NSW has been suffering for the last decade from a totally clueless government, and an opposition totally owned by its fringe right-wing. Labor couldn't govern their way out of a paper bag and the Libs figure that instead of drifting to the centre to meet the voters, all they need to do is wait until the voters give up and move to them.

NSW doesn't have any money, so they can't do any major roads project without farming it out to private investors and putting up a toll booth to pay for it.

This has led to some really bad policy decisions. For one thing, most of the new roads are bypasses that allow drivers to skip congested areas like the middle of the city. The toll then discourages people from using the bypass and the city remains clogged. Then to bail out the investors, the government closes lanes on the free alternative routes to force people to take the tollway.

There was an amusing couple of years where you could get away with not paying tolls just by driving through the electronic gate and ignoring the infraction warnings. Because the RTA was doing all the work of collecting the money but not getting to keep any of it, they didn't care enough to follow up people who didn't pay.