Shooters Party Still Peeved!

As I said last week the parlour games will continue over the role of the Shooters Party in the Legislative Council. Today's Sydney Morning Herald simply reconfirms much of what I've said (except for failing to join the dots below)!

As it has been pointed the stalemate in the Upper House was caused by John Hatzistergos the NSW Attorney General and Mr Laurie Glanfield Director General of the Attorney General's Department playing hard-ball lobbying to get through the NSW Trustee and Guardian Act in late June.

The intensity of that lobbying because of public resistance to the proposed Act was really bizarre and disproportionate to the issue. Somebody was obviously on a power-kick to prove a point just for the sake of it. That lobbying alienated the Shooters as Labor did its deal with the Greens on the new Trustee organisation. So if the Premier wonders why there is a stalemate, I reckon he ought to ask Hatzistergos and Glanfield to "please explain".

Parliamentary Inquiry: Substitute Decision Making

See Sophia Stannard's piece on the Parliamentary Inquiry underway into legislative reforms affecting the disabled and Acts like the Guardianship Act 1987 and NSW Trustee and Guardian Act 2009.

More Bad Press for NSW Trustee and Guardian

Read today's article in the Daily Telegraph by Gemma Jones on the problems of financial losses and alleged mismanagement of case files in the protected estates division of the NSW Trustee and Guardian. The problems about case files are typical of the woes that have beset what used to be the Office of the Protective Commissioner for more than a decade.

In May 2009 the Auditor General reported that the Protective Commissioner's common fund had been reduced in value by $197 million due to the global economic crisis. The linking of it to the Public Trustee NSW gives it only a small breathing space with access to some monies that will run out probably around the time of the next state election.

The picture about the Attorney General's Department just continues to worsen.

Attorney General's Department Fiasco

Check out Michael Pelly's "Island Sojourn" article in today's Australian, what a hoot!

Check out the companion expose here on the Minister's weird lobbying last month to push through the NSW Trustee and Guardian bill. Weird deals, a stalemate in the Legislative Council, and maybe some bully-boy tactics behind the scenes! Priceless stuff!

Public Trustee NSW Merger Under Fire

Check this intriguing commentary on the state of NSW politics and the Attorney General's Department. The financial journalist Tony Boyd has delivered a stinging commentary on the bizarre wheeling and dealing that led to the amalgamation of the Public Trustee NSW and Office of Protective Commissioner in June 2009. The new organisation is called the NSW Trustee and Guardian.

Boyd questions the wisdom of the merger, doubts its future financial viability and calls into question the whole rationale behind the merger. So a serving of criticism is dished up to NSW Attorney General John Hatzistergos for the rushed nature in which legislation was prepared and pushed through the Parliament in the closing days of June.

Boyd likens the merger to short-term raids by corporations that seek to prop themselves up when under pressure. See the whole piece here.