The Taxi Driver Blockade of Melbourne - is this the beginning of the end of the Brumby Socialist Government?

Following the serious injuries inflicted on a taxi driver a couple of nights ago by some criminal scum, about a thousand taxi drivers blockaded Flinders Street in protest to demand better rights from the government, including protective screens, and a fare structure review.

Fair enough. Most taxi drivers get a fairly raw deal, especially those who risk their lives by working at night. Not every passenger is as amiable and law abiding as I am (even after a few drinks).

But what got me thinking is the similarity between the spontaneous anger of these taxi drivers and what happened in January 1990. In that month, striking tram drivers parked all their trams in the middle of the city for a month, in protest at new ticketing policies of the Kirner Socialist Government (now a byword for incompetant government). That visible protest is what marked the beginning of the end of that disgraceful regime.

Now, our clownish premier John Brumby, and people such as his incompetant transport minister, Lynn Kosky, have been mismanaging many issues, such as:

. the plight of taxi drivers driving them to this extreme protest

. public transport being a shambles generally

. the wastage of billions of dollars of public monies (including on the fast country railway which runs slower than the old one, and on the MYKI ticketing system which will never be introduced)

. the continued rapine of state taxpayers to fund their mismanagement

. the unethical dealings with the gaming companies, including the introduction of sovereign risk to Victoria by deciding not to honour the government's legal obligations to pay $1.2 billion in compensation to Tabcorp and Tattersalls.

I feel that this is the beginning of the end of this government of clowns. Sadly, the state opposition is hardly in a state to capitalise on this, with its own collection of buffoons (eg its mono-brow gaming shadow minister).