Hobart’s parking inspectors: Faster than the speed of light

Planning applications might take a while, but park in the wrong spot and Hobart’s local government employees can deliver service within two minutes and thirty seconds. HAVE YOUR SAY >>

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THEY’RE the shock troops of government service delivery — but they just don’t get the credit they deserve.

Hobart’s parking inspectors must be the most efficient public servants in the employment of the state.

No other agency of government, local, state or federal, works with such merciless efficiency and speed.

One of the golden rules of life in Tasmania is that if you want something from the public sector, you’d better be prepared to wait. The pandemic has made it worse.

China took three years to build a 1300 kilometre high speed railway from Shanghai to Beijing. So what, we build a footbridge across the Brooker Highway in just two.

Need help from Centrelink? Hope you like being on hold.

Need a workplace safety incident investigated? Take a number.

Deliver parcel from the mainland? You’re dreaming.

Are you on the public housing priority waiting list? Hope you’ve got somewhere to stay for the next 59 weeks.

Need an operation on your varicose veins, be prepared to wait 284 days. If you need a knee replacement, it’s 357.

A new Bridgewater Bridge or a new hospital wing or an airport roundabout or light rail or ferry service on the Derwent or a Mt Wellington cable car. Come on, who are we kidding here?

Planning applications might take a while, but park in the wrong spot and Hobart’s local government employees can deliver service within two minutes and thirty seconds.

To be fair, our city’s parking inspectors have the aid of electronic meters, in-ground sensors and phone apps, cameras and tablet computers.

Drones and lasers and satellites probably aren’t too far away but there is literally no arm of government able to carry out its mission statement with such ruthless efficiency.

It’s a modest proposal, and they’re working pretty hard, but why don’t we put all government service delivery in the hands of the people who police Hobart’s parking regulations?

It might make a nice change from handing out a blizzard of tickets to the forlorn holdouts in an empty city, but if you need urgent attention from an arm of government, you can’t get faster attention than from the parking rozzers.

It might take three hours to get an ambulance to New Town, but park in the wrong spot and someone will be with you so fast your head will spin.

There no need for a feasibility study or a consultant’s report or a waiting list.

Imagine if governments could ever be that good at delivering things people actually wanted?

DISCLAIMER: David Killick is a Mercury reporter who was booked three times for overstaying parking meters while covering the COVID-19 pandemic. He is taking it rather well.

Follow @DavidJKillick