Here’s one of the result of the government’s rush to put half of Gozo on the state payroll

A reader has just sent in this photograph of two new public sector employees ‘sweeping the streets’ – which are clean already – in Victoria. One of them holds the broom while the other holds the pan – and there seem to be another two reflected in the glass door, who are engaged in the same kind of task.

As I told her, this is like a scene from my 1970s childhood and my 1980s teenage years, when it was a running joke that, with half the country on the state payroll, one public sector employee held the broom while the other held the pan.

I haven’t seen that in decades.