Peter Wicks says the new NSW Government has had more scandals than Kristina Keneally had in her entire term — so why are the media giving Premier Barry O’Farrell an easy ride?
Late last week, yet another Scandal rocked the NSW Liberal Government; this one had Premier O’Farrell seeing red.
Police were called when it was reported that lewd acts were being performed in a public area. The alleged acts involved two men. This activity was reported to police by two witnesses.
It was then discovered that one of the men performing these lewd acts in public, which is a criminal offence, was a Minister in the NSW Coalition Government. After that, it seems the witnesses who initially reported the event to police decided not to progress to making an official complaint….
In what is a real victory for freedom of speech, freedom of information, and a free press, there is a gag order on naming the 62 year old minister and there is the threat of legal action against anybody who does. Nor can we discuss the alleged acts that took place between the Minister and his companion. The Ministers wife will, however, be giving him quite a grilling, I’m sure….
On a totally unrelated, ahem, matter, I thought you may be interested in a broken election promise in Parramatta.
The Kings School site in North Parramatta was to be converted into an arts district. The then Liberal candidate promised funding to help the project get off the ground after all the planning that had been done. This project actually had bipartisan support.
Upon winning the election, the O’Farrell Government, after ironically having it’s victory celebration in Parramatta, and stringing the local council along for a few months, decided to break the promise.
To the people of Parramatta, the arts community, and the small businesses that had planned for the arts precinct, this must have come as a severe blow; it certainly did for the council.
Maybe it even felt a little like this….
It must have seemed that the NSW Minister For the Arts, whom I won’t name, had been watching, publicly playing with himself, while this planning was going on. Then, when he could take no more, the Arts Minister then swooped in and screwed them from behind….Something lewd like that anyway.
Anyway, ahem, back to sex scandals.
Last year, we saw the disgusting treatment that the Coalition and the press gave the then Labor Minister David Campbell after he was followed and filmed leaving a gay club. Whatever it was that Campbell did, it was done in private, and done in a legal manner. No laws had been broken. However this did not stop O’Farrell fuelling the fire, or the press stirring up a hornets nest.
In contrast to now, the press are hushed, the Labor opposition are not baying for blood, and the threat of legal action hangs over all. Bear in mind, this is when a number of laws have allegedly been broken.
To say this shows double standards of a monumental degree is a drastic understatement.
In the short time we have had the Liberals running the state, we have seen so many scandals they are hard to keep track of.
The hushing up of a chemical spill in Stockton; the Premiers intervention to fend off a public inquiry; a Coalition Minister forced to stand down after it was found he lied in a statutory declaration - another criminal offense; the Premier releasing false figures to mislead the public on carbon pricing; the largest anti-Government protests this country has seen since last century; and now we have a sex scandal….
So far, it seems, O’Farrell has had more scandals in his first few months than Keneally had in her entire term.
Has the NSW public, sickened by scandal and infighting, just delivered itself more of the same, but worse?
