School Transport subsidies

Nathan Rees has reversed the decision within Novembers Mini-Budget to charge parents part of the cost for shool transport.

The program to provide travel to school assistance is extremely important to many families that would otherwise struggle with these costs. Premier Rees has been accused of doing a backflip on the issue - and I am glad that he has. The Premier got it wrong on this one, but he has had the courage to acknowledge that he did.

Along with the proposed School Transport subsidy cuts, the Mini-Budget made a number of other poorly considered changes. While the buck stops with the Government, you need to ask who is advising the Premier? It seems that many of the Ministerial Advisers are young Labor Party members who are academically qualified but very short on life experience. Many of these advisers have done little other than work in politics and therefore seem to see everything in terms of spin. In this case, they have let the Premier down.

Congratulations to Nathan Rees for having the courage to reverse what was a ridiculous and indefensible decision.

Question Time

Nathan Rees has taken over as Premier of NSW at a very difficult time.  I have always thought that he was likely to rise to a senior position and quite possibly Premier, but not in the timeframe that happened.  Who would have predicted the fall of Iemma and Costa as well as the departure of John Watkins?  As well as having to deal with the problems and perceptions of such a long encumbancy, Nathan Rees also has to deal with the impact of the international financial meltdown.  That statement is not meant to excuse the Government for problems of their own making - it merely recognises that Rees will have a harder time correcting the mismanagement of the past Labor years.

The State Labor Government had become arrogant and seemingly out of touch with most of NSW. They had run down the state, particularly with some stupid policies of the Carr era, including Michael Egan's "brilliant" vendor tax on investment properties that meant that investors were hit at every opportunity.  This of course lead to an exodus of capital investment in housing from NSW to Victoria and Queensland in-particular - and we still haven't recovered!

It's interesting to see the members of Parliament in action and to get to know many of them personally. Generally they are like any mix of people, most of them very decent and nice people with some standouts for good and bad on both sides.  While they may well be nice people as individuals it is revealing to watch both Government and Opposition as they perform as a collective, the personality and culture of the Whole.  

I have noted quite flippantly that there seems to be a happy balance in the House, particularly demonstrated by Question Time.  The Opposition ask their questions knowing that they won't get a reasonable answer and that the opportunity will be used to attack them.  The Opposition appear to be masochists in this role balanced perfectly by the sadists and bullies of the Government.  Could this be fixed? Absolutely - start Question Time 1/2 hour earlier and use that 1/2 hour to allow for Ministerial Statements.  The rest of QT should be used only by the non-Government members with time limits (5 mins) on answers unless the Opposition agree to an extension.  We would then see QT being used to hold the Government to account and we would hopefully see more appropriate and respectful use of this time, maybe even improving the way in which parliamentarians are viewed by the public!

This of course has been going on for a long time, it's not unique to this Parliament.  The question is however is this the best way of running our democratic state or can we do much better?  As the Parliament is based on the Westminster system and makes seemingly very few concessions to modern decision making practice, I can only say yes, we could do much better.  These changes should include significant changes to not only the operation of the Parliament but also to the make up of the parliament.  

It was somewhat heartening to see earlier this year former premier Bob Carr raising this issue for debate.  He rightly pointed out that there have been significant changes in the State/Commonwealth relationship since Federation.  Some of these include shifts in responsibility away from the states in areas including health, education, industrial relations and taxation.  Bob Carr suggested reducing the number of Parliamentarians significantly and while there would be a need to address how elected representation was maintained, I think that it is something that should be explored.   The shape and function of the State is something that is achievable by the desire of the state and is much more likely to be achieved than other grander visions such as the removal of states.

First Post

I am the Independent Member for Lake Macquarie in the NSW Legislative Assembly and also the Mayor of the City of Lake Macquarie.  This is the first time I have used a blog and I intend to use it to add some detail and extra understanding of things that are happening in my political life and in my local community.