ONE look at the comments on our online version of the story about Shoalhaven becoming part of the Illawarra suggests the politicians who assembled for the “photo opportunity” were wide of the mark if they thought they’d score brownie points.
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The online sentiment was that the launch of the Illawarra web page in Nowra was a pointless exercise that would do little to benefit the area.
One commentator called it silly; another lamented that it heralded an interminable US-style election campaign we’d all be forced to endure.
While there are potential funding benefits for the Shoalhaven in being included as part of the Illawarra, that message was lost in the gaggle of politicians getting their mugs in print, online and on TV screens. We won’t go into the way Illawarra readers responded to the same story on the Mercury’s website and Facebook page.
The launch of a web page is generally about as exciting as the opening of an envelope. News consumers are getting wise to the fact that “photo opportunities” are for the benefit of politicians and do little to improve their lives. The comments that pour on to our website from the Bay and Basin whenever South Coast MP Shelley Hancock appears in a photograph in the paper bear this out. Very few are favourable.
In the past week, we’ve had a deluge of pollies beating a path to our door. The Minister for the Illawarra has been here twice in one week – once to launch the Opal card and again for this web page launch. We expect in coming months there will be many more ministers suddenly discovering the charms of the Shoalhaven on whirlwind visits accompanied by beaming local MPs.
Yes, folks, there’s definitely the whiff of an election in the air.
