Electricity privatisation: NSW Speaker opposes it

The Member for Northern Tablelands and Speaker in the NSW Legislative Assembly, Richard Torbay, has put his cards about the privatisation of electricity on the table.

The Armidale Express reports Torbay said, "I am still opposed to the electricity privatisation and have not heard any arguments to convince me otherwise.

“Short term it will inevitably lead to loss of jobs and poorer services in country areas. But in long term the policy of selling off public assets may be seen as short sighted.

“The debate we should be having is the lack of government investment in public infrastructure over a long period and whether the people would be better served through reversing this position.”

Torbay said the power privatisation debate debased political standards in NSW and both the government and opposition had misled the people.

Although Torbay gave both the Government and Opposition serves for the position they have taken on the power issue, he made a stinging attack on National Party MPs.

According to Torbay, the Nationals had publicly opposed the sell off and told their constituents they were against it, but caved in at the last minute and fell in line with their Coalition partners.

“It’s like dairy deregulation and firearms legislation. The Nationals say one thing in the electorate and then go back to Parliament and vote against it,” he said.

With all its duck shoving, manoeuvring, number crunching and backflipping it has been an exercise in sheer hypocrisy and the worst I’ve seen since entering Parliament,” he said.

“The vital component missing in this debate has been the interests of the people.

“They have been misinformed and misled from start to finish.

“Although it looks as if we have a done deal on the privatisation, very few people in regional NSW have any idea of how it would impact on them or whether it is a sound long term decision. That is the debate we should have had.”

Mr Torbay said the Labor government went to the 2007 election with a commitment not to privatise the state’s public electricity assets and despite internal divisions now seemed set to push it through.

After sitting on the fence throughout the debate, the Liberals and Nationals had given their support this week based on conditions that were simply a face saving device to mask growing political division within the parties.

Premier Costa? 2

Comparison displayed at Machine Gun Keyboard.

In The Northern Star.

"Treasurer Michael Costa is the driving force behind the privatisation plan and Mr Smith said the blame for the situation the ALP finds itself in over this issue can be 'laid at the feet' of Mr Costa who has not been prepared to negotiate. "I was there representing people from the Northern Rivers and we don't want electricity privatised," Mr Smith said."

Premier Costa?

Privatisation of NSW electricity in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday.

"The joke in state political circles this week was that Morris Iemma finally found a backbone: the trouble was, it was Michael Costa's."

"Costa didn't care whether he destroyed the party, the factions or the Government as long as he got the result. For Costa, it was total war."

The low dingo intends government to be carbon neutral by 2020

Little Morrie Iemma was shouting it from the rooftops yesterday.
"The Government's plans to become carbon neutral include reducing green house gas emissions from building energy use to year 2000 levels by 2020."

Yeah right - take another twelve years to get government administrative operations and buildings to go carbon neutral.
While this year or next you privatise, and remove from full state control, that dirty greenhouse gas producing electricity industry for the multinationals to play ducks and drakes with.
Morrie you're a low dingo.

Australia 2008: What the unions create the unions can take away

Neither Our Kev or Little Morrie have had their history hats on over this last month or so as they both push the privatisation of NSW power industry assets, in the face of widespread general public and union opposition to this plan.
Both the Prime Minister and the NSW Premier are forgetting that in the 19th century it was the unions which birthed the Australian Labor Party and then nurtured it to adulthood.

With Labor now so far to the right of centre on the political spectrum that it seems almost indistinguishable from the Liberal Party most of the time, many ordinary Australians are browned off and beginning to ask themselves who represents their interests now.
Perhaps the time has come for the labour movement to birth another political party which more accurately represents the 21st century Aussie battler.

I know that if the unions put together another party based on notions of equality, equity and social justice I would probably vote for its candidates.
Any vote for Labor these last thirty years has usually been a compromise between a bad choice and an even worse choice.

Thanks to Club Troppo for displaying the pic of a young comrade.

