When will they just go?

[clarence]

i disagree with auburn on a couple of points, and none of that stuff would get past the first stage of feasibility studies before the term's up.

This is precisely what a lot of the problem IS with NSW at the moment.

Someone gets a great idea, the people think it's pretty nifty.

Then a lot of money is spent paying public servants, bureaucrats & Labor pinkos, with feasibility studies, environmental studies, committee meetings and tenders back & forth, before they finally realise they've just blown the project out by 100% (due to  having for pay for all this plus offices, staff etc. to do all this so called 'work') and it's no longer viable!

Sure we have to consider the environment.

But a lot of times, a project is screaming to be done and somewhere, somehow, when it goes to committee or it goes to a public comment stage, there's some fricking nimbie 'community' group that springs up and says no it's not going to work because of .......'x'. The media don't help at all, they'll gladly put these groups on page 1 and generate enough public outcry.

And so, the project has to figure out a way of quieting the group down, and possibly taking into account any valid concern they may have. They appoint a sub group to look at the  concerns and the cost of staffing and looking into the concerns causes another blowout.

Often an engineering solution will be found but it may cause problems further down the track with the project.

Look at the M5. It has horrible air filtration systems, often the smog inside the tunnel is damn near dangerous. A lot of this was caused because the residents in the St. Peters, Tempe areas wanted no smokestack near them. Forget about the fact they had lived right next to an industrial area for decades. Forget about the fact they are in inner city and the smog is already worse than out in the suburbs. But they did an impact study held up the project, tried to satisfy these activists and in the end, you have an inferior filtration system.

Same goes for the Lane Cove Tunnel. That project was supposed to go ahead years ago.

In fact people like Kerry Chikarovski (she was local State MP at the time AND Liberal Opposition Leader) were screaming for it, to take congestion off Lane Cove Rd. Eventually they get around to doing it, and everyone is now whingeing about the constraints of the project, a fair bit of which would be the concerns of the local residents having to be taken into account, irrespective of the outcome affecting the way traffic flows into the Tunnnel or not.

I'm all for the public having a say, but often the opposition to projects that Sydney or NSW have needed is very political and trivial, and some of that could have been easily quietened down if the Govt. of the day weren't worried about losing 3 seats or the like at the next election in that area.

 

[Redline]

The state government offers nothing to the public. THe opposition do nothing either...except say "Premier Rees has promised this and hasn't delivered". They don't offer their own alternative.

I disagree with privatising ANY public service...whether it be electricity, or any transport, I'm not a fan of private schools....they're often elitist and they suck the funding out of the public system. Privatisation is a loss of income for the Govt...how do you thikn they'll recoup that lost income....TAXES! Rates, tolls, all sort of other taxes.

 

[David Votoupal]

We have arguably the worst public transit system in the First World, and one even Third World countries would be ashamed of. The buses are better though.

When I went up to Brisbane, I was amazed by how so much better the trains up there were... it's a disgrace we can't do the same here.

 

[Jesus]

All the things people give nsw labor shit for, are the thing liberals do not wish to provide at all.
eg trains, buses, hospitals. All of these were given the shunt by horard, and any liberal government will continue to takle money from these things.

Unfortunately there is no 3rd option.

That said is 2 years til the election, maybe they will turn it round by then. I expect rudd will be spending most of the federal funds in nsw, as is the right of the largest state.

Agree entirely on daming the AAA rating. At the moment the libs hammer them on it because they know if the govt spends the cash it is very likely to in the next 2 years, they can do a reasonable job.

And all economists will tell you a recession is the best time for a government to spend and borrow to stimulate growth. Pay the loans back when the going is good.