Make no mistake about it - Nath Rees is an absolute shocker as Premier of NSW.
However, as in all things political, it is not the quality of the product that counts, but how it is perceived.
The latest Newspoll puts the 2 party preferred vote as: Labor - 47% (up from 44%) Coalition - 53% (down from 56%).
The scary thing is that on those figures, if maintained in the 2011 general election, the Rees government would possibly be returned to the treasury benches.
In the compulsive liar there is a kind of joyous masochism at work......It's that this person somehow enjoys the self-harm every bit as much as a masochist may enjoy the scald of the burning cigarette on their skin. It is the mortification they seek, the private paradoxical buzz of wounding oneself, taking control of the causes of pain, and then relishing the dreadful wait for the phone call, the knock at the door. .....If there's no all-seeing eye, no God, no conscience, and when it's in our interest to take the dishonest choice, when we can get away with it, when we can think of any number of rationalisations, when we actually enjoy the masochistic pleasure - what is standing between us and the lie? ,,,,,,I don't think urban Western pragmatists have fully worked this out. We are distressed and discomfited by an Einfeld, or the actions of the James Hardie directors, but not because we share the shame. Honour-driven cultures do share the shame; acts of dishonour tar everyone with the same brush. In the post-Enlightenment West we quarantine the liar but are shaken nonetheless, because these acts remind us that the creed of personal integrity is not yet strong enough to carry us to a world beyond the carrot and stick of honour and shame. In the Enlightenment, the West substituted law and justice, underpinned by personal integrity, for the old codes of honour and shame, but we remain anxious about whether we have quite built that bridge to the other side. We live in a pluralistic Australia and a pluralistic globe, in which honour-and-shame communities co-exist with the pragmatic children of the Enlightenment. We see them as barbaric, for the weight they place on honour. They see us as corrupt, with our misplaced faith in a secular, individual, relativistic idea of personal integrity. The Western world may believe it has shed the ancient codes of honour. But the Western world is not the Western world anymore. Cultures of honour and shame are marching through our doors every day, with all that they bring, and are our partners on the international stage. We dismiss or mock them at our peril. We have only one way forward - and that is backwards, into our own collective and individual histories, when we, too, were governed by codes of honour rather than the rule of law. Malcolm Knox , Reasons for honour in a godless society, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 2009
Some perceive that the ability to lie is a necessary tool for politicians.
Dr Sue Page, a failed federal election candidate said: “From a health background people are mostly honest… When you say ‘let’s get together and we are going to work to the betterment of this particular issue’, people come to the table with a genuine desire and are quite willing to put aside their own personal beliefs and be guided by the evidence,......I was not convinced that was the process in politics.” Andy Parks , Rural doctor loves her country practice, Northern Rivers Echo
LIES ???
A spokeperson for Health Minister John Della Bosca told the Northern Daily Leader that any of the $2million allocated for planning the Tamworth Hospital which was not spent by 30 June 2009 would be "rolled over" and available for spending in the 2009/2010 financial year. The spokesperson said: “No funds allocated to the project will be lost – they are rolled over – they are not returned to Treasury."
We know that in 2008 the NSW government deliberately went on a go slow in planning for the Tamworth Hospital. The Northern Daily Leader reports that $130,000 was spent on the Tamworth Health Service Plan (Clinical Services Plan). However, this money was spent out of the $2million allocated in the 2008 budget for "project definition plan and the service procurement plan."
The project definition plan and service procurement plan have not been commenced - and will not be commenced until July 2009 at the earliest.
The chief executive of Hunter New England Health Nigel Lyons told the Northern Daily Leader the unspent budget money would go back to the State Government. He said :
“In line with the process for any NSW capital works project, any allocated funds that have not been spent in that financial year (in this case $1.87 million) will be retained by the State Government to be spent in the next State Budget, This is standard practice.”
Who is one to believe ???
Planning Schedule
On 28 June 2008 then Premier, Morris Iemma told the parliament planning for the Tamworth Hospital was on track. He said:-
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: The $2 million allocated in the budget to commence the planning of a new Tamworth health campus is on track, is scheduled, and I can confirm for him construction will start in this term. The planning will involve three steps. The first step is the clinical services plan, which will determine the type of services that will be delivered from the hospital.
Mrs Jillian Skinner: You have one?
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Yes, you do a clinical services plan when you build a hospital. The next bit might surprise you as well: Step 2 involves the project definition plan, and what that is about is determining what type of facilities will be provided at the hospital, for example, the size of the intensive care unit, the size of the emergency department and the number of beds. So the first step is to determine what type of services will be provided from the hospital; the second is to define the type of facilities that will be provided at the hospital; and the third step in the planning phase is the project procurement plan, and that part of the planning determines how you procure the hospital and the actual structure of the hospital. What we are committed to doing in Tamworth is not just rebuilding the base hospital but a health campus because Tamworth is also an important teaching campus. What we will be doing is developing a health campus to service the needs of the community in Tamworth and I am happy to confirm for the member that construction will start in this term, and will keep him updated on progress in this very important project.
Given that the $2million allocated in the budget for planning the definition plan and the procurement plan, was not spent in the 2008/2009 financial year, one has to ask :-
Who was asleep at the wheel during 2008/09 with the result neither the definition plan or procurement plan were commenced as budgeted for ?
Prior Years Budget Allocations
In the 2006 budget $100,000 was granted for preliminary planning for the Tamworth Hospital. The Northern Daily Leader reports that this was meant to fund the Clinical Services Plan, which in fact was not commenced until late 2007, not completed until late 2008 and paid for out of the 2008 budget allocation.