Sorry, Janelle - Rudd and Iemma just shortened your political honeymoon

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd openly supported the Iemma-Costa proposal to sell-off NSW electricity retailers he ran the risk of tarring all his MPs with this unpopular brush, because let's face it - Australia is wall to wall Labor governments right now.
It was always going to be a hard ask for federal MPs to retain that just married feeling with their local electorates once the 2008 budget is handed down later this month.
However, a very competent Member for Page just had the goodwill precipitously wrenched away by the infamous privatisation plan.
North Coast residents on low incomes are well aware that no federal or state policy will be able to adequately compensate them for increased electricity costs and service charges.
The introduction of the Commonwealth Goods and Services Tax taught a well-remembered lesson in that regard.
Unfortunately for Janelle Saffin, not even the manifest inadequacy of North Coast Nationals and Leader of the Opposition Brendan Nelson's continual failure to grasp the issues will save her from the inevitable backlash.

Labor betrays New South Wales and the Northern Rivers

The NSW Labor parliamentary party yesterday declared itself willing to trust to Morris Iemma's leadership on 'fire sale' privatisation of the state's power industry.
I hope these same pollies are willing to trust the electorate to remove them from their seats in 2011.
Deceitful, spineless, brown paper bag merchants one and all.

Not only are they condemning low-income eraners to electricity price increases which will go beyond what could have been expected under state ownership, they are placing NSW northern rivers under threat because certain multinational power companies have had their eyes on our fresh water for years with regard to proposals to build new hydro-electric schemes.

Iemma and Costa determined to give Spivs Inc [NSW] and Developers Unlimited mates a good deal on power privatisation?

With the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption replete with investigative files prima facie linking political donations with favourable actions taken by the NSW Government, one has to wonder whether last weekend's decision by an intransigent Morris Iemma and a 'tired and emotional' Michael Costa to defy Labor Party policy and the electorate, by forging ahead with plans to privatise state-owned power assets, indicates that some big business mates are already preparing to carve up those assets.

The recently created Alliance for NSW Future, whose sole purpose is to promote electricity privatisation, has member organisations which represent many corporations on NSW Labor's donor list.

Morris Iemma has presided over a government which is less than transparent over its dealings with political donors and he appears to have lost the confidence of a majority of voters.
Michael Costa has turned every portfolio he ever held into a public relations disaster and as Treasurer demonstrated this week why it might be unwise for such a mercurial and aggressive personality to continue to hold this ministry.

The Labor Party and Labor MPs need to ask themselves if they can afford to indulge a prima donna Premier who cannot eradicate a perception of corruption and a Treasurer whose emotional balance and judgement is now in question.

Now is the time for the party to sack Iemma and Costa

Enough is enough. When both Morris Iemma and Michael Costa publicly stated that they will proceed with their plan to privatise NSW electricity supplies, they not only went against the vote of Labor's state conference and undertakings to relevant unions they also went against the majority opinion of voters.

If the Australian Labor Party wants to see votes in the ballot box in March 2011 it needs to expel both of these arrogant men from the party.

If Sussex Street does not move swiftly to do so it will only encourage Kevin Rudd (who unforgivably supports Iemma in this) to walk all over the states next time he gets a similar stupid idea. 

Premier Iemma is orpheus rocker!

Contemptuous of Labor Party policy, ignoring public opinion, along with his attack dog Costa reported to have threatened ministerial staffers with the sack if they voted against power industry privatisation at this weekend's state conference, defying the 702-strong conference vote against his policy and saying he will privatise anyway - Morris Iemma is showing himself to be less and less a Labor Premier of New South Wales and more and more an arrogant dictator supported by big business and the multinationals.
Orpheus rocker? You bet mate!


NSW Planning Minister Sartor - fair dinkum or fraud?

The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported yet another political donation made to the NSW Planning Minister during the years development proposals by the donors were under consideration.

