While I generally agree with John Warhurst's analysis, I would like to point out that the 2011 election in New South Wales did not have an unprecedented result. Indeed, it was in many respects a re-run of the election of 1932, when Labor endured a swing against of it of nearly 27%, and was reduced to 24 seats in a Legislative Assembly of 90. That was 'a dream result for the Coalition', too, and there were no Greens or Independents to worry about. The three major parties won all the seats and all but 5 per cent of the votes.

As in 2011, disunity within the Labor Party was a key factor, though that disunity had been produced by the impact of the great Depression. Labor finally learned its lesson about unity and disunity, and the McKell-led ALP of 1941 governed, with a continuing series of leaders, until 1964. How long will it take for Labor to sort out its problems this time?

The vote on Saturday was noting more that the electorate wanting to punish the Labor Government for 4 years of arrogance, ineptitude, criminality etc etc. Out door knocking before the election, for the Greens, I found for every one that said "I like Liberal" ten said "I hate Labor". In Heffron I didn't perceive any 'hate' for Keneally the person, most tended to like her, nor could I perceive any 'love' for Pandelious, most said "Pan who"? In Heffron with a poor candidate and little campaigning the Liberals still achieved a 16% swing against Keneally.

It's Pendelos .. so if you were asking, who is Pandelious, of course they would say "Pan who?"

No wonder the Greens did so well !

"And who shall decide when doctors disagree?"- Alexander Pope.

A couple of modest comments from a rank amateur.

1. Bob Carr was king in his time. Opposition was feeble, and the media were tamed. Carr had been a journalist, and knew how to feed the chooks. These days Carr is widely criticised: inaction on the railways. No attempt to challenge powerful unions in education, transport and so on. RTA left to do whatever it wanted, and so on.

2. After the electricity privatisation debacle, it was Iemma then Rees and the whole mess began to fall apart. Rees was incoherent and bumbling. His speech on Saturday was an embarrassing incoherent tirade. Then when he was brought down, he labelled Keneally a puppet of Obeid and Tripodi.

3. From this point on it was the Comedy Festival. Only we had to live with it.e.g. Huge problems on the F3 and a very poor transport between Sydney and Newcastle. Notice the huge swings against Labor right through the Central Coast and Newcastle up to the Hunter.
Western Sydney felt neglected. All talk, no action. The largest donations got what they wanted for the donors: Hotels Association, Taxi Council, land developers....

4. Federation was a plot designed to take money away from the wealthier , large-tax States of NSW and Victoria. The Federal Government has money for all its extravagances: our toy Navy, submarines that don't work, planes that can't fly, the disgraceful Building the Education Revolution, especially hideous in NSW; and God knows how much we spend on refugees. The States have to pick up the pieces, make trains work, struggle with old hospitals, educate the masses from 50 different countries - some of whom can't read in any language.

We poor denizens of darkest NSW expect Barry O'Farrell to rule for the next 8 to 12 years. Let's hope he does something good, rather than endless plans, reviews and announcements. We've waited a long time.

Australia looks at Labor’s defeat and concentrating on them alone. Costello described a Labor’s party machine in which players are drunk on power and adept at thuggery to gain ascendency. Behind this are generations of such behaviour within unions – despite being a former federal delegate on a union I refuse to join the union covering my workplace because of the self serving behaviour of union officials protecting unacceptable actions.

John states the route will “alter the face of Australian governments for some time”. It may change the labels of those in government it will not change government per se.

Yes, Labor reeks of malfeasance. That Arbib remains in parliament let alone within Labor having taken privileged information from cabinet and been paid to inform others measures Labor’s failure and its odium to the nation.

Are Liberal’s really different? O’Farrell has within the Liberal party elements that are identical to those that brought Labor undone. Clarke and Moore-Wilton are the Liberal’s version of the ‘shysters’ of Labor.

No, the true face of Australian governments is not changing.

What is that face? It reflects the belief within society based on individuals maximising their personal benefit. It is a belief that the individual is the ultimate judge of good/bad, right/wrong – and the criteria are personal benefit.

We get the governments we deserve as they do truly reflect the society they exist in. If Labor was 16 years of self serving abuse of power based on believing in one’s personal supremacy then NSW society was that.

