Labor be warned

Luke, an assistant at the company's Warringah mall store, says there are seven copies in the bin but unfortunately not much interest.

Having led Labor to victory in April, 1995, Carr jumped ship in August, 2005, just as the scandal of the Cross City Tunnel contract was exploding.

To be fair, Carr, calamitous premier and lousy an administrator as he was, did possess a certain intellectual charm and enthusiastic intelligence which went a long way to blind-siding and disarming his critics.

To be honest, his successor Morris Iemma lacks these attributes but possesses an undistinguished demeanour and a patient presence that smacks of earnestness, though not of any great vigour or flair.

It is unfortunate that the presidential nature of politics today focuses public attention on the presentability of the opposing candidates and not on their promised policies (in the case of Opposition Leader Peter Debnam) or their records (in the case of Iemma).

If the record of the Carr-Iemma Government was the issue, there would be a change of government. The proverbial drover's dog should be be able to walk away with victory.

Though the polls show a marked degree of voter resignation, if not exactly satisfaction, with the current State Government, almost every suburban community group across NSW which has had anything to do with the Carr-Iemma Government is absolutely outraged at the offhanded, often totally arrogant manner with which their concerns have been met.

There is barely a department which has not attracted the righteous opprobrium of aggrieved residents. It is a wonder that Macquarie Street is still open to traffic, given the sheer volume of promises broken within Parliament House.

Every community has its small group of activists, some often misguided, but many communities also have issues that attract the interest of those who never attend rallies. Those people are now beginning to make their voices heard because they feel they are just not being listened to.

On Sunday, representatives of more than 50 groups of concerned voters from a wide variety of groups drawn from around NSW are planning to rally at 11am near the Archibald Fountain at the northern end of Hyde Park to air their grievances.

Rolf Clapham, one of the organisers, said he became involved because of the State Government's plans to redevelop the rehabilitation hospital at Putney and replace it with 800 units in a six-story tower.

"The plan was twice rejected by the elected members of Ryde City Council before being taken over and approved by Planning Minister Frank Sartor. Sartor's attitude was really the last straw," he told me.

"Our communities are just not being listened to. It's time for this Government and Sartor to listen to the people. It's also time local Labor MPs such as John Watkins in Ryde actually started backing their community, rather than rolling over for Sartor's destructive vision for our city."

Clapham is a representative of the Coalition Against Private Overdevelopment (CAPO); other organisations which will participate include the Anti-Transmission Tower Group (ATTAG), Australian Heritage Society, Cooma Farmers, Engadine Traffic Group, Edmonson Action Group, Farmers' Land Ownership Rights, Homeowners Access Association, Land and Asset Protection Group, Save Currawong, and the list grows daily.

Save Currawong spokesman Shane Withington, an actor who appeared in the television series A Country Practice who has also been the voice of Labor political advertising, said he hopes to tell the rally about the fight to preserve the historic Pittwater trade union resort.

"This Government has failed to respond to pleas to place Currawong on the national heritage register though it boasts about its national parks," he says.

"The head of Trade Unions NSW, John Robertson, who made the decision to sell Currawong, also sits on the heritage board. I wake up feeling this can't be true, it must be a movie."

But it is no movie, not even a B-grade horror film. It is the awful reality of the Labor government's practices in NSW in 2007.

Though the rally organisers have invited Iemma and Sartor, they don't expect them to have the gumption to face the protesters.

Labor will be represented however by angry ALP members just as frustrated as other voters by the State Government's recalcitrance and reluctance to be held accountable for changing its departments from service delivery centres into revenue raising operations.

The turn-out will be a real test of the degree of anger present in the community. After 11 years of the Carr-Iemma Government, many voters feel exhausted and burnt-out by the Government's stone-walling refusal to listen and act on their concerns.

If apathy rules and the call to arms is heard only by the most socially-concerned voters, NSW residents can look forward to four more years of abusive treatment at the hands of Labor after the March 24 election.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21186410-5001031,00.html