Labor Party, Newcastle Uni, Elections: Recipe for Justice Precinct

I am sick and tired of the NSW Labor Government.

I am also sick of the charades played by politicians, local councils, entrepreneurs and departmental bureaucrats.

Recently the ABC-TV programme Stateline (NSW) drew attention to the deep division of opinion in Newcastle concerning proposals to cut the railway line so that the CBD can be "developed".


Newcastle University is interested in establishing a law school in the proposed Justice Precinct but is worried about the railway line messing things up.

Who dreamed up the idea of putting all your justice eggs in one basket? I doubt it was the NSW Attorney General Mr Hatzistergos. Maybe his departmental side-kick Mr Glanfield? The uncanny impression I keep having is of a Parthenon being erected just to satisfy the ego of someone more than it is about serving the community.

We will see all eggs put in one basket in this new scheme: watch the closure of regional local court houses and see them transferred out of the Hunter district and into the new Parthenon. Centralisation is all about power and control. It dumbs down the street-level realities in the wider region.

You watch for the various agencies of the NSW Attorney General's Department in Newcastle all being relocated into the Parthenon (Director of Public Prosecutions, NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, NSW Trustee and Guardian, etc). You watch for the hoopla about how this will boost business, create jobs and probably offer us the cure for the common cold too. It will see the Family Court shifted no doubt and as that is operated at a Federal level one can start joining the dots:

* Federal money injected because of the Family Court --- very nice money sweetener in time for Rudd's second shot at the Prime Minister's office.
* Selling off the railway supposedly to inject money to build the Precinct (voodoo fiscal games by NSW Labor Government) and hence "vote for me" in March 2011.
* Developers in for their chop.
* Local Council hand in glove with entrepreneurs who can only have wet-dreams about ugly concrete edifices.
* Newcastle Uni tossing in dough to build its shiny new Law School.

It might look nice on paper. It might indeed rejevunate the CBD. It might bring in money for the already privileged.

But answer me this: if the railway line goes then I'd like to know does Mr Hatzistergos and Mr Glanfield expect that everyone who lives in the Hunter region drives a car? Do they expect more people to keep using cars just to go to the one-stop shop of the precinct? Do they ever stop to think that the disabled, the elderly, the poor, and people because of medical problems rely on public transport? Don't tell me they imagine the state buses will cover the region. Don't tell me the poor can afford taxis. If you cannot ride a train into Newcastle's CBD, then how are people supposed to even travel to this grand Parthenon of the future?

Often the bleeding obvious is overlooked by fat-cats and by bureaucrats.