As Sydney motorists returned en masse to the city's roads this week, they might have been hoping for a fresh start.
So was the state government.
After last year's traffic nightmares caused by the opening of the Rozelle Interchange, traffic experts and bureaucrats had been busily working to find a fix.
Surely, a solution would have been found over the summer break.
Not exactly.
There are fewer snarls and less chaos near the Anzac Bridge, but changes to signage and traffic flow appear to have created new problems on Victoria Road, where motorists have crawled in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Drivers may be tearing their hair out, but the New South Wales Premier Chris Minns says he can't offer a quick fix.
"This is probably not what every motorist wants to hear, but we're just going to keep making changes," he told the ABC.
"There's reasons, but there's no excuses.
"We genuinely apologise."
The premier's being deliberately cautious, refusing to say when he thinks the issue might be resolved.
"I'd love to give a day [this will be fixed] … but what I can promise the motorists of Western Sydney, and the inner-west area, that we won't stop until we get a good solution and it's not intolerable."
Mr Minns hasn't had to endure the pain himself. He's not travelled that stretch of road since the chaos began.
"I don't live in that part of Sydney," the Kogarah-based premier said.
"But I do obviously sit in traffic from time to time. And I can understand how extremely frustrating that is for motorists, particularly if prior to the change going ahead, you had a reasonably smooth running."
To add to the government's woes, more asbestos keeps turning up in the state's major infrastructure sites. Not just the new Rozelle Parklands, but a growing list of sites along the Bankstown metro line.
2024 could be a difficult year for the Minns government, but the premier isn't shying away from a fight.
Brawl over school funding
As hundreds of thousands of public school students returned to the classroom this week, they've been bearing the brunt of an ongoing teacher shortage.
There are 500 vacancies across public schools and despite the Minns government dramatically boosting teacher salaries, staff retention rates will take time to stabilise.
"You had a wage cap in the state for over a decade," the premier said.
"It's gonna take a long time to get out of that mindset, change the culture, recruit people to the profession."
And now a new fight is beginning with the federal government over a shortfall in school funding.
NSW public schools, like others around the country, are not adequately funded under the Schooling Resource Standard.
The states offer 75 per cent of the funding and Canberra provides 20 per cent, leaving a 5 per cent gap.
On Thursday, the Albanese government reached a deal with Western Australia to close that gap. Canberra will provide half the missing funding and the state Labor government will kick in the rest.
But Mr Minns appears unwilling to make a similar compromise.
"It's just straight-out not going to happen. There's no deal on the table that we can accept," he said.
It's a potentially risky approach.
There are no guarantees the offer from Canberra will improve, but the premier is willing to play hardball.
"They've given commitments that they'd fund that to the full extent to 25 per cent. I didn't make that commitment, they did.
"I'm held to my previous decisions and commitments, they're going to have to do the same thing."
A vision for 'beautiful density'
Another challenge for Mr Minns in 2024 will be to convince Sydneysiders and local councils the city needs to be built up, not out.
"It's not density for density's sake, it's about making sure it's located appropriately where there is public transport," he said.
The government has already rezoned 31 locations to make way for 130,000 new dwellings, mostly around new metro stations.
"I want to give the public an opportunity to understand what the implications will be for Sydney, and build community support around a beautiful city," he said.
"If you go to London, or Paris, or New York that's exactly how they have rolled out their growing city."
Having already conceded the state won't achieve its target of 75,000 new homes this year, he's threatening to override councils that don't make way for higher-density dwellings.
"I do respect a lot of local government people who've got passionate views. But if their view is you're not doing anything in our area, well they've got to come to the table with solutions.
"And if they're not, then we are prepared to act."
Council elections are held later this year, so the premier can expect a fight.
'Focus on the state, not on Gaza'
As Labor MPs prepare to return to state parliament, there's disquiet from some members over the party's approach to the war in Gaza.
This week, MPs Anthony D'Adam and Stephen Lawrence signed a letter to Foreign Minister Penny Wong, criticising the decision to suspend payments to the main UN agency in Gaza, UNWRA, after Israel provided intelligence that it said linked some employees to the October 7 attacks.
The MPs said the move left them "simply incredulous".
While most Labor MPs are publicly backing the party's approach, some are feeling the heat from rank-and-file members and constituents.
But the premier has delivered a blunt message to MPs who are considering speaking out.
"I can understand people feel passionately about international affairs.
"But honestly, if that's your passion, and that's where your desires are, your policy interests are, well, run for federal parliament.
"When we've solved all the problems in New South Wales, then we can move on to the Middle East. But we're a long way from that."
The war may be thousands of kilometres away but state issues are not entirely quarantined from it.
The sails of the Sydney Opera House were lit up for the victims of the Hamas attacks, despite some concerns from senior police.
And moments after the premier's interview with the ABC ended on Friday, NSW Police announced they had found no recorded evidence of pro-Palestinian crowds yelling "gas the Jews" at a rally at the Opera House, despite some witnesses reporting having heard it.
Mr Minns says he's spoken out against civilian casualties "on both sides" but wants to focus on issues closer to home.
"I don't want any ambiguity [for] the people of New South Wales about what we're spending our days and our weeks focusing on.
"I think that's what they would expect of us."