It takes a certain amount of courage, or perhaps more accurately, desperation, to call yourself the ‘Worst Landlord’ in the state. This is particularly true if you are a gang of bureaucrats, adept at passing along the blame for disfunction to some, any, other third party.
For the “Worst Landlord in New South Wales” the self-designation is particularly galling. You along with much of the modern world, have anointed ‘free-enterprise’ as both more thrifty and more capable than the professional stumble bums in penny-pinching bureaucracies. At least such are the political preachings of neo-liberal economics.
And so you farmed out the day-to-day management of your ‘landlord’ holdings to those free enterprise godlings who are supposedly more competent.
Turns out they aren’t.
And if they are, their greed eclipses their superior skill set, leaving you and fellow-governments everywhere to reluctantly shoulder the blame for consistently poor free-enterprise performances.
Under the circumstances, the government requires plenty of courage to point the finger at itself as the ‘Worst Landlord In The State.’
It may be worth watching what New South Wales is doing about this obviously intolerable situation. It might form a useful basis of action for other bamboozled neoliberal states that are tangled up with mediocre results from allegedly superior management and delivery skills.
Read more in the Grenfell Record: ‘Worst landlord’ NSW to overhaul social housing fixes
