Wherever you turn today the Government of New South Wales is being hammered.
No consolation, I might add, for the Opposition which, as an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald says, it's dumbfounded that the Opposition's overall support is still not enough to assure it of victory in an election. But the editorial also refers to New South Wales people being "condemned to crisis management masquerading as Government until the next election".
Mind you, there's a case of getting what you deserve here. Prior to the last election it's clear voters did very little homework.
As always in these things, the leader cops the brunt of the criticism. And especially is this the case when his own vehicle was one of thousands brought to a five hour morning standstill yesterday by a computer fault in the M5 tunnel.
A case of welcome to Sydney, Premier.
Voters are facing this parking lot syndrome every day. But it's not a question, as some of the Government Ministers seem to be saying, of selling your message.
As the Telegraph says today, it would help if the message wasn't about the message. "This State is sick of spin. Spare us. In fact the only place we need spin is where we aren't getting it, among the static wheels of all those furious drivers".
But it's not selling the message. It's accepting that the message is crook.
Yesterday it was the traffic fiasco. The day before, bus drivers voted to boycott 50 million dollars worth of bendy buses because of brake failures. This comes six months after the Government recalled 300 Mercedes Benz buses with cracked steering rods. But as the Opposition says, concerns about the braking system in the bendy bus fleet were raised nine months ago.
The Government, far from selling the message, didn't get the message.
Then we learn that there's to be a boost in rail services to cut queues of people trying to get on trains. But again, as Gladys Berejiklian says, if this is meant to address massive overcrowding why were 416 daily train services slashed in 2005?
Two days ago it was the Spit Bridge. A malfunction kept the bridge up for more than two hours. Again the only message was to apologise. But the Government had promised to widen the bridge in 2002. But with population growth in the northern beaches up by over five per cent, there's no message for these people other than cop it.
I spoke yesterday about the nursery industry. Why is it okay to wash your home and your windows and your car and your trailer and your caravan, but you can only put water on your garden after four o'clock or before ten o'clock on Sunday and Wednesday, in the middle of winter?
So no garden means no nursery industry. Job losses have been huge. There's a message here from small business, family business. No one's even hearing the message.
A bloke with a massive stake in Beechwood Homes loses $72 million in a racing venture and the Government doesn't ask the bloke whether his Beechwood Homes is financially viable. That was almost three years ago.
Meanwhile unsuspecting home buyers are down the tube.
When the Government has the power under the Home Building Act to determine whether a holder of a contractor licence "meets the standards of financial solvency determined by the Director General". This bloke King should have been asked questions years ago. No message to him from Government. And no message to sell to the electorate.
Then the so-called Iguanagate.
If under a police investigation police don't have the powers to compel witnesses to make a statement, change the investigation. Put ICAC, hopeless though it might be, in charge because at least it can compel witnesses to make a statement. Why doesn't the Government get the message that the public want a proper investigation, not a shonky one?
Refusal to answer to ICAC is a criminal offence. The people want the truth.
And then we learn that a bloke with severe dental problems has pulled one of his own teeth out after waiting four years for dental treatment. He's been on a waiting list since 2004. You don't have to be a dentist to know that such a bloke needs urgent dental care.
But the Government doesn't get that message.
Public dental care is solely the responsibility of the State Government. But there are 159,000 people on dental waiting lists.
All of the above is just a snapshot of this week.
It's not a question of selling the message.
Unless the Government starts to listen, the only message they have to sell is one of rank inability to do the simple things the public want done.
