We are seeing a inexperienced Government fall on it’s own Petard. NSW Premier was advised when he gained power he needed to be completely transparent to the people of NSW after their years of incompetent Labor rule, however, he chose to believe he had the mandate to do things as he wanted and now is facing the consequence. The measures they have come up with to drag back the budget excesses of the past make them look more like the Gillard regime than the Federal Government itself. The NSW Government needs to take heed of the level of unrest as they are throwing away a chance to draw NSW back from the depths of disaster under Labor at this point. They could introduce softer cutbacks to the budget, still recover the figures and spread the pain across the whole of the budget causing only discomfort for people in NSW rather than the pain families are experiencing under these heavy handed cuts. Make the cuts but at a smaller rate and across a large area, but most importantly spell out to the people how long this will need to occur and how it is helping NSW to bring the budget back to a healthy figure.
At present we are seeing school funding cuts, especially to schools in the Catholic school system that we were promised would not occur prior to the election, “Sound Familiar” No carbon tax – julia gillard . Families will suffer to keep students in school meaning they may need to relocate their children to the Public School system, causing pain to the children forced to leave their school and friends and more importantly putting a stress on the Public school system they are not capable of dealing with. It will cause class sizes of student numbers not seen before and mean inadequate opportunities for teachers to help any struggling students. there will be inadequate equipment and furniture at the schools, and will mean inadequate facilities all the time occurring at schools that had themselves suffered school funding cuts.
This of course will mean teachers unions will walk out in force and students and parents will be supporting them over this action.
The attack on Health through a $3 billion funding cut is a further sign of the inexperience of a Government and the sign of a Premier forgetting how he came into power. The run down Health system has been damaged by previous Government funding and then cast aside by the Federal Government, now it’s hopes are being dashed by funding cuts that leave us with comments from Health Minister Jillian Skinner who is prepared to push people out of hospital early to help achieve a $3 billion budget cut.
This is a Government that needs to learn we never got into this mess in a few years of mismanagement and they should not look at repairing the damage within a couple of years when at the expense of the people of NSW. If they either raise a tax slightly or introduce a levy for a year, or even 2 if they show the people the figures, transparency must be everything in this endeavour. They could reduce the budget across the range to a small amount that people would find manageable and still not harm the operational standing of these institutions in particular Schools and Hospitals.
Mr O’Farrell the time is now, it is time to take your destiny in your hands, before you end up as a one term Government, which will be YOUR fault. There are options, but you won’t or can’t listen to them and that will plunge NSW into years more abuse at the hands of a Labor Government, or your own party will dismiss you with a leader prepared to take a look at things calmly and explain to the people what needs doing and how it is planned to do it including an expected period this could occur. We need and we deserve a Government working with us rather than just wanting to look like they can manage.
Any comments would be gratefully acknowledged.
Kevin
NSW TEA
