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.

Hard as Premier Morris Iemma will struggle to blame him for mugging state finances, New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell knows the public will blame Iemma, not him, for any dip in the state’s bottom line and consequent deterioration in services. After 13 years of Labor, they would be crazy to blame anyone else.

Mr Costa’s sacking ends the career of one of the most controversial and unusual figures in Australian politics - a former head of the New South Wales trade union movement who became an avowed economic rationalist and admirer of former US president Ronald Reagan.

New South wales Premier Morris Iemma was forced into a cabinet reshuffle after John Watkins’s surprise decision yesterday to quit politics. Ms Tebbutt, a former minister in the Carr and Iemma state governments, opted not to take on a cabinet portfolio after she retained her seat in last year’s election.

The prosecuting authorities yesterday found that there was insufficient evidence to support any criminal charges against the Member for Robertson and her husband, senior New South Wales Labor MP John Della Bosca, over an altercation at the NSW Central Coast restaurant Iguanas on June 6.

Deputy New South Wales Premier and Transport Minister John Watkins is quitting politics, Premier Morris Iemma announced today. Mr Watkins will retire from Parliament, forcing an immediate frontbench reshuffle and a by-election in the north-western Sydney electorate of Ryde.