Rival chiefs of staff at war

LABOR has fired back at a damning assessment of its election campaign by the premier’s chief of staff, labelling the Liberals a marketing machine rather than a government.

Chief of staff to Opposition Leader Rebecca White, Michael Stedman, has hit back at departing counterpart Brad Stansfield, who savaged Labor’s campaign as “directionless” in a Facebook post after the Liberals won the March 3 election.

In a Talking Point piece, Mr Stedman writes that a good campaign doesn’t necessarily make a good government.

“When your primary objective is grabbing headlines and winning the pictures on the evening news you get promises like an underground bus mall, dual lanes on every highway and a phantom bridge across the Tamar River,” he says.

“The Liberals have woken up with an almighty pork-barrelling hangover that will not be easily cured.”

Mr Stedman says Liberal health and housing policies were designed purely to top Labor’s promises.

“The (health) policy lasted a day before it was demolished as being inflated by Commonwealth money and six-year delivery time frames,” he writes. “By then the Liberals had a lready achieved their objective of grabbing wall- to- wall headlines.

“But still, there is no end in sight to the health crisis.”

Mr Stedman says Labor made the ethical call on banning poker machines from pubs and clubs, despite the decision unleashing a massive advertising spend from the gaming industry.

“To be clear, no one in the Labor Party was blind to the negative consequences of taking on the powerful vested interests,” he writes. “But sometimes politics is about leadership.”

Premier Will Hodgman cancelled two head-to-head debates with Ms White, Mr Stedman says, because of fears he would be judged the loser, as occurred at the Sky NewsMercury People’s Forum.

Mr Stedman accuses the Liberals of fiscal irresponsibility with $40 million of small promises to organisations.

He says Labor has positioned itself to be within striking distance of majority government in 2022.