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October 18, 2008
It would appear that the dysfunctional Rees Government in NSW is going to suffer some body blows from voters wielding baseball bats in the byelections in the safe seats of Cabramatta, Lakemba and Ryde. Huge swings are expected.
And why not.This is an incompetent corrupt state government that does not deserve to be in power. An example. As the Sydney Morning Herald says:
Supplies are so scarce at Dubbo Base Hospital that it is borrowing bandages from the local vet...Just three weeks ago, a doctor had to use $770 of his own money to buy reagent for urgent blood tests because the hospital had run out of credit with the supplier, while endoscopies have had to be rescheduled for lack of sterilisation fluid. There are also routine shortages of such basics as surgical gloves and garbage bags. This would not be acceptable in a clinic in a remote corner of a Third World country, let alone at a 134-bed teaching hospital in a major regional centre of NSW.
The reason for the lack of supplies is that NSW Health does not pay the bills. This is not an isolated case. The Herald says that tens of millions of dollars are currently outstanding to suppliers from half of the state's area health services: Greater Western (covering Dubbo), Northern Sydney/Central Coast, South Eastern Sydney/Illawarra and Greater Southern. Patient safety is compromised by a refusal to pay bills by the NSW Health Department since many suppliers now refuse to grant credit to NSW hospitals.
NSW Health refuses to reveal how much it owes. It's crisis management response is to gag its area health services. Presumably NSW Health has no money or it is incompetent. Either way the NSW Government deserves to be thrown from office.
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Gary,
I've read that the NSW Government has written off Ryde, the seat held by former deputy premier John Watkins, which is on a margin of more than 10%.
So the swings are expected to be greater than 10%. The Labor brand is in real trouble in Sydney.