THE current state government is building an unenviable reputation for making grand announcements and blundering in the execution.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And if it thought that the end of its annus horribilis – 2017 – would bring a change of policy fortune, then the first week of 2018 suggests otherwise.
Over the past 12 months this government has lost a premier and a deputy, and seen key policies in the council amalgamations and greyhounds ban either brutally dismantled or abandoned completely.
The only good news for new Premier Gladys Berejiklian was that those debacles had been put to rest a good two years out from the next state election in March 2019, allowing her time to forge a new reputation of her own.
And then Return And Earn came along.
The container recycling scheme was widely hailed when first announced and widely anticipated as the launch date on December 1 drew nearer.
The first signs of trouble appeared in the month before the launch as people started paying extra for the recyclable containers even as most towns and cities in regional NSW remained without a recycling facility.
Dozens of reverse vending machines were then rolled out in a rush in the weeks between December 1 and Christmas as a flurry of press releases from the Environment Minister’s office hailed the whole scheme a great success.
But the minister and the government, are fooling no-one.
No it is not the cities without reverse vending machines that are complaining most loudly but, rather, those that do.
Because the reverse vending machines have brought problems of their own, including huge piles of rubbish left by people whose containers aren’t compatible with the machines.
At the same time, operators who have agreed to host the vending machines feel they have been let down by the government and left to cop the flak for a poorly delivered scheme.
But how did we get here?
Unlike the amalgamations and greyhounds ban which both drew strident criticism from the start, the Return And Earn was (originally) widely applauded.
In this case it has not been the policy that has been the problem but, rather, the process. And it is simply another ghost to haunt the government as we count down to next year’s election.