The rule allowing massive corruption/fraud is “if all the pigs have their snout in the trough then none squeal”. In NSW the population was so busy with their snout in some trough or other they were unwilling to fix the problems – let journos in particular consider they only ever got news from the ‘chook run’ of media releases.

Barry, the seeds of your party’s demise following Labor’s malfeasance is already there, beware. Labor, what do you believe in apart from seeing power as the end in itself – you bought power and lost your souls.

John the next Federal Election is already decided and it has been for some time..

That it was reinforced by the NSW voters in Port Macquarrie and New England surely is quite clear even to you rusted on academic's who seem forever espousing how grand are the possibilites of the long dead and now obviously irrelevant labor party.

It wasn't the academic's, unionists, trendies and matriculated who dumped labor it was the same people who once voted Labor at states and voted Howard and Menzies federally. All that's happened is they've realised state labor is as pathetic at looking after them as federal labor.

You know ... they'll never go back to Labor State or Federally now.

The sun has set on the ideals of the original labor people and their party has been pulled down by the academic's, unionists, trendies and matriculated who would have been utterly rejected by those original members of the labor party. They would have told them to simply p.ss off.

The last Labor PM who had any real sort of association with working people and who understood their lives was Paul Keating and the last Labor leader to know and understand was Mark Latham. Both men are despised in modern Labor and doesn't that bloody say it all.

While I was opposed utterly to both I respected them for their attachment to and understanding of original labor. Parts of my family were original labor so I recognised something of them that was once in my family. They represented the past beliefs of some parts of my family.

NSW Labor has had an influence on Federal Labor - hence the outcome of the last Federal election. For people looking on from darkest NSW, the general feeling was "What were the Federal ALP thinking to listen to anything coming out of NSW Labor?" They are electoral poison and have been for some time. Federal ALP needs to run away and jettison tainted persons like Mark Arbib from NSW.
NSW Labor will go nowhere until they clean out the likes of Eddie Obeid and Noreen Hay. Apart from the general bad behaviour and in some cases outright corruption, NSW Labor has been engaged in influence-peddling on a grand scale, to the point where party apparatchiks and family members were rewarded with political positions or senior public service positions. Anyone with integrity in NSW Labor - such as Graham West former member for Campbelltown - had long since left, on the basis that they had a better chance of pursuing social justice issues outside of ALP politics than within it.
How can anyone in NSW forget that we had - not that long ago - a completely incompetent health minister Reba Meagher who was basically rewarded with a ministerial position because she was a friend/ex-girlfriend of Joe Tripodi? Labor (just barely) managed to retain her former seat of Cabramatta against a 26.9% swing. Where the big swings against the ALP have been, you generally don't have to look very far for the corruption and bad behaviour. As someone wrote today in the SMH, watching the NSW ALP government has been like watching the Big Brother house...NSW voters have not only resoundingly rejected NSW Labor, but have also endorsed Barry O'Farrell's Coalition - while the Greens managed to hold onto their votes, they made virtually no gains, while this election was a wipe-out for the ALP. As Luke Foley said on election night, in NSW there is no Labor heartland any more - it's gone. And NSW Labor still have their heads in the sand about the white-hot voter anger...

In the near future, I expect to see the old Labor Party split. Those right of centre may remain with this remnant of the old party, while those left of centre could join the Greens, or some may......

Join a new party formed by Malcolm Turnbull and his buddies, right wing but with just a tinge of green around the edges.

The leftovers of the Liberals might merge with the right of the old Labor Party, as they already have so much in common.

As for the Greens, in time they might split into the Pale Greens, and the Dark Greens.

The Nationals ...... will be a vanished species, so we don't need to worry about them.

I would also expect to see more Independents of all shades, and more small parties (see first four paras).

What do others think? Like to try a forecast?

John Warhurst has made a good, politically-correct observation, but a little too broad-brush for me. I prefer a more direct attribution of cause and effect, for I believe our Federal Labor Government is more than a little to blame for NSW Labor's demise (for which we are all of course truly thankful nonetheless), for not only is Federal Labor guilty of the same sort of antics and mismanagement as has been demonstrated by NSW, but they are persisting in the same vein, and with the same set of encumbrances - and with not the least intention to reform. To add insult to injury, Ms Gillard insists on blaming the former Howard government for the Labor states' mismanagement of Health, Education and Transport. How rich can you get! The common folk of NSW have reflected their disgust with the great "Education Revolution" debacle, the pink batts fiasco, the destruction of alternative energy initiatives, the Murray Darling disaster, and the push for a carbon tax and ETS which no-one wants, and which is really only a tax-grab, as is the grab for super profits. Wayne takes credit for keeping us from recession, but actually the mining sector did, and now he wants to punish them and all of us for their good work.
No-one can trust Labor, State or Federal, or Garnaut for that matter, for we non-skeptics believe greater scientists and greater Statesmen than they are. The Greens also took a hit - look no further than the mess in Canberra!

