NSW Labor Government

Mon, 2010-03-01 17:34 by admin
Past and present Premiers and Ministers of the NSW Labor Government

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Bandicoot

Thu, 2011-02-10 10:34

The NSW Government's $5.3 billion electricity sell-off was a carried out with "appalling" timing, says a former director of a state-owned energy company. Overall the deal netted the state government $5.3 billion, an amount heavily criticised for being poor value by the state opposition.

Editor: The original article was published in the Australian here: therefore we cannot publish it on candobetter.net. I will put this ammended version of this comment on the front page as an article because it is important.

It goes on to say that the NSW Greens are going to "introduce legislation in the next parliament to return the electricity industry to public ownership and stop future governments selling assets without the approval of both houses of parliament, Greens MP John Kaye announced on Saturday 5th Feb.

Wish the Victorian Greens and the Queensland Greens would stand up on their hindlegs over privatisation as well.
We have previously carried a few speeches by John Kaye on this issue.

Here is what John Kaye has published on his

Welcome to the website of Greens NSW MP John Kaye

John Kaye is a Greens member of the NSW Legislative Council

Stop the Power Sell-Off

  • All power privatisations are bad for the economy, employment, hoNSW not for sale_small.JPGusehold power bills and the environment.
  • This power sell-off is particularly bad: profits from the sale of electricity are being handed over to the private sector, but many of the financial risks remain with the public.
  • Reducing NSW's contribution to climate change will be much more difficult and expensive if the private sector has control of the generator outputs. The power industry creates 40% (60 million tonnes CO2 per year) of this state's greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Household power bills will increase as the gentraders seek to make more profit.
  • Jobs will be lost after the protection period expires. Call centre work will be sent overseas.
  • NSW is losing a valuable income stream worth much more than the $5.3 billion sale price. The assets that have been sold return $750 million a year which pays for teachers, nurses and hospitals. The structure of the sale (gentraders), uncertainty about the future of carbon prices and the brewing international economic storm have minimised the sale price.
  • Secret deals to subsidise coal prices for the gentraders mean that NSW taxpayers will be footing the bill for years to come.
  • The Keneally government has no mandate to sell the gentraders or the retailers. Privatisation was not mentioned during the last election.
  • Opinion polls show that the people of NSW oppose electricity privatisation. Parliament has an obligation to tell the government they should cancel the contracts and keep all of the power industry in public hands.

Some points about the transaction:

  • The resignation of the directors of the state-owned generators is a measure of how uneconomic the deal is for NSW.
  • Proroguing parliament and intimidating inquiry witnesses show that the Keneally government has much to hide.
  • The people of NSW have a right to know what Treasurer Roozendaal and the Keneally government have done to their power assets.

It's not too late to reverse the sell-off

The Keneally government has walked away from the mess they have created leaving NSW with a dysfunctional electricity industry.

The unsustainable mix of private gentraders at some power stations and public control at others can only be resolved by reversing the original sale.

The collapse of the second wave of sell-offs will make it easier to bring all of the state's coal-fired generators back under public control.

Take action! 

Send an  to be sent to members of the NSW Legislative Council ('Upper House') to voice your opposition to the Treasurer's power sell-off and to call for the sale to be reversed.