A day after the Coalition revealed plans by Joe Tripodi’s department, the NSW Maritime Authority, to hire a new speech writer, the NSW Government has been caught out trying to dodge Nathan Rees’ “staffing freeze” again.

Despite a ‘staffing freeze’ order from the Premier and a promise to reduce ‘back office positions’, Joe Tripodi’s own department, the NSW Maritime Authority, last week issued a ‘position vacant’ notice for an Executive and Ministerial Services Officer.

“In my day I never ever allowed lobbyists to come in and argue the merits of a development proposal,''

Frank Sartor MP, Former Planning Minister
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 October 2009

Chris Hartcher, Shadow Minister for the Central Coast, has described today’s announcement that David Harris, the Member for Wyong, has been appointed as the Premier’s (and also Minister for Central Coast) Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast as a political stunt.

Shadow Special Minister of State Chris Hartcher said John Robertson has simply compounded his record of political failure in the wake of a woeful display from the rookie Minister at his first Budget Estimates hearing yesterday.

Minister for Public Sector Reform John Robertson yesterday gave the people of NSW an insight into the arrogant and incompetent way Nathan Rees runs his Government, admitting he never briefed the NSW Cabinet on the ‘most significant’ public sector reform ‘in 30 years’, Shadow Special Minister of State Chris Hartcher said following the admission.

Wyong Labor MP, David Harris, has launched a scathing attack on his own Government over Planning Minister Kristina Keneally’s decision to announce yet another inquiry into Wyong coal mine proposals rather than a planning rejection.

Only five days after a visit by NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell, Planning Minister Kristina Kenally has caved to public and political pressure and announced that the Somersby sand mine will not go ahead.

Shadow Minister for the Central Coast, Chris Hartcher, has today called on the Minister for Transport, David Campbell, to reconsider his Government’s so-called reform process at Gosford Station after a briefing note obtained by the NSW Opposition listed Gosford Station as the second worst station in the State for incidents of self harm, suicide attempts and fatalities.

Shadow Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, Chris Hartcher today ridiculed Treasurer Eric Roozendaal’s ‘weak as water’ attack in Legislative Council Question Time.

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council Mike Gallacher said the Minister for the Central Coast John Della Bosca has walked out on the people of his region shortly before Question Time today, during an important debate on mining.

The Rees Labor Government’s continued efforts to keep the draft radiotherapy services plan for 2007 – 2011 secret shows neither Nathan Rees nor Health Minister John Della Bosca care about giving cancer patients the services they need on the Central Coast, Shadow Minister for the Central Coast, Chris Hartcher, said today.