Wherever the new NSW Premier Nathan Rees turns he runs into dead ends. Rather amazingly, yesterday, he withdrew Morris Iemma's power privatisation bill from the Parliament. Someone's going to have to shortly answer the question as to where the money is going to come from.
There are ridiculous proposals being floated today on the transport front. A property tax on homes to be built near the North West metro. Selling metro carriages to the private sector.
Nathan Rees has got to be careful that he doesn't catch the Kevin Rudd disease: reviews, committees and investigations.
The reality is there's a billion dollar black hole.
On the one hand, stamp duty revenue is down and health costs are up, to say nothing about public sector salaries as the government has to settle with teachers, firefighters and nurses - to name a few - well above the current CPI.
The trouble is it's boy and the wolf stuff.
The record of Macquarie Street over the last ten years on transport is diabolical.
We were going to get a Bondi Beach rail link promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a high speed rail link to Newcastle and the Central Coast promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a Hurstville to Strathfield rail link promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a high speed rail link from Sutherland to Wollongong promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a Parramatta to Epping rail link promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a CBD new harbour crossing rail link promised in 2005, axed.
We were going to have a North West heavy rail link promised in 1998, axed.
We were going to have a Penrith fast rail link promised in 2007, axed.
Who therefore is going to believe any promise made by the Government in Macquarie Street?
The Shadow Transport Minister in New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian is doing an outstanding job nailing this record. She commented yesterday on the latest independent transport safety and reliability regulator's survey of CityRail customers.
If that doesn't steady the Government up, nothing will. Nathan Rees needs to read it.
They're all voters. 65 per cent of train commuters experienced overcrowding in peak hour. 55 per cent of commuters say overcrowding is the worst aspect of service. And yet this is the Government which slashed 416 daily services in September 2005.
This is a Government that's talking about charging commuters to park and ride, when this survey shows that commuters can't even find a park at their local station.
And 84 per cent of train users queued up for up to three minutes just to buy a ticket, according to this survey. 30 per cent of train users said they felt threatened while on a train or a station.
This is scandalous third world stuff.
And one final point in what is unbelievable transport chaos.
It was on again yesterday afternoon on the M5 East. I was returning from the airport. The traffic was bumper to bumper going nowhere leading into the tunnel, banked up to the Australian Golf Club, literally miles and miles of a parking lot.
There was an accident in the M5 East tunnel. As I've said often and I said when it was being built, a tunnel which was obsolete before it was opened.
The trouble is - the brain dead people who conceived a two lane tunnel in which cars nearly bump into one another, with no supporting infrastructure in the adjacent suburbs should anything go wrong, those brain dead people in the bureaucracy are still advising the Government on so-called transport solutions.
This stuff cannot go on.
Something has got to give.
