Opinion

Wasted Space: The government is the problem

Wasted Space

Dear Sir, The government! Ah, yes, our overlords – those in the know. Those that hold the purse strings. They who are above us mere mortals. Those who are an easy target.

The Westminster System that we adhere to in the Motherland has its quirks – both positive and negative. The first past the post system is one that lends itself to a two-party state (although the masses are onto them aren’t they, with a plethora of parties now appearing on the backbenches having their say).

Then you have the preferential system down here in this Great Southern Land. To me, it’s a mess. But our cousins in the Antipodes love it. Spreads the love and allows many voices to be heard in the echo chamber of Parliament House in Canberra.

Me? I’m pretty agnostic about any political system. It is there to do a job. What catches my eye are the parliamentarians. Are they doing their job? What is their agenda (outside of their obvious political affiliation)? Are they there to serve themselves or their people?

I talk of this because of a couple of recent pieces I read online from the local mouthpiece of the waste industry. One was titled Industry needs to lead the way – government won’t. To be fair the author did point out that governments do have to take in the wider public opinion, but that doesn’t mean they stay static. And that was one of the key planks of the piece. Government(s) are doing plenty of surveys, reports and papers – but very little action.

The other piece was titled NSW Government Taking Action on Landfills. Really? They are? Talk about being a pound short and a day late, Old Boy. The piece waxed lyrical how NSW would run out of landfills in the next 10 years and that everybody – the government, public and environmental groups – needed to get together to find solutions or the costs would be dear for households and businesses. Really? The industry has only been saying this, for, oh, forever!

I don’t think governments realise how engaged the industry is. This isn’t a bunch of ne’er-do-wellers sitting around doing nothing. They are a passionate rabble attempting to make a huge difference in a trying industry.

Governments need to start being part of the solution. Not the problem.

Yours JB

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