Not all letters make the cut,primarily due to space constraints,but almost all are wonderfully thoughtful and funny. TheHerald team is careful to not interpret our letters pages as some sort of public polling method,but it can often be one barometer of sentiment. I think our latest submissions are a case in point.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet at his extraordinary press conference on Thursday.Rhett Wyman
Letters editor Pat Stringa told me today that we had been deluged by readers wanting to offer their verdict on Premier Dominic Perrottet’s disclosure that he wore a Nazi costume to his 21st birthday two decades ago.
A clearly remorseful and ashamed Perrottet used on Thursday to apologise for the outfit. He said he was fessing up because he had been told in a phone call two days earlier that people were talking about the party. The other person in the call was Transport Minister David Elliott,who theHerald last Saturday described in as a buffoon and disloyal loose cannon.
Perrottet has. But what we do know is that Elliott is leaving politics at the March election after due to a tussle with members of Perrottet’s own right faction. He is also at odds with the premier over his plan to crackdown on money laundering and problem gambling by. There is no evidence that pokie supporters had any involvement in this week’s affair,but the damage to Perrottet certainly helps temporarily knock his campaign for reform off course.
The reaction fromHerald readers is largely split into two camps:those who condemn the premier and are understandably offended by what he did,and those who think he should not be crucified for making a mistake as a young man.
TheHerald has published many of these differing views online and will do so in print on Saturday,but I wanted to highlight two letters that really stood out to me.
The first,from Toni Lorentzen of Fennel Bay,reads:“I am a rusted-on Labor supporter and have Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. However,I take no joy in Dominic Perrottet’s discomfort and I don’t think he needs to resign. His obviously genuine shame and guilt about this gross transgression is punishment enough for him.”
The second,from Prue Nelson of Cremorne Point,is particularly incisive about the factors behind Perrottet’s disclosure:“It’s not Perrottet’s offensive and stupid decision to wear a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party that should derail the government,” Prue writes. “If anything,it’s the fact that the government has within its senior ranks the type of people who are willing to use information they have about an event two decades ago to attempt to either destroy their leader or neutralise his campaign to reduce gambling harm.
“Are we seriously hoping that we can be governed by people who have never done anything appalling,insensitive or inappropriate in their youth or early adulthood? Or that they should catalogue for us each of those events when they stand for election? I can’t bear the thought. It’s enough that I can still remember,too clearly,all my own terrible errors of judgement.”
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet answered media questions after his public admission that he wore a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday.
Perrottet has refused to blame anyone for forcing him to disclose the 2003 incident. At spruiking the half-billion-dollar redevelopment of Ryde Hospital,the premier was (rightly) peppered with questions from reporters about what Elliott said in that Tuesday phone call,and whether factional tensions were damaging his government.
“It’s not about that. I’m not interested in that,” Perrottet replied. “What I’m interested in and focussed on is the people of our state. I did it. That’s what’s important. I made a terrible,terrible mistake when I was 21 years old,I am truly sorry for that mistake and I’m focussed on ensuring young people don’t make the same mistake I did.”
As someone who made two public errors last year – mistakenly calling the February train shutdown a “strike” and my handling of a story about actor Rebel Wilson’s first same-sex relationship – I am well-acquainted with the reality that humans are human and sometimes stuff-up.
While the vast majority of us have never dressed as a Nazi,the idea that our political leaders must have unblemished records of personal conduct is simplistic and has the potential to drive good people from office. This great city and our great state needs the best people confident and willing to come forward for public service.
Perrottet did a dumb and offensive thing when he was young,but the error should not define him as a person and premier two decades later.
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