A rainy day in Sydney
Yesterday was a very strange day at work. Dramatic events in state politics meant we spent most of the day watching press conferences on the Internet in someone's office. I even bought a packet of Jaffas in the afternoon for one of the press conferences.
Amidst all this drama, another drama was enfolding in our building which I will call The Great Toner Cartridge Swindle. Apparently these bogus toner cartridge collectors were doing the rounds of offices around the city stealing toner cartridges. Their MO was simply to knock on the door of an office and say they were here to collect and replace the used cartridges. They would then fill up their box with brand new cartridges and off they would go. They must have been pretty brazen as they hit our office once earlier in the week and then, despite numerous warning emails from building security, someone (and I am so glad I wasn't that someone!) let them in again yesterday. This resulted in the following sign being plastered all over the office (which I actually found kind of amusing):
The weather has also been fairly dramatic too, ie, the rain just bucketing down non-stop. I think the drought has well and truly broken in this part of Australia. This has been very fortuitous for the very junior member of state parliament who was given the water portfolio to cut his ministerial teeth on and is now, as a result of yesterday's parliamentary bloodshed, the Premier of the entire state!
He is obviously being set up by his party colleagues so had better take this warning to heart:
I think this picture really symbolises where the state Labor government is headed at the moment. It is an interesting truism of Australian politics that you can never have all the state governments the same political persuasion as the Federal Government (except during the interim stage after a change in the Federal government). I think the writing is well and truly on the wall for this lot even without Federal Labor in power.
As someone who has had a fair bit of involvement with this government, I actually felt kind of sad to see Iemma go yesterday (and I am sure I will get flamed for saying this!). I genuinely think he was sincere about trying to push reforms through but the party machine just too strong for him in the end. I think he always saw himself as a short term Premier and was just trying and do what he could in terms of reforms before the party machine caught up to him. Having resisted these reforms, there is no doubt where the current government is headed now.
(This is actually Museum train station, not the Museum itself - some of you may recognise it from one of the Coke ads).
This video (not mine) is of some trains at the station and is pretty much the sight I see every night going home from work. The station is pretty cavernous but not as hellish as other city stations like Town Hall where you can barely move due to the crowds and where I always worry that someone is going to be jostled onto the tracks one day.
Comments
It's kind of odd reading about politics that you don't understand and know nothing about. I lived in England for three years and never could get my head wrapped around the Parliamentary system. That's what you have in Australia too, isn't it? Not saying that it's a bad system.....just hard to understand....but I think a whole lot more interesting than American politics for sure.
I am sick of the rain. As soon as I heard it was the driest August we've had, it hasn't stopped since. I hate the rain, yet as a girl living in rural nsw I cannot admit this to many people for fear of public lynching. Wherever you go people say - nice drop of rain. And I have to say, yes.
As for Morris - he's had a bad couple of years hasn't he. My daughter said to me this morning - so what did Morris do? And I thought she said - so what did Horrace do and he's our computer guy and I thought she was talking about my laptop repairs so told her the whole story about how he fixed it and she looked at me and said - and thats it?, he got kicked out for that. lol
It's stopped! In time for Father's day! Well, just hope the rain stops for a while for the rest of the day.
And that toner thing is so strange. It's a clever idea though, I'll give them that.
As for the train thing, I can complain for hours. HOURS. I catch the train at Town Hall (though I could catch it from Museum as well because I work at the Ernst and Young Building which sits nicely between both). But I remember this one time when a gentleman slipped off and NO ONE helped despite being inches away from him. A young fellow from the far end ran all the way to help him. I couldn't believe my eyes! People who were on the escalator with me where pretending not to see anything too! Shocking.
Ok, i'll stop now...
Yay!
I always said Bob Carr saw the writing on the wall and that is why he got out when he did. Iemma did a pretty good job under the circumstances I think.
You're right. They go on waaaaaay too long !!