Amicus
No need to correct me, its Patrice Pandeleos Liberal candidate for Heffron. Who is Pendelos, maybe he's your local fruit shop owner. Nothing like a fool who makes smart comments like:

It's Pendelos .. so if you were asking, who is Pandelious, of course they would say "Pan who?"

No wonder the Greens did so well !

You would know Amicus!

This issue has gone really quiet here, but I think it should have a bit more life - in messages for Canberra from this NSW election, and on the burning question of whether Tony Abbott has a good chance to unseat Julia, even given her rather lack-lustre performance in recent times:- or if anyone can suggest a better choice to lead the Libs to victory?
Maybe someone actually wants Julia to stay on indefinitely? Shame!
And no-one's said a peep about John Robertson as NSW Oppsn Ldr - ex Sussex Street insider, ouster of Iemma - shame!
I'm not an admirer of Malcolm Turnbull, not since his "We need to be a Republic" days, and still think he's too "cool" - not enough a man of the people; and Abbott too much of a man of the people.
As for The Greens, I'm surprised at brennie's comment that: "The Nationals ...... will be a vanished species, so we don't need to worry about them."
I can't help worrying about The Greens, even though I'm a bit of an environmentalist myself. It's Bob Brown's agenda in recent times that worries me. He was a great activist for Tasmania's environmental heritage in Gordon on Franklin, but recent destruction of Tassie's ancient forests hasn't raised a peep! Anyone see what's happening to bees? - Our pollinators. Tassie is last clean refuge, and last hope!
Finally, no bites on my contention that antics in Canberra had a significant impact on the NSW election - particularly the turning away from The Greens as a protest, as has been a practice in the past.

saltpetre, the greens have had a campaign concerning the reduction in bee numbers for some time - see christine milne's website at http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/greens-welcome-reconsideration-potential-eradicate-asian-honey-bee

you'll find plenty about logging in tassie at http://christine-milne.greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/pulp-mill-not-viable-gunns-must-answer-key-questions

these two campaigns also get a lot of mention on the main australian greens site, bob brown's web site and, of course, the website of the tasmanian greens.

may i suggest you inform yourself before you make up your mind about the greens.

brennie,

You're right; I was being a bit unkind to the Greens, but was sort of headlining in hopes of getting some response on the broader issues. Thanks for the diplomatic way you pulled me into line.

I do remember seeing Bob standing not so long ago in the midst of a massive Old Growth Armageddon. A scene of national shame.
Must admit I missed Christine Milne's addressing of the bee situation.

To be fair, I guess Bob's been tied up recently on other pressing matters - like carbon and super profits; fair enough.
It's a bit of a pity though that I have to disagree with him on his approach to both of those matters:
.I don't believe a carbon tax is the right way forward; better to tax us all, increase pensions and minimum wage, set carbon targets, regulate energy prices, and invest in sustainable energy alternatives.
.I believe royalties are the way, and national resources warrant national, not state, royalties - comprehensive uniformity, efficiency, stability; and would sit nicely in COAG's GST/Tax etc allocations, per integrated National/State infrastructure logistics.

I guess people have moved on from unraveling the ins and outs of the NSW election, to focus on what's happening in Canberra, the continuing carbon debate, arguments over super-profits; and of course also on what Barry O'Farrell's going to do now he's got the ball.
So, I guess I'll just have to leave it at that and move on too.

In the meantime I guess our attention is drawn to the middle east; and perhaps to the lousy way the Republicans, and a fair chunk of the US public, are treating the Obama administration - stand up and they want to knock you down, try to improve health care and they just want to find fault instead of a way to iron out the bugs, take a stand on some difficult foreign relations and they question your background, try to sort out the mess left by George W and they blame you for not getting it sorted yesterday. You've got to feel for the guy.