It would be interesting to know just who is advising Premier Gladys Berejiklian about the commuter car parking crisis at Leppington and Edmondson Park. Why would we say that? Simple. There was the poor old premier this morning making a dash from the Big Smoke to Leppington to announce a promise of just $9 million for 350 new spots.
First of all the amount of $9 million just doesn’t make sense, but we’ll come back to that.
Gladys arrived at Leppington with her entourage to be greeted by local commuter car park advocate/activist Michael Andjelkovic next to a hastily prepared sign, pictured.
The other thing the premier hopefully noticed was the sea of cars parked around the station.
Her security detail kept Mr Andjelkovic away from the premier and the announcement area, but it didn’t matter.
He says Gladys waved at him from across the road but that’s far as it got, so he ended up having a chat with the two police officers present for the occasion.
Mr Andjelkovic, who is running as an independent candidate in Liverpool, told the South West Voice in Macarthur that he was more concerned the premier’s numbers did not stack up.
“Leppington gets $9 million for 350 parking spaces, while Edmondson Park has been promised $40 million to provide 700 new spaces.
“It doesn’t add up,’’ he said, promising to look into it.
And while the premier and Libs ponder on that question they may also consider another issue: how did Mr Mr Andjelkovic know about the premier’s visit?
During election campaigns both major political parties try to control the agenda by, among other things, giving the media and others as little notice as possible of imminent announcements.
The fourth estate naturally hates that and now more than ever because of rapidly disappearing resources otherwise known as reporters and photographers.
But it’s doubtful the major parties are going to worry about little things like that in their bid to retain or win power.
Still, if I were the premier…
