Mr Slow and David Campbell. But although Mr Slow is feeling much of the public's wrath, it's not the only reminder this week of what is wrong with the government of NSW. On Sunday, Kristina Keneally’s administration made two announcements - firstly, that it wants to lengthen the incarceration of the state’s worst 750 offenders, and secondly that it will spend $1.2 billion on Tcard mark II. The first might have been a sugarplum to the Police Association in an election year - it wanted Motekiai Taufahema, a cop killer, kept behind bars - but it was also law-and-order tub-thumping in the finest traditions of Bob Carr. The second was another kind of deja vu.

Ten years ago, Cubic Transportation Systems, a kind of corporate pirate, sued the state of NSW after its bid for the original Tcard contract was rejected. But this exposed its campaign of corporate espionage and, in the words of the Supreme Court, its "ethical flexibility", when documents surfaced showing it had obtained confidential tender information from a government mole. On Sunday, the company was awarded not the original $367 million contract it had fought so hard for, but a second version which is almost four times the size. And to complete the picture, to remind everyone of the way the NSW government goes about its business, there was a mate in the picture too. Michael Egan, a one-time treasurer more fond of paying down debt than investing in services such as Tcard, accompanied Cubic's president, Steve Shewmaker, to a secret meeting with David Campbell five months after the latest market process was afoot. A few weeks ago, Coalition backbenchers were handing around picture cards of the beloved Mr Men character. All of a sudden, the moustachioed Mr Slow, had taken on a new likeness: David Campbell.

All this, while the government is staring down the barrel of an embarrassing $200 million counter-suit by its last Tcard suitor, ERG. Then, on Monday, while The Sydney Morning Herald’s front-page stormed about the revelations, Campbell was at the helm of two other pieces of controversial news. The first was his announcement that the Sydney Ferries Corporation, which had been found by a government inquiry as being so inept it didn’t even know the number of services it was cancelling each day, was to be paid $620 million to keep the harbour’s ferries running ahead of competing bids. This was about $40 million more than the private sector needed to run not just the same services, it emerged, but better services - Sydney Ferries Corporation had been given a quality score of 56 out of 100, lower than that of both other bids. Then yesterday another horrific smash on the F3 - still the only arterial northbound escape from the metropolis - brought the northbound stretch of the six-lane beast to a snarling halt.

But unlike the previous two, or three, or even four-hour waits by frustrated motorists trapped in their cars, this one took the prize. Reports this morning say motorists were stuck without escape for 12 hours - that is half a day - because the Government’s $28 million, two-year-old emergency diversion system failed. It is little wonder the hapless minister, who was left flapping in the breeze with the cancellation of the multibillion-dollar CBD Metro, an infrastructure fiasco of unequalled proportions, has won himself the new moniker from the Mr Men series of children's cartoon books. A few weeks ago, Coalition backbenchers were handing around picture cards of the beloved Mr Men character. All of a sudden, the moustachioed Mr Slow, had taken on a new likeness: David Campbell. Loading

Years after being kicked out of his job, Carl Scully told the press what it was really like being transport minister: "God, I was glad to get out of transport ... going to work, I just had to drag myself by the collar." This week, Campbell couldn't feel much different.