THE current State Government is building an unenviable reputation of making grand announcements and blundering in the execution.
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And if it thought that the end of its annus horribilis – 2017 – would bring a change of policy fortune, then the first weeks of 2018 suggests otherwise.
Over the past 12 months this government has lost a premier and a deputy, and seen key policies in the council amalgamations and greyhounds ban either brutally dismantled or abandoned completely.
The only good news for current Premier Gladys Berejiklian was that those debacles had been put to rest a good two years out from the next state election in March 2019, allowing her time to forge a new reputation of her own.
That was the theory anyway, and then Return And Earn came along.
The container recycling scheme was widely hailed when first announced and widely anticipated as the launch date on December 1 drew nearer.
The first signs of trouble appeared in the month before the launch as people started paying extra for the recyclable containers even as most towns and cities in regional NSW remained without a recycling facility.
Dozens of reverse vending machines were then rolled out in a rush in the weeks between December 1 and Christmas as a flurry of press releases from the Environment Minister’s office hailed the whole scheme a great success.
But the minister, and the government, is fooling no-one.
Now it is not the cities without reverse vending machines that are complaining most loudly but, rather, those that do.
Because the reverse vending machines have brought problems of their own, including huge piles of rubbish and noise complaints as the recycled bottles are taken away.
At the same time, operators who have agreed to host the vending machines feel they have been let down by the government and left to cop the flak for a poorly delivered scheme.
On top of that retailers who do not have a machine in their car park feel the State Government has unfairly given a competitor a leg up.
Young’s Donges Supa IGA manager Wendy Silk is furious at the “leg up” Woolworths has been given over her business.
"I am very angry about this decision,” she said.
"My customers will now be forced to use the machine at Woolworths.
"As far as I am concerned this venture between the State Government and a multinational corporation is forcing my customers to use the vending machine at Woolworths which through pure convenience may drive them to shop at Woollies, this may cost me customers.”
Many Young residents have said that the machine is poorly designed.
"It is a silly design because I doubt people are going to want to stand around and deposit one can or bottle at a time, surely with modern technology there would be a way to count a bulk drop of containers,” one customer who did not want to be named said.
But how did we get here?
Unlike the amalgamations and greyhounds ban which both drew strident criticism from the start, the Return And Earn was (originally) widely applauded.
In this case it has not been the policy that has been the problem but, rather, the process. And it is simply another ghost to haunt the government as we count down to next year’s election.