Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Thursday 17 April 2014
He's compassionate towards asylum seekers but opposed to same-sex marriage, Baird came to politics clean as a whistle, but there are a few things that may end up stalking him
NSW premier elect Mike Baird with his wife and three children. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/AAP Image
He was the 17-year-old boy who prayed for his sobbing best friend to commit his faith to God. The investment banker who took a pay cut estimated to be well into six figures to pursue public life. The treasurer who accidentally delivered a $337m deficit when the figures actually added up to a $680m surplus.
Last week Mike Baird was seen as a possible premier. But maybe in a few terms. It was speculation Baird had actively hosed down since winning the seat of Manly in 2007, but on Thursday afternoon he emerged from a shell-shocked party room as leader of the state.
There are reams of newspaper stories devoted to Baird’s progress as treasurer, as he won respect wrangling with Australia’s biggest state budget. But far less attention has been paid to Baird the man – he has granted few personal interviews.
We know he is a devout Christian, although he does not publicly discuss his faith much. He has blond-haired, blue-eyed choirboy looks. He has a devotion to exercise matched in political circles perhaps only by his occasional surfing buddy Tony Abbott. He is 46, married when he was 21, has three children, a high-profile sister and is the son of former NSW minister and Howard-era Liberal MP Bruce Baird.
In an interview he gave to the Sunday Telegraph in 2012 Baird spoke about the contribution politicians can make.
"I haven't set a timeframe in mind, but my sense is that while I can make a contribution I am very keen to do so. I count it as an unbelievable privilege to be in this position, and while I can contribute I will,” he said.
Politically, treasurer Baird has shown himself to be fiscally conservative. He has seen tens of thousands of public service jobs go.
As premier he can be expected to stick to the road of less spending. There is a distinct possibility NSW may see its electricity poles and wires sold off. Baird is one of the most well-known supporters of the full privatisation of the distribution and generation network, despite publicly supporting the government’s position of retaining the state assets.
The departing Barry O’Farrell is seen as one of the most moderate Liberal leaders in the country and Baird certainly will not be filling those shoes. He has favour on the left but on social issues his voting record has been quite conservative.
He voted against allowing same-sex couples to adopt in 2010, opposed a stem cell research bill and was one of the members of the legislative assembly to vote in favour of “Zoe’s law”, which opponents have seen as a threat to abortion laws in NSW. However, it is worth noting that O’Farrell also voted for Zoe’s law, which, if it passes the upper house, will give the foetus personhood.
Like his father, Baird criticised Australia’s asylum seeker policies and advocates for a more compassionate approach, but his opposition to same-sex marriage is on the record.
He told Fairfax he was not interested in legislating his faith, but on his opposition to same-sex marriage he said: "I don't in any way see that as a degradation or a reduction in rights for those who are choosing to live a homosexual lifestyle. But for me, marriage [is] a man and a woman and I think that preserving that, and the legacy and history of that, is important."
Baird’s spiritual journey has been a bit more complicated and much more intense than most. In the same Fairfax profile Baird’s best friend from the exclusive King’s College, Andrew Clucas, recalls “bawling his eyes out” in a cabin on a school camp as Baird prayed his prayer of commitment for him.
Baird studied at a Bible college in Vancouver to become an Anglican church minister and though he cut the course short, he spent much of his time praying over his decision to try to enter politics and remains devout.
Born in 1968 in Melbourne, Baird spent some of his formative years living in New York where his father was Australian trade commissioner before moving to Sydney as a teenager. He worked his way up in the banking world after graduating from the University of Sydney with a degree in economics, and by the time he won the seat of Manly he had done a stint in Hong Kong working for HSBC.
To say the battle for Manly was bitter is to put it mildly. At one point Baird’s fight for preselection against Michael Darby (expelled from the party the following year) got so dirty Baird considered walking away.
He later spoke of “some ugly moments, including people turning up at preselectors' houses in dark suits in the middle of the night”. Baird’s opponents were going for the jugular, but the worst dirt that they could dig up on him? That he had possibly inflated the importance of his role at HSBC. (Not only lame dirt, but rejected by Baird.)
He came to politics clean as a whistle, but after six years in the bear pit nobody is unscathed, and certainly not a treasurer tasked with delivering the harshest budgets seen in decades. There are a few things that may stalk premier Baird.
In 2012 he delivered a budget which had $1bn worth of mistakes and miscalculations in it. He announced a $337m deficit when in fact the numbers added up to a surplus of $680m. He weakly defended it at the time, saying “I will take every action possible to make sure they [the mistakes] are minimised going forward.”
Embarrassing, but not fatal. And Baird is helped by the fact Labor delivered a budget with $800m worth of miscalculations just three years before.
The most glaring possible stain on Baird’s premiership is his connection to Nick Di Girolamo, the man who brought down a premier by sending him a bottle of wine.
Di Girolamo, the former chief executive of Australian Water Holdings (AWH), lobbied successive premiers for a private-public partnership worth about $1bn which would have made the Obeid family as well as Arthur Sinodinos millions of dollars via their interests in AWH.
Baird oversaw Di Girolamo’s appointment to State Water Corporation in 2011, soon after taking government.
At the moment it seems like a bad look but a trivial fact. Not unlike a bottle of 1959 Penfolds Grange.
