Bold reformers are mere performers

There is no greater compliment one can pay a politician than to call him, or her, a "reformer". Left or right, Labor or Liberal, they crave the sobriquet, with its visionary overtones. When the former NSW premier Bob Carr ran out of ideas about halfway through his first term in office, and later conceded he could "no longer be described as [even] a social democrat", he anointed himself a "restless reformer". It sounded great but was utterly meaningless. It implied no ideological conviction or even vague commitment to a set of values. It merely meant he favoured change, no matter what the substance or direction. It suggested a bored and timid man looking for something to do.

Now Carr's successor, Morris Iemma, and his Treasurer, Michael Costa, are styling themselves as bold reformers, with their plan to privatise the state's electricity industry - their plan to sell the people's assets. But like John Howard, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke before them, Carr, Iemma and Costa have corrupted the term "reform", writes Andrew West.

SMH 5 Jan 2008