Costa has called for state governments to be abolished

Abolish state governments, says Michael Costa | The Daily Telegraph

MICHAEL Costa has called for state governments to be abolished, declaring the NSW political system is morally corrupt and no longer serves the public good.

A week after resigning as treasurer, in and exclusive essay written for The Daily Telegraph, Mr Costa said the Government was dominated by "spin merchants" and "machine politicians" unqualified to govern.

Mr Costa claims the Premier's office had tried - unsuccessfully - to take credit for economic figures they had no control over.

Health, transport and education had become focussed on keeping doctors, rail unions and lobby groups happy instead of serving patients, commuters and the public.

In a swipe at past premiers, Mr Costa said only one of the last five had ever managed a key portfolio, which were "always under resourced relative to public expectations".

"It is no secret if a premier wants to diminish the status of a potential rival they are given one of these portfolios," he said.

The system had become such that in these portfolios buying off interest groups was often the best strategy for survival.

"Leave a portfolio with an interest group happy and you are a success. The cost is for someone else to worry about. The strongest argument for abolishing state governments is that it would remove a layer of political interference in service delivery."

Mr Costa claimed the Labor Party's head office was calling the shots in NSW and its role in deciding the new Rees Cabinet should be held up to scrutiny.

"The inept attempt by Labor Head office to unseat premier Iemma, the subsequent elevation of a so called "left-winger" to the premiership in a caucus nominally dominated by the Labor Right and the acknowledged unprecedented influence of head office in the selection of the Cabinet means rightly more public and media scrutiny is required of these positions," he wrote.

Mr Costa's extraordinary appraisal of the institution he has served for the past seven years, as a member of the Upper House and a minister, came as new Premier Nathan Rees confirmed that Wollongong MP Noreen Hay would also be dumped from a senior job over her involvement in the Matt Brown scandal, as reported by The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

It can also be revealed that Mr Rees fronted a meeting of his party bosses in a surprise appearance at head office yesterday to declare he was now "the boss" and would not tolerate internal warfare within the Labor Party.

Mr Rees, still reeling from his first week as Premier and the forced sacking of his police minister, made a surprise appearance at the Labor Party's internal executive meeting to declare he was taking charge.

"He basically said he was the boss," said an official at the meeting of the party's powerful administrative committee.

But Mr Costa said that, without fundamental reform of the entire political system within 10 years, starting with the abolition of state governments, the public good would continue to be eroded.

"At the heart of modern politics, is a fundamental dishonesty that politicians and government can solve problems that are inherently unsolveable (health, happiness, wealth)," Mr Costa wrote.

"And politicians that promise solutions to these types of problems are dishonest and worse still they corrupt the political system by undermining what the system is good at providing - imperfect, transitory compromises that keep the place ticking over."