Thus it is reasonable to assume that the $100,000 allocation in 2006 was no allocation at all - the money simply reverted to treasury in accordance with the procedure outlined by Nigel Lyons.
Who was asleep at the wheel during the period July 2006 - June 2007, when money for planning the Tamworth Hospital was not spent ?
Consequences ?
Clearly reference to budget allocations is not a proper yardstick for measuring performance. What is important is what actually happens on the ground with the allocated money.
The Iemma government claimed it's 2008 budget delivered record capital works spending.
Yet clearly, what was delivered in the Tamworth electorate was $2million less than that promised.
If this "failure to deliver allocated resources" is occurring not just in the Tamworth electorate, but right across the whole state, there is cause for serious concern.
As the editorial in the Northern Daily Leader says: Some government spends are just so good you have to announce them at least twice...
The Coalition has established a taskforce to drive through planning for redevelopment of Tamworth Hospital.
The taskforce will be led by Trevor Khan MLC and include inter alia the Shadow Minister for Finance Greg Pearce, the Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health Jenny Gardiner and local health spokesperson Anne Jacob.
It will report to Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell by May 2010.
Andrew Stoner MP in announcing the establishment of the taskforce said: "We want to develop a plan for Tamworth that solves the problems, has the support of the community and that we genuinely deliver in Government. People are not interested in the spin any more. Under successive Premiers and Health Ministers, politicians have repeatedly made promises that they haven't delivered on......The NSW Liberal/Nationals believe in putting people first. This means involving local communities in decision-making.......Anne Jacob will be the local community's representative on the Taskforce. As everyone in the local area knows, Anne has been a passionate advocate for better health services and infrastructure. The Taskforce will also be consulting with local health professionals. They understand the issues better than any politician or bureaucrat."
REGAINING PREMIER STATUS
Peter Holmes a Court maps out the method by which NSW can regain it's status as the "Premier State" in an article titled Let's make our state a winner once again, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 April 2009.
WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CURRAWONG ???
Kristina Keneally MP (Heffron) has rejected the application to redevelop Currawong by building 25 luxury houses.
We know that Unions NSW entered into a contract with developers to sell the Currawong property for $15million.
The first indications were that the contract was a conditional one, that is the contract would only proceed if development approval was granted to the proposed buyer and that a time limit for obtaining the development approval was to expire at the end of December 2007. However, the media in 2007 reported that then Unions NSW boss, now MLC, John Robertson, said the sale was "unconditional".
With the rejection of the development application, either one of 2 things has occurred: 1) The developer/buyer has been lumbered with a very expensive piece of real estate, which it cannot develop in the manner it hoped. Presumably the lands market value, without development consent, is substantially less than the $15million paid for it. 2) The developer has the right to pull out of the contract and receive a refund of its deposit, with Unions NSW being left holding a property it had hoped it had turned into $15million in cash.
With pressure mounting for the property to be placed on the Heritage Register and/or resumed for National Park, it will be interesting to see the "fancy footwork" that the NSW government takes to provide financial compensation to the owner of the property - whpever that might be.
Given the probability that NSW Labor will not be controlling the treasury after March 2011, the pressure will really be on to have a deal stitched up before then. It will be interesting to see how the Rees government reacts to that pressure.
The Jewish lobby have engaged in an undignified campaign to obtain ownership of a 13 page carbon typescript copy of Oskar Schindler’s list owned by the NSW State Library.
Norman Seligman of the Sydney Jewish Museum said: “The most appropriate place for such a document is a Holocaust museum, such as the Sydney Jewish Museum, where the document can be viewed in the right historical context.”
A Holocaust survivor told the Australian Jewish News: " Keneally made a lot of money from the film and book. He could have given [the list] to the Sydney Jewish Museum. It would have made more sense. "
However, Dr Olwen Pryke, who discovered the copy amongst six boxes of Tom Keneally’s manuscript material relating to his best-selling novel, Schindler’s Ark, which the State Library acquired from a private collector who in turn had acquired them from Keneally, said: “ The significance of the document lies in the fact that it inspired Tom Keneally’s novel, which really brought Schindler’s story to the world. As he’s a prominent NSW author, I believe the material does make sense here......It’s difficult for me to say, but we certainly have a history of loaning significant items to other institutions, and I can’t see why we wouldn’t be willing to loan this one also. ”
Perhaps the last word on this unedifying scramble for ownership of the document by the Jewish lobby should be left to these readers of the Australian Jewish News who commented:- Im inclined to think they will take good care of it. They already have very important works relating to Australia''s very beginnings. That being said, it would be good for the SJM to get an authentic looking copy for permanent display. and The most appropriate place for such a document is where it can be widely seen and understood. The State Library can hardly be accused of keeping it under wraps. Have you seen their homepage? see : Sydney Jewish Museum rues missing out on lost Schindler’s list, Australian Jewish News, 13 April 2009.
ETIQUETTE OR IGNORANCE
Maybe you have experienced that cringe like feeling that sweeps over one when witnesses a totally inappropriate comment or action. Sometimes the cringe is heightened by the knowledge that the person performing the action is ignorant, knows no better and is unaware of the appropriate etiquette. At other times the cringe is intensified because it is clear the actor is trying to pull a swifty, perhaps believing the audience is ignorant, knows no better and does not know the correct etiquette.
Way back in 2004, on 11 May, Peter Draper MP (Tamworth) issued a media release about recent renovations carried out to the Gunnedah Police Station. In the media release titled Gunnedah Police Station left off the list, he spoke of the $400,000 renovations to the custody management area and concluded by saying:- " I have also invited Mr Watkins [the then Police Minister] to officially open the completed renovations and to inspect the condition of the remainder of the building,”