Innovation in State Government: Knifing in Melbourne, Trains in Sydney

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OPINION, Leeton, NSW — There was a knifing in Melbourne last weekend. There is a knife, drug and violence epidemic in the Australian cities. There are severe infrastructure problems in Sydney, and emerging infrastructure problems in Melbourne.

The answer however is simple, and something State Governments avoid.

The answer is to do something.

As most governments are rewarded when they do nothing, less criticism from public & media, then the incentive is to do nothing.

Or as one leading government figure stated when asked why he didn’t do something: we don’t make a rod for our own back.

A senior public servant in another government dep’t many years ago said once privately, quite simply: don’t rock the boat. People get sacked for doing that.

Do we PUNISH innovation?

And in Victoria, State Premier Kennett did rock the boat. He did something. And he was rewarded by being kicked out by an ungrateful public. Many of the great things about Melbourne were Kennett achievements or started by Kennett.

Kennett was a true innovator, he made some mistakes, but he basically was responsible for the 180-degree turn around of a state on a far point of the globe.

Do we citizens reward ‘do nothing’ instead?

In NSW, former premier Bob Carr, ended up working for the investment bank, Macquarie Bank. The same bank who now own the airport, roads and various other infrastructure all of which they charge tolls.

In an unprecedented grab of public money going from Sydney airport to Castle Hill can cost you up to AUD $20 (around USD$16.00) in road tolls to various private enterprise.

Yet when I ask about this, the average attitude of many ‘citizens of limited brains’ (mug punters in Australian terms) is the suitably cynical, ‘oh well what can you do, they’re all the same’?

In visiting cities, no other city in the developed world pays more tolls on major roads over such a short distance than Sydney.

Nothing works in Sydney / NSW – trains, hospitals, buses, schools, policing, roads the cost of living. Australian citizens are in heavy debt in major cities, and train accidents are almost a regular occurrence, with response incompetent at best.

So when was NSW good?

Back to 1999: 8 years ago it was the opposite with Sydney having one of the best public transport Systems in the world and good public hospitals. Wrecked in the name of the Olympics.

20 years ago police actually enforced the law.

Of course the schools have been bad (and getting worse) there for 40 years (I went to school partly in NSW).

Violence has been a problem, but since my schooling it has gone from hockey sticks, bats and punch-ups (bad enough) to the next level of metal detectors and heavy weapons in some Sydney schools in the Western suburbs. (And that was 10 years ago it’s worse now.)

Because the government doesn’t have the guts or ticker to actually fix NSW and take on all the actual problems nothing changes. Just more ad campaigns, spokesmen and spin instead.

Why the ‘free pass’ on innovation?

Mug punters have bought the line that the government can’t do anything, and have accepted they need to pay for everything. This despite record tax hauls at State & Federal level.

Australians pay more tax as a percentage of GDP now than they did 10 years ago.

Yet get less services for the higher tax.

This is a topic of conversation amongst my business friends, especially those with an ownership stake in their business.

The problem is, in my experience government people are the same people who work in corporates. It is the government system, and punishment of anyone who rocks the boat (ie. Disturbs the status quo).

So the problem is a systems problem of incentives, and the governments lowering public expectations.

THAT kid’s party knifing attack

Let me emphasise that Melbourne is one of the world’s safest cities.

In a dodgy not-too-safe suburb of Melbourne, a group of unwelcome teenagers showed up with knives at a teenager’s party. After being refused entry they stabbed 8 party-goers including the father who owned the residence.

The police were called before, during and after this took place.

The fact is the police took 45 minutes to respond after 3 calls, and were too late.

The State government would love us to blame police, but that is not the problem.

Policing Innovation

The reason is the police are under-resourced.

Police officers are under-paid relative to risk, both of which Police union boss, Mullett has said. Pay rises are not forthcoming, and when tradespeople are better paid than police… that’s a bad situation.

And at the time large numbers of police were deployed policing some event elsewhere which soaked up a lot of officers.

One simple idea: So the State government and bureaucracy need to employ security guards for events, and free up police for criminal policing, or simply have more police.

The current Victorian State government promised to increase police numbers when elected.

The reality is on Melbourne streets you see less police than ever. There was a discussion about repainting undercover cars as police vehicles so the public feel safer. Typical State Government spin.

They also cut the heart out of the police for political reasons, disbanding many traditional police squads to replace them with touchy-feely-hug-a-criminal rubbish.

Normal thinking a few lifer hardcore far-Left minorities (once called Communists) who so love working in State Government that they can’t be cleaned out.

The government also attacked the elite & excellent police Special Operations Group in an unprecedented court case, that was basically an excuse to attack people who do an exemplary (and tough) job of keeping the worst Murderers and repeat offenders away from normal people.

A few hard-core socialist do-gooders won’t take the police off the leash and allow them to sort out criminals. There is also a police disgust at judicial sentencing.

At the meantime citizens phone up to report a robbery and nothing happens. And in Australia, there is no law protecting you against trespassers or burglars.

The simple thing with broken windows theory, is that small time criminals who get away with it become big time criminals who get away with it. Stop the people early at the small crimes, discourage them and you increase the chances you will divert them from a life of crime.

The police need our support. Police need to be supported to do police criminal investigation work, not more parades, festivals and paperwork. It’s frustrating for them.

Policing Giuliani style - benchmarked innovation

So Giuliani-style policing, with lots of police resources is the answer to the policing problem. Lock-up people who do criminal actions. Don’t excuse them for their childhood. Lot’s of people grew up in World War 2, having bad childhoods, losing parents in the war and didn’t end up doing criminal acts.

Instead of doing something the standard response is more spin, public relations, and less doing.

Announce a policy, get the headline, but don’t do anything to produce an outcome…

The key issue and answer for innovation

ISSUE: We have do-nothing State Governments all based on Bob Carr ideas.

They have convinced us that when they do something they stuff it up.

So we assume it is safer they do nothing.

This is the implicit assumption along with ‘all the same’. So we reward do-nothing Carr & punish do-something Kennett.

The fact is that by any measure except statistical skullduggery; that in cities in Austria, Germany and France police, transport and infrastructure often are more effective.

This neglects the fact that our world-class transport systems in Sydney & Melbourne which were once on-par with Germany are now declining to almost worst-class in developed countries.

The fact is that in these countries, and others in Europe, the services often cost less and actually work. One reason is governments there are scared of their citizens, because their citizens have not given the government a free pass to fail.

If they really don’t want to learn from Europe, why do we freight so many politicians over there first-class at tax-payers expense on ‘fact-finding’ missions?

(So their wives can shop and get a tan in the European summer perhaps?).

ANSWER: It’s not complicated. It is straight forward.

Let’s do something and let’s reward politicians who do and punish those who don’t.

And let’s benchmark world-class performers, and don’t spin rubbish as world-class.

There’s a lot more specific steps leading towards innovation outcomes government can do, but that’s a starting point in a world of global innovation.

Take care,

Christopher-Freezing-in-Nice-Country-NSW.

PS. I love Australian cities, and obviously in our research we consider Melbourne still ahead of many major cities such as London in terms of innovation, but decline starts an inch at the time, and when fixing the issues are so straightforward, why not do so?

Connect to Christopher Hire.

Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.

Filing. Innovation
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