It started in 2011 as the O'Farrell-Baird show. Mike Baird as treasurer did a good job and built enough of a profile that when he rose to Premier it was basically a one-man band. His transport minister then treasurer Gladys Berejiklian did well too, although her public profile was subdued.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Now the state's voters have an even more mysterious double act: Ms Berejiklian as leader alongside right-wing quid pro quo Liberal deputy Dominic Perrottet.
Having toiled away in the backrooms of Finance for a few years, Mr Perrotet has served his apprenticeship and will be the face of the NSW economy as Treasurer.
But add in the relatively unknown freshman Nationals leader John Barilaro, and it's a Neville Nobody leadership trio to most NSW voters.
Throw in the absence of old guarders there since 2011 – Mr Baird, Jillian Skinner, Duncan Gay and especially the much-respected Adrian Piccoli – and the nation's key state suddenly has a second-term government on trainer wheels.
Ironically, Labor's Luke Foley is starting to look like the experienced leader of a stable alternative government.
With Pauline Hanson and minor parties threatening to wreak havoc on the Coalition just as the Shooters Fishers and Farmers did in the Orange byelection last November, the line-up Ms Berejiklian announced in Queanbeyan on Sunday placates the Nationals.
It hands them more control of portfolios which affect regional areas where economic growth has lagged Sydney.
But the ministry includes risky picks in the areas where Mr Baird was vulnerable: where his successor has to break from the past and perform better before the March 2019 election.
Former attorney-general Gabrielle Upton in particular takes the hospital pass of local government from Paul Toole. Mergers remain poorly explained, open to legal challenge and electoral lightning rods for independent and Hanson-like rivals. Protests against amalgamations marred the cabinet announcement.
Ms Berejiklian has the potential to be a talented leader. The risk is that she will be more focused on the views of shock jocks rather than doing what she knows is right.
The first test will come within weeks at a byelection to replace Ms Skinner in her electorate of North Shore. The final verdict will come in barely two years.