IN A media statement yesterday the Member for Tamworth was critical of the major parties in the NSW Parliament and said a lot of time would be wasted in Parliament this week pursuing the John Della Bosca/Iguana affair, while important issues like health, transport, water and education are put on the backburner.

“People are telling me they want to see Parliament get on with the job of responsibly managing NSW, fixing crumbling infrastructure and providing the services the community expects,” Mr Draper said.

“Instead we have a tired Government, faced by a divided Opposition, playing cheap politics....”

The Independent MP has a point, but the pursuit of getting some clear answers also directly relates to the way the Premier and his government try to manage their affairs.

Clearly the Premier and his stood-aside Education Minister had hoped to skate through the affair, gambling that the declarations from the ministerial staffers, countering the point of view of the Iguana staff would carry the day.

Instead it serves to illuminate the arrogance of this government and while Mr Draper tries to move the issue on, he also neatly pinpoints the fact that things are not as they should be.

That the Treasurer Costa has to retire from the field of conflict for three months before re-launching his electricity privatisation proposals speaks volumes of how ill-prepared the package was. He could not provide guarantees of how great the impact would be and whether it stood up in the eyes of the Auditor General’s department.

Alas there is some time to elapse before the 2011 elections and unless there is a dramatic change of form, NSW and its electors are in for a dreary time of things.

So as the alternative government continues to highlight the incumbent’s inefficiencies, one imagines there will little improvement in crumbling infrastructure, poor provision of services and responsible management.