“Of all the states I’ve practised journalism in, I have never seen a government so furtive and polluted by spin,” says “Seven Days” columnist IAN MEIKLE. 

“I’M getting more and more disappointed in the current ACT government,” tutted Jane in a comment on our website. 

I feel you, sister, for this is a broken and broke government facing at least three Integrity Commission investigations (prisons, procurement and the CIT). And that’s only the ones we know of. 

It’s a snarky government constantly at war with its ungrateful constituents. Everything is a fight to be heard as the arrogant indifference and wilful deafness of the Greens/Labor government (or as “Canberra Matters” columnist Paul Costigan waggishly calls them, Greenslabor) ignores the often sensible voices of reason.

Hell’s bells, even the opposition is noticing and landed a damaging bullseye in exposing the CIT contracts schmozzle that sent startled Minister Chris Steel into a flap. Since then, silence. 

Of all the states I’ve practised journalism in, I have never seen a government so furtive and polluted by spin. 

They are also the paranoid masters at avoiding media scrutiny. It took weeks for reporter Belinda Strahorn to get corrections ministers past and present, Shane Rattenbury and Mick Gentleman, to comment on the shocking allegations of prison staff at cocaine parties and affairs with ex-inmates we exposed in mid May. 

Initially it was “the ACT government is unable to comment”. A month later they individually both remembered they knew nothing about it. 

Then there’s Housing Minister Yvette Berry’s heartless forced eviction of hundreds of single women with children, grandmothers and blind people, many long-term Housing ACT tenants, to make way for opportunistic property sales.

“​​I feel the futility of my argument against the juggernaut of ministers and policy makers who couldn’t care less about people like me because we are disadvantaged, marginalised and in their eyes, losers,” commented social housing tenant Aine on citynews.com.au 

After weeks of campaigning by “CityNews” and other media, Berry was stung into defending the process to seek exemption by a less-than-independent panel where distressed tenants are obliged to turn up and share things such as their intimate mental and physical health with complete strangers. Oh, and there’s no appeal. 

Environment Minister Rebecca Vassarotti is the very model of ministerial silence. As the kangaroo cull makes its annual fatal way across the ridges and reserves leaving pathetic trails of blood splatter, people despair. But not a conciliatory murmur from the Greens Minister, just dead roos and joeys and silence.

And hasn’t the shine gone off Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith now we struggle, post-pandemic, back to the reality of how overworked, underprepared and underfunded our health system really is? 

The latest ACT Public Health Services Quarterly Performance Report shows that, between October and December, just only over half of those in emergency departments were seen within the clinically recommended time of four hours or less. Her goal 18 months ago was 70 per cent. 

“Not only does Canberra continue to have the worst ED wait times in the country, but the health minister’s appalling report card includes suspending elective surgeries, refusing to provide free flu vaccines… and 25 senior nurses leaving the intensive care unit over a six-month period, nurses being attacked and bullied with reviews into intensive care and cardiology, the government failing to meet new nurse-to-patient ratios and staff morale at rock bottom,” says breathless opposition health shadow Leanne Castley. Little wonder the government is warning us to stay away from hospitals! 

Then there’s the territory-wide dismay with planning and development (another Gentleman portfolio).

“The ACT’s planning directorate is a rogue bureaucracy doing the bidding of anyone but the residents of Canberra,” bemoans columnist Costigan in a Saturday column on citynews.com.au 

And the tram (another Steel portfolio) – beyond the grinding cost, the southern approaches to Civic face years of profound dislocation as the pig-headed government blows up the bridges over London Circuit and condemns Commonwealth Avenue to another set of lights and traffic jams in perpetuity. And still we don’t really know how (nor how much) to get this fine example of cutting-edge 19th century technology over the heritage-listed bridge.

What an unravelling mess they’re making under the controlling grip of chief minister and treasurer of 11 years, Andrew Barr. He’s progressively plunged the ACT into eye-watering debt, the details of which have been forensically unpeeled over recent weeks in “CityNews” by ex-chief minister Jon Stanhope and Khalid Ahmed, a former senior ACT Treasury official. 

The ACT has no practical prospect of ever paying down the borrowed billions from the Barr government’s decade of debt. His hipster economics have nobbled the aspirations of future governments and crimped the lifestyles of our children and theirs. 

In simple terms, to pay everything back starting now, Stanhope and Ahmed estimate the ACT will have to show an annual surplus of $250 million for 50 years. 

Or more poignantly, Andrew will be blowing out the candles on his 100th birthday cake when the ACT comes back into the black. It won’t happen.

I was prepping a photo to go with Samara Purnell’s review of a dance event at the Portrait Gallery the other day for our website in which she described a scene where dancers walked the red carpet and the paparazzi (other dancers) pretended to take photos of them. Then I looked at the photo a little closer – every “snapper” was miming having a camera in their hands, except none of them were holding SLR professional bodies with focal lenses. God love ’em, they were all simulating the grip of a mobile phone camera! 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon. There are more of his columns on citynews.com.au