NSW Labor's soap opera would be funny if it wasn't so serious.
Hardly a month seems to pass without some new scandal hitting the hapless state government.
This time it's Paul McLeay, until yesterday Labor's Minister for Ports and Waterways and for the Illawarra. Mr McLeay admitted using a parliamentary computer to visit gambling and pornographic websites, forcing Premier Kristina Keneally to require the wayward MP to stand down from the front bench.
Last month the government was obliged to deal with the embarrassment of Cessnock MP Kerry Hickey's admission that he'd fathered a child to a parliamentary staffer and then lied about it to protect her career. The premier talked Mr Hickey out of resigning, just as she refused to sack Labor MP Cherie Burton who had pleaded guilty to refusing a breath test, losing her licence for a year.
July produced no new scandals, but the month was marked by the departure of former government heavyweight John Della Bosca, who had been forced off the front bench last year after admitting to an extra-marital affair.
June was punctuated by the spectacular implosion of controversial State Development Minister Ian MacDonald over revelations that he misused taxpayer funds. Respected government cleanskin and Juvenile Justice Minister Graham West chose June to quit the Keneally front bench, citing disillusionment.
May's departures were Transport Minister David Campbell - forced to quit after being filmed leaving a gay sex club - and Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano, who lied to a corruption inquiry about the misuse of public funds.
And that's just the most recent episodes of Labor's sorry serial. Similar dismal entertainment can be had by reviewing earlier seasons, including the brief premiership of Nathan Rees, who marked the occasion of his political assassination with a declaration that his successor was a puppet of Labor's unpopular factional warlords.
Only last week, Ms Keneally did her best to distance herself from her government's risible performance, calling a press conference to explain that ill-discipline was "destroying people's confidence and trust"' in state Labor.
Indeed, Labor seems set for a wipe-out at the election in March. On present trends it will lucky to have a front-bench at all by then.
Wind, sand and tin
A RATHER narrow piece of law enforcement is threatening the existence of the much-loved "Tin City" - the old iron sheds that have clustered for decades in the dunes of Stockton Bight. Some suspect the sudden insistence that the vehicle used for clearing sand from the shacks be registered may be a bureaucratic tactic designed to wipe out the old buildings.
Surely not. The government seems happy to have the dunes mined extensively to provide construction sand. The idea that it might see a group of old fishing shacks as any serious kind of nuisance to be removed could hardly stand up to rational scrutiny.
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