Smithson: Libs AI debacle as Kouts lands Treasury driver’s seat
Political veteran Mike Smithson takes a look at a tumultuous week in state politics, raking up stories of old traffic fines, dodgy documents and a shock Cabinet reshuffle.
Whether a political land mine or a simple trip wire, the state Liberals have a historic way of tossing a grenade in their own direction.
Star recruit Frank Pangallo has become the latest soldier to suffer a self-inflicted wound in the trenches, but his lesson is one from which we can all learn.
His reliance on Artificial Intelligence to do the work for him is understandable, but not the sensible way to push a rigid political agenda.
Pangallo can take some salvation that his mistake was far more forgivable than a past major Liberal parliamentary blunder dating back to 2009, when one of the great ‘gotcha moments’ left the party dismally embarrassed.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, Frank’s faux pas was dramatically publicised by Leader of Government Business Tom Koutsantonis, just before he was drafted back into the Treasury ranks in last week’s cabinet shakeup.
Pangallo had relied on AI to prosecute a theory of linking the desalination plant to our algal bloom crisis.
One of the state’s foremost marine experts, Professor Mike Steer, blew that theory out of the water claiming there was no scientific relationship between the two.
Frank had persisted with it being evidentiary rather than a “fantastical conspiracy theory”.
But when exposed, Frank’s argument sank like a rock among invalid links, incorrect dates, study titles and a misattributed author.
Pangallo referred to it as an administrative error, but his leader told the rest of us that he expected better of Frank.
The political dagger was plunged even further when Education Minister Blair Boyer told parliament that certain primary school students were taking part in an AI program called Newshounds.
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“It teaches our youngest learners to distinguish fact from fiction and to stop, think and check before believing everything they see, read or hear,” he explained.
“I think we can all agree in this place, particularly this week, that this is not an optional skill set in today’s world.”
No subtlety, equivocation or misinterpreting who was in his sights.
So, let’s turn the clock back to the infamous ‘09 “dodgy documents” affair.
It has similar tones of a desperate Liberal Party wanting to bring down a Labor government on the fly.
Then Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith tried to use leaked documents which he claimed showed the Church of Scientology had donated to the Labor Party, with an implication of some favours in exchange.
Dynamite if true, but the documents were a total fabrication, with little-to-no fact checking done.
Liberal apologies soon started flowing to avoid being sued.
These days only Koutsantonis, half a dozen other MPs, a few media minders and I are still around parliament and can clearly remember the events of that fateful day.
The Liberal’s misstep couldn’t have been worse because they had an enemy scalp pending anyway.
Koutsantonis had confessed to a string of driving infringement fines which was a bit rich coming from the Road Safety Minister.
I’d dropped into the office of then-Premier Mike Rann for a quick chat, but he was not in the mood, as they say.
He politely informed me that he’d be seeing me later in the day, presumably to put the brakes on Kouts’ ministerial career going forward.
Twenty minutes later in Question Time the dodgy document debacle started and one look at Rann’s face from the press gallery told me that the Libs were flying blind on a fictitious and fruitless line of attack.
Soon after Koutsantonis resigned from that ministry, but in his own time and space.
The origins of the fake documents have never been established but made for the ultimate political diversion.
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Pangallo has now produced papers which he says support his case, but the short-term reputational damage is done.
Over the weekend he produced a ‘laugh-it-off’ social media video purporting to have found SA’s best sausage roll in his electorate using AI.
Always the showman.
It’s hard to believe the tragic Optus triple zero bungle and two ministerial resignations also squeezed their way into last week’s political agenda.
These real-time events add to the complexities of running government and may help explain why it takes every ounce of energy to the lead the state through thick and thin.
Koutsantonis, once again, has his foot on the accelerator straight back into the Treasurer’s driver’s seat.
He may be secretly saying to outgoing money man Stephen Mullighan that he’s been handed a fast car without a fiscally stable steering wheel.
Sadly, for some, his attack dog reputation may be muzzled in his returning role to Treasurer as, traditionally, that portfolio carries a more subdued and measured approach.
Susan Close has also chucked it in after a long career where her cheerful calmness under pressure has always been a hallmark.
Lucy Hood and Rhiannon Pearce have been elevated to the ministry with Nadia Clancy also being promoted to assistant minister.
Whilst the Premier was bitterly disappointed at losing two proven veterans only six months from the election, he has the luxury of a traditional Labor script to read from.
Succession, mentoring, nurturing and elevation are all standard procedures in his camp.
No damage is done, other than to the Malinauskas’ persuasion skills in failing to keep his original cabinet team together.
But the faint hope for the Liberals and the louder warning to Labor is that if anyone else jumps ship before next March, the alarm bells will start ringing that all is not what it seems in the Mali battalion.
Mike Smithson is weekend presenter and political analyst for 7News.
