New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian has tried to seize the narrative over the Allianz stadium knock-down, after a court lifted an injunction to allow the demolition to resume on Friday. The decision came at the end of a week in which the stadium fight came to dominate the campaign, thanks to a fiery display from Labor leader Michael Daley on Alan Jones’s breakfast show. On Tuesday, Daley told the presenter he would sack him and the rest of the government appointees on the SCG trust. “We need a new broom,” Daley said. “… thank you for your service”.

The $730m for the stadium rebuild is a relatively small amount of the state’s $87.2bn infrastructure budget, but on Friday Daley continued to portray it as “emblematic” of the government’s style and priorities: “They change their minds, they don’t do the planning. When the business case doesn’t stack up, they ignore it anyway. Communities aren’t consulted. Plans aren’t done.” It follows weeks of Labor hammering its “schools and hospitals, not stadiums” message.

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On Thursday, Berejiklian had evaded questions about when the demolition would begin but the next day, with images of bulldozers in the stadium on the front pages of several big newspapers, and major works about to begin, the government changed tack. It called a news conference and photo-op in a different stadium (Parramatta) and defended the project. “Of course Labor think it’s a choice between schools, hospitals or stadiums – because they were so incompetent they couldn’t manage the budget so they never had the opportunity to build like we have,” Berejiklian said in a statement.

She doubled down on that position during an ABC leaders’ debate on Friday night, refusing to pledge to halt construction for two weeks until the 23 March election.

“When the government says we’re going to build something on behalf of the community, we do it,” she said.

Leaders debate

Climate change, the long-delayed Sydney light rail project and the bush were also major topics discussed when Berejiklian and Daley faced off in the first leaders’ debate.

Daley notably made repeated pitches to the “salt of the earth, beautiful people in rural and regional NSW” during the exchange, which was hosted by ABC state political reporter Brigid Glanville. Labor has its eye on many of the vulnerable Nationals seats in the bush and on the coast, several of which sit on slim margins. “I’m from dairy stock,” Daley said, pledging to create a dairy and fresh food pricing advocate, and stating that anger over the stadium spend in “Sydney’s east” had created “white hot” anger elsewhere.

Responding to a viewer question about climate change, Daley quipped that he was from a party “that actually believed in climate change”, reiterated Labor’s pledges on renewable energy, and said he did not want to see any new coal-fired power stations in NSW.

Berejiklian did not answer when asked if she would rule out new coal-fired power stations, instead saying NSW was the “most resilient” state when it came to energy, was “home to the largest renewables projects”, and that “we need to make sure we secure our energy but also keep downward pressure on household prices”. She also said she was “hopeful” the delayed Sydney light rail would be up and running by year’s end.

The premier interjected far more often during the debate, repeatedly accusing Daley of misleading statements on the stadiums, budget and other policies: “That’s not the way you can attain the premiership of this state. People want you to be truthful.”

Key promises this week

The Coalition pledged a record $500m in additional capital works funding for private schools. The money will be used by Catholic and independent schools to upgrade facilities and classrooms.

Labor promised to employ an extra 4,900 health and hospital workers, including 1,500 paramedics and 2,240 allied health workers, cleaners and support staff.

The Coalition promised that construction of the new Metro West would be brought forward to 2020, with stations located at Westmead, Parramatta, Sydney Olympic Park, North Strathfield, Burwood North, Five Dock, the bays precinct and the city.

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Labor revealed their $500m early childhood package (jointly funded with federal Labor, if elected), which includes doubling the funding for three-year olds in community pre-school and a $292m fund to improve access across the state.

The Greens pledged to introduce bills to decriminalise abortion, and to amend the definition of consent in the Crimes Act to require “active, affirmative and ongoing sexual consent”.

Shooters score first position

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party was in luck at the NSW Electoral Commission’s ballot draw on Thursday, scoring the plum first position (Group A) on the upper house ballot. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was not so fortunate, drawing last, so will be located on the far right of the ballot paper (Group T).

Labor and the Coalition teams both drew in the middle of the pack (Groups J and K, respectively). Unfortunately for David Leyonhjelm, the Liberal Democrats drew a lower position (Group O) than the Liberal party. In the 2013 federal election, the party famously scored the number one position on the NSW Senate ballot paper and its vote went up dramatically compared the previous election, which some attributed to the the party’s name being so similar to the Liberals and appearing before the major party on the ballot. That election delivered Leyonhjelm to the Australian Senate – his path to the NSW upper house may be more difficult.

Flea bags festival scheme

The NSW government’s crackdown on music festivals was denounced as “bullshit” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers during an Australian performance last weekend. The band’s bassist Flea paused during their show to say: “Did they figure out that stupid shit in New South Wales yet? Trying to pass that law so it’s impossible to put on a concert? … Making it hard for people to go see live music, that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“That’s some bullshit,” singer Anthony Kiedis chimed in.

The government brought in a controversial new festival licensing scheme, targeting 14 “high risk” events, in response to a string of drug-related deaths last year. Five promoters have announced plans to launch a class action in response.

A spokeswoman for the government said it wanted “music festivals to thrive – but serious drug related illnesses and deaths have demonstrated that we need to help make a small number of festivals safer”.