Berejiklian likely to be next NSW Premier
Senior Liberals say NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian, in line to replace Mike Baird as the new NSW Premier after a partyroom vote next week, has all the right elements to be a good premier but is missing one key ingredient - a public profile.
A NSW Liberal source said a deal was in the works to install the more moderate Ms Berejiklian as Premier and Finance Minister Dominic Perrottet as deputy and treasurer representing the more conservative wing.
Of Armenian decent, the 46-year-old is a former Commonwealth Bank retail banking executive and served as transport minister under former Premier Barry O'Farrell before becoming Treasurer after Mike Baird took over and won the 2015 election.
Former NSW Liberal Opposition Leader Peter Debnam said in terms of abilities and smarts she was "at the top of people who should be premier".
"I put her in the transport portfolio 11 years ago, she immediately took to it, and I suppose she surprised a lot of people at how well she did in that major portfolio and from there she's gone from strength to strength," Mr Debnam told The Australian Financial Review.
Another prominent NSW Liberal, former prime minister Tony Abbott's sister, Christine Forster, also said Ms Berejiklian was hard working and effective.
"I understand Gladys is the favourite in the betting...Gladys would do an outstanding job. She has been a terrific Treasurer, she is extraordinarily hard-working and dedicated," she told the ABC.
A senior NSW Liberal said she was the right choice as she was phenomenally hard working, had strong partyroom support, in a safe seat and had much experience as a minister.
But the source said her weakness was her low public profile and one major challenge she would have would be building that profile as NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley could not be underestimated.
Mr Debnam said this would work out in the wash. "The trouble with state politics is people mostly know the leader of the party. If she becomes premier then the whole state focuses on her so it happens naturally," he said.
Peter Collins, who was the NSW Liberal Opposition Leader in the 1990s, said he agreed she was the frontrunner.
"She's ticked every box...I would put my money on my successor in the seat of Willoughby, Gladys," he said.
Ms Berejiklian has taken the more progressive stance in parliamentary votes on same-sex adoption, stem cell research and an injecting room in Kings Cross.
She controversially chose not to speak next to a Turkish organisation that refuses to use the word "genocide" to describe the 1915 events in Armenia.
Her grandparents are survivors of the genocide. Her parents, Krikor and Arsha worked as a welder and a nurse respectively when they came to Australia from Jerusalem and Syria in the 1960s and she went to North Ryde High School along with her younger sisters, Rita and Mary.
She is close to former treasurer Joe Hockey and Mr O'Farrell has previously backed her as a leadership contender. She has also worked for Defence Minister Senator Marise Payne and thanked former federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson for being a mentor in her first speech to parliament.
In the same speech Ms Berejiklian thanked her constituents for voting for her even if they couldn't pronounce her surname (it's "Ber-a-jik-lee-en"), but it was Mr O'Farrell who made her 'Gladys'.
Back in 2011, she went viral when she was on an election panel with the ABC's Kerry O'Brien. The Victor, Mr O'Farrell, refused to speak to Mr O'Brien and insisted "I'm only going to talk to Gladys", inspiring internet havoc, t-shirts and spoofs.
