ALMOST as soon as it went up on our website and Facebook pages, the story about long-awaited improvements to the dire parking problems at Shoalhaven Hospital attracted negative comments.
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Seemingly good news about a commitment to fix a long-festering issue that has been the source of much griping over recent years prompted a reflexive cynicism from readers that says much about the conduct of politics and how it is received.
As politicians and their parties roll out the pork barrel ahead of elections, the voters they are trying to impress don’t always react well. They quite rightly ask if the government truly cared about a serious problem – and parking at the hospital is just that – why they wait until an election is imminent to finally do, or at least promise to do, something about it.
Politics would be much improved if it was presented as less of a cargo-cult style auction in which important announcements are delayed until they can have maximum impact on deciding people’s votes. The electorate is tiring of feeling it is being bribed to win its support.
The government would have earned itself much more long-lasting brownie points with the hospital car park issue had the money been forthcoming months ago and work was actually under way rather than leaving the announcement of an intention to fix the problem – conditional, of course, upon being re-elected.
We welcome any move that addresses the hospital car park issue that has been a local bugbear for so long. We would have preferred, however, that the problem was confronted and dealt with well before the election. The benefit for us, the voters, is obvious. The benefit for the politicians is that they could have gone to the electorate with an achievement rather than a promise.