To me, $200k doesn’t sound a particularly big amount for design and approvals, especially since (IIRC) Newtown Station is a heritage building and there’s so many players involved. With corporate or government work, it’s usually the case that for every hour of “productive work” there’s 3 or 4 hours of people discussing whether the work has been done.

What I don’t understand is the simple series of facts that government buildings have been required by law to have wheelchair access since the 1980s, and the station is a government building — so why wasn’t this all sorted out two decades ago?

cheers,
rae

The “personality politics” of equating friendliness with leadership potential is indeed “superficial”, but that’s the reality of the political environment. If a candidate wants to get elected, they need to work within that reality — and that means projecting an engaging, friendly personality.

Fiona’s challenge is that acting ethically, working hard and being motivated by ethical desires rather than a lust for power is all well and good — but it doesn’t get you elected. And you don’t get to “make a difference” until you are elected.

I see this as a problem with “the left” in general, and it’s similar to the point made in that anti-NeoCon bible, George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant: those on the left are completely busy being nice people and helping the underdog to get around to deploying a long-term strategy which will actually let them win.

(You can get the gist of Lakoff’s arguments without forking out $22 on a very small, repetitive book by downloading the free sampler.)

Some interesting points you raise there, too, and some of them I’ll follow up… thanks.

As for the evening itself, it was promoted by the Neighbourhood Centre, not the political parties. Given the weight of topics discussed it was perhaps too polite, but if being polite is a fault then that’s Fiona.

The night was notable perhaps for Carmel Tebbutt using figures or bureaucracy to not answer any topic of real concern. For example, the Labor Party has announced a “scoping study” into the need for a lift at Newtown Station. That a lift is needed at Newtown and many other local stations is blindingly obvious, and yet no money has been committed to building at Newtown or elsewhere.

A question was asked about developer donations to political parties. Ms Tebbutt’s response was not to engage with the ethics of this but to merely say she would follow the rules set out be her Government. Reassuring?

That is of course that the Labor Party and the Liberals will continue to take large sums of money from those with vested interests in everything from Harbour views to high rise development. Lovely stuff.

Ms Tebbutt it seems is also in favour of the desalination plant, or bottled electricity as former Premier Bob Carr correctly called it. Ms Tebbutt also obfuscated on same sex marriage, child care, train timetables and indeed most other things.

That Ms Tebbutt can take a brief is not in doubt. That she is not prepared to offer even the mildest criticism or apology for the many gross failures of the Government of which she is part was maybe not a surprise, but it doesn’t fill me with hope that a re-elected Labor Government is capable of improvement.

The only thing you could say in the ALP’s favour at the end of the night was that the Liberal candidate was unable to answer a significant question beyond his own name, and offers demonstrable proof that a Liberal Government would be worse.

As I’m also a Greens Councillor on Marrickville Council with Fiona I’ve got to know that Fiona acts ethically, works hard and has a passion for making this place a better one, and I also know she’s motivated not by power but by the desire to see a more ethical and sustainable society.

If the worst thing we are is dull, then so be it. I think Fiona is serious enough to take the business of Government seriously, and surely that’s all anyone can reasonably ask.

I think it’d be interesting for parliament to have a wider range of views, though, rather than the “Me too! Me too!” copy-cats of the ALP and the Coalition.

Fiona Byrne was very dull.

The real highlight was when the Socialist Equality Party candidate got stuck into the Socialist Alliance, describing it as a middle class movement.

So pleased that the Judean People’s Liberation Front is still with us.

One person’s opinion only, of course… and the links were added by me.