering a budget that is “responsible”. I agree totally.

• Responsible for the sale of our power generators

• Responsible for 10,000 people losing their jobs (plus 5,000 from last year).

• Responsible for a backroom deal so that amateurs can shoot up the local National Park while you picnic there with your family (a policy that caused deaths in New Zealand).

• Responsible for prices soaring as the cost of power skyrockets (at least 18% from Barry’s previous budget price hike starting July 1).

• Responsible for cut-backs at our local schools and hospitals.

• Responsible for making Sydney the most expensive place in Australia to live.

Infrastructure NSW, may be expensive and another layer to cause delays, but at least they are independent and know what they are doing.

Run by a former Liberal Premier, Nick Greiner, it must have made Barry feel good to help out an old mate with a good government paycheck.

However, it wasn’t all back slapping and secret handshakes, at least Nick knew his stuff. After all, Nick was the man responsible for the state’s biggest infrastructure failure, the Airport Rail Link, which went into liquidation not long after opening. The state has its fingers crossed that he has learnt from this colossal and hugely expensive mistake. Maybe we should cross our toes, too.

Also in the budget is Mike Baird's promise that he still has $1 billion worth of cuts still coming. But, in the interests of full transparency, he won't tell us where these cuts are going to be.

NSW Treasurer Mike Baird - don't ask where the cuts are coming from.

[silverfaun]

Don't like him and loathe his father. Gladys was the best candidate IMO.

[icyfroth]

I agree Faun, I would have liked to see Gladys in the job as well.

[silverfaun]

The bottle of wine was a dud if it was supposed to be a bribe. O'Farrell veto'd the Sydney Water proposal spawned by Labor's criminal tentacles.

Just an aside to all the rabid speculation, O'Farrell was not accused of any crime, corruption or any other malfeasance so please try to curb the sp---n vents.

[lakeland27]

---

@silverfaun wrote:

The bottle of wine was a dud if it was supposed to be a bribe. O'Farrell veto'd the Sydney Water proposal spawned by Labor's criminal tentacles.

Just an aside to all the rabid speculation, O'Farrell was not accused of any crime, corruption or any other malfeasance so please try to curb the sp---n vents.

---

  labors criminal tentacles have blue ties on in this case . i'd say that makes them liberal criminal tentacles . .

 dont be upset , if you really think the libs are squeaky clean the truth had to dawn on you sometime .

[debra9275]

I would've thought they'd choose the transport minister, she seemed the cleaner choice. His name was on the papers giving that corrupt bloke the job on the water board.

[debra9275]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-17/mike-baird-who-is-new-nsw-premier/5397336

i looked him up

and yes it was him who appointed Girolamo

Mr Baird appointed Mr Di Girolamo to the board of the State Water Corporation in June 2012.

Documents obtained by Greens MP John Kaye show Mr Di Girolamo was ranked lowly when interviewed for another board position at the Sydney Ports Corporation.

Mr Di Girolamo was dismissed as not having relevant industry experience.

Dr Kaye claims Mr Di Girolamo was equally unsuited for the State Water Corporation board.

[freshwater-2]

And....Mike Baird still has to appear for questioning before ICAC.

Should be interesting.