Article: Just leave us alone

[ozbob]

Interesting opinion piece ..

From the Courier Mail click here!

Just leave us alone

Just leave us alone
Article from: The Courier-Mail

Craig Johnstone

February 17, 2010 11:00pm

THE late US president Ronald Reagan is credited with describing the nine most terrifying words in the English language: ``I'm from the government and I'm here to help.''

It might do the floundering, po-faced Bligh Government some good to learn from the famous Reagan brand of political salesmanship, namely the value of a sense of humour.

Not only that, the Government could do worse than heed the warning contained in Reagan's wisecrack: that government does not always have the right answers; that the private sector might not have the right answer either; and that sometimes the best thing it can do is let people just get on with their lives.

Those in Labor who have the task of discerning why Anna Bligh is tanking in the opinion polls (the Galaxy poll has her satisfaction rating at 28 per cent) should get out a blank sheet of paper and start listing the ways in which this Government has forced changes to the way Queenslanders go about their daily existence.

It used to be good enough to receive a power bill from a public utility every quarter. Now we're told we must choose our electricity retailer and pay extra for the privilege of having a new, competitive market.

Once, water came out of the tap and you paid for it with your quarterly rates bill. Now, thanks to those helpful folk in government, water use is restricted, people who don't have rainwater tanks feel guilty about it and everyone is being told they must pay a separate bill for their town water use.

Commuting to work? Then: get on the bus, pay the driver, he gives change, get off the bus at your stop. Now: get to a go card outlet (if you can find one), pay $20 for the privilege, get on the internet and register the card, get on the bus, swipe card on, get off bus at your stop, but only after remembering to swipe card off or pay a penalty.

Granted, a journey on a toll road was a bit of a chore, fumbling for coins before dropping them in a bucket or giving them to an attendant. Now, it's e-tolling with a transponder.

So much simpler, we are told. But it isn't really. Daily life may be an expanding and ever more profitable source of revenue for private enterprise, but for the poor sods who go about it, it is much more complicated and dysfunctional than it was 10, even five, years ago.

And much of it can be put down to decisions taken by this Government.

We knew what to do before. Now we are told by those helpful people in government that there is a better way.

Better for whom? Each time it takes away the familiar rituals of getting to work, watering the garden, even paying the bills, the Government is doing the administrative equivalent of barging through the front door without asking to come in first.

That it is doing so while preaching that change is for the overall good of the state only makes it worse, because following right behind is usually a private company anxious to take all the bother of providing a community service out of government's hands and make a squillion in the process.

This replacement of predictability in the task of daily living with increased complexity is happening all over the developed world.

Academics have dubbed it ''splintering urbanism'', because it holds residents hostage to the increasingly complex public infrastructure around them and those who manage that infrastructure.

For a taste of what splintering urbanism can produce, hark back to the electricity crisis in 2004 when whole swathes of Brisbane were blacked out due to an administration that at the time seemed more interested in sporting sponsorships than maintaining a viable power network.

In its worst form splintering urbanism leads to enclaves of elites who can afford to make the choices foisted upon them and outposts of poverty for people without the economic, social or technological means to indulge in choice.

Queensland is nowhere near that scenario but with an extra two million people expected to make the southeast corner of the state their home in the next 20 years, the way government goes about its role of trying to enhance the state's fortunes is going to make all the difference.

So what does that mean for Ms 28 Per Cent? Perhaps more than token acknowledgment that with the power to guide the state's economic progress comes the responsibility to ease the pain that such progress produces in the community.

Premier Bligh: less Treasury-influenced huckster, more West End-influenced stick-in-the-mud?
Now that would be amusing to see.