With the stench of the Wollongong Council corruption scandal, developer donations and the New South Wales State Government’s radical planning reforms believed to be the main reasons for the Labor Party’s fall from favour, the Premier, Nathan Rees, said voters had sent a clear message to his Government.

Beleaguered Labor MP Noreen Hay has been dumped as a New South Wales parliamentary secretary by Premier Nathan Rees. The move comes after the member for Wollongong was caught up in the scandal surrounding disgraced police minister Matt Brown’s drunken romp at a post-budget party in June. Mr. Brown was sacked yesterday after news of his actions became public.

A witness said Matt Brown, who was sworn in just three days ago, stripped down to his “very brief” underpants and danced to loud “Oxford Street-style” techno music on a green leather Chesterfield couch he had recently ordered for his office. The witness said Mr Brown “mounted the chest” of Wollongong MP Noreen Hay.

Three state and territory Labor governments are at the heart of the storms buffeting Australian politics. New South Wales’ economy is shrinking and last week its government imploded spectacularly. The Northern Territory Government mismanaged the crisis of child protection in indigenous communities that led to the federal intervention last year. And the West Australian Government is on the verge of losing office after an opportunistic and cynical election campaign.

The problem for the voters of Lyne is that the high profile of newly elected independent MP Rob Oakeshott will not necessarily translate into real political achievement. Not unless the government of the day becomes dependent on one or more independents to sustain its majority in the House of Representatives.

With the outcome of the Western Australian election in doubt and upheavals in New South Wales, the aftershocks of the weekend’s ruptures in the Labor Party will be felt in Canberra. But other parties also have their problems. From coast-to-coast Labor governments to coast-to-coast confusion has taken a mere 10 months.

New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees says he will not be raising taxes to fix the state’s economic woes, but has labelled government departments “absolutely ripe for reform”. Mr Rees’s new cabinet team will tomorrow be briefed on the grim economic outlook that has put the state’s triple-A credit rating at risk.

John Della Bosca’s return to the New South Wales Cabinet from exile ends a difficult three months under the threat of criminal charges over allegations that he and his wife, federal MP Belinda Neal, bullied staff at a Central Coast night club and then pressured witnesses to change their statements.

The restructured New South Wales cabinet was sworn in by Lieutenant-Governor Jim Spigelman, in a ceremony at Government House in Sydney. With six new ministers and significant changes to the portfolios of several others, the cabinet is a radical change to the line-up of former premier Morris Iemma.

This week saw big problems emerge for the Labor Party in New South Wales and Western Australia, while federally the Nationals shrank even further with the loss of Lyne. In the Senate, Steve Fielding voted down the luxury car tax increase, while in the United States, Sarah Palin has garnered an immediate and positive reaction.