PLACING THE BLAME
John Ernst does realise the LNP have been in power in State parliament for the past 6 years doesn't he.? If Gladys and her party were worried about the state of our hospitals, they wouldn't be in the state they are in now. The proof will be in the pudding once Labor are re-elected at the forthcoming election. There will be no backflips by any of our local Labor representatives. Unlike the LNP. Gareth Ward, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Illawarra, has been adamant the lifts at Unanderra were never going to be installed, and even agreed when other stations further down the list were bumped up ahead of Unanderra. Then low and behold, he had a change of heart.
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Mr Ernst, don't blame Paul Scully for the problems in Wollongong hospital. The problems in the hospital and everywhere else in the Illawarra sit fair and squarely on the shoulders of the LNP. If you don't have staff to patient ratio, of course the hospital won't run smoothly. We are still waiting for the Thoracic Surgeon we were promised four or five years ago?
Alice Scott, Berkeley
A VOTER'S DILEMMA
The state government recently announced they were planning to refurbish 170 railway stations. Why? To modify the platforms to accommodate the new trains on order from overseas. This adds about another $1trillion to the cost. An order, that has already cost the NSW economy over $2trillion, over 1000 direct and indirect jobs, about 200-300 apprenticeships in manufacturing and related trades. With the reduction in apprenticeships they are closing TAFE due to falling demand. Then they took out a 99 year mortgaged on the poles and wires, arguing it was worth more than the regulator considered a fair value in setting rates. To add insult to injury they then made the people of NSW pay the loan back with increased interest after already hiking rates by about 20 per cent. Then they spent the money on old technology by building more roads to get more people into the Sydney CBD, whilst the modern cities of the world are using the fibre optics to relocate business out of the crowed cities to regional and in some cases Greenfield sites. The result is high travel costs for commuters with additional tolls, greater fuel costs, higher house prices and significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions, to the detriment of the people of the Sydney basin and global warming, and lower job opportunities in regional and country areas.
They turned the desalination plant on adding more costs to families, instead of introducing water restrictions. Whilst giving poor considerations to the needs for water for the areas outside Sydney Water area. Sydney pumps out billions of gigalitres of treated water per day into the ocean only to bring it back through the desalination plant. If the Government wanted to drill tunnels, it could have driven a tunnel through the Blue Mountains and discharged the water into the Darling River catchment. Then the Government is spending trillions on refurbishment of 30 year old stadiums to ensure Sydney has a number of stadiums for international events whilst the rest of NSW has none. Will a new government do better? Only if they can reduce the cost of living in an era of wage stagnation. The promises of both the federal and state politicians on both sides of politics indicates this is not an option. So who do I vote for?
Ian Young, Towradgi
