NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has shrugged off potential leadership woes triggered by the revelations that he wore a Nazi costume on his 21st birthday.
Appearing in Leppington in Western Sydney on Monday morning, the defiant premier hit out at comments made by former Labor premier Bob Carr, who had called him “unelectable” following the costume drama.
Mr Perrottet said he would not be lectured to by Mr Carr and took aim at the former Labor leader for allowing the number of poker machines in the state to soar under his leadership.
“This is a former Labor premier who left our state with a $30 billion infrastructure backlog and put pokie machines on every street corner. We’re still cleaning up his mess. So I won’t be taking lectures from him,” he said.
“We have more pokie machines in NSW than anywhere outside of Nevada, and who was responsible for that? The Bob Carr Labor government, and we are still cleaning up that mess.”
Mr Perrottet is approaching the state election in March with a signature policy proposing to make the state’s poker machines cashless. This will require the use of a cashless card that also includes daily limits.
The policy has drawn a sharp response from the state’s powerful clubs and pubs sector but has earned plaudits from charity heavyweights, including Tim Costello and critically, the state’s peak body for unions, UnionsNSW.
Read the article by Samantha Hutchinson in the Financial Review.