"The Mariner donation is among contributions of $106,097 that 26 donors say they gave Mr Sartor, on forms where they are asked to name the recipient in their official declarations to the NSW Election Funding Authority.
This does not match Mr Sartor's individual candidate return to the authority, in which he said he received $1800 for the 2007 election from four donors, none of them named companies."

Frank Sartor denies any of the money went to him or his election campaign. [Porcine aerobatics were observed in the skies over Sydney]

Morris Iemma is so out of touch that....

Morris Iemma is so out of touch that if he and Costa are rolled over the privatisation of NSW power industry at this weekend's Labor state conference, then it is odds on that he will still attempt to push the sell-off through parliament because Caucus is also seemingly becoming irrelevant to the parliamentary Labor right.

Canberra show pony or prime minister?

So now the Prime Minister has backed away from his fulsome support of Morris Iemma's daft idea to privatise NSW power supplies.

Rudders, you should never have backed this nag in the first place.

It was wrong to open your mouth (for the sake of a media moment) and put this state's essential services further at risk by supporting privatisation.

Trying to straddle the electric fence now, by telling Iemma he should 'negotiate' with the unions, is nothing but show pony prance.

Mate - it's time you decided if you are going to be a Labor prime minister in the finest tradition or if you are going to be a closet Liberal with a well-to-do wife.

Just to jog your memory a bit. The electorate voted for a Labor man.

Mrs. Iemma - do us all a favour and wash your son's mouth out with Sunlight soap

Little Morrie Iemma must be a constant shame to his mother.
His constant ducks and drakes approach to the truth would worry any parent.
It certainly worries NSW voters if the latest Newspoll survey, showing a 56% dissatisfaction rate for the Premier, is any indication.
Here is his latest.

"PREMIER Morris Iemma's office gave written assurances via email to unions three weeks before the 2007 election that it had no intention of privatising the power industry and that it would remain in public hands.
The unions have now released the correspondence to accuse Mr Iemma of lying to workers - and voters - who had no idea the power sell-off was on the agenda ahead of polling day. With only one in eight delegates expected to back the power sale at this weekend's ALP state conference, the emergence of Mr Iemma's post-election switch will further damage his standing. An email from Mr Iemma's senior staff to a key power union in March last year categorically rejected any plans for the Government to privatise the electricity sector, claiming it would remain a "key service" of government."

Meanwhile up in the top paddock.....

According to ABC News yesterday the Commonwealth Public Service Union thinks that "Mr Rudd is sending a clear message that he wants to return to a Westminster system in which public servants tell the Government what it needs to know, rather than what it wants to hear.
"Through a range of means it was made clear throughout the period of the Howard years and with some ministers in particular, not all of them, that it wasn't a career move to give certain sorts of advice on matters that didn't align with the Government's particular philosophy or view," he said."

But is that really what the Prime Minister is saying in his Address to Heads of Agencies and Members of Senior Executive Service in Canberra yesterday.
In a quiet way Kevin Rudd is signalling that tenure remains uncertain for senior levels in the public service.

Telstra rewarded for its support of Labor during 2007 election?

During the 2007 federal election Telstra actively campaigned against the telecommunications policy and business decisions of the Howard Government.

 

Is this part of Labor's reward to Telstra for services rendered?

In The Australian this morning.

 

DETAILS about Australia's telecommunications infrastructure, crucial for bidders pitching for the $4.7 billion national broadband contract, are not available from the Government -- more than a week after the request for proposals (RFP) for the bid.

In the week since the release of the RFP on April 11, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been trying to assure the telco industry that the process being used to award the lucrative contract is not biased towards Australia's dominant telecommunications player Telstra.

But in the battle to win the $4.7 billion national broadband bid, Telstra, which wants an after-tax return on the network north of 18 per cent for its shareholders, appeared to win the psychological advantage when its media man Phil Burgess said the day before the RFP was released that the former government-owned monopoly expected to get the nod.

The timing and tenor of his comments sent a murmur through the telco industry but the release of the RFP a day later had some convinced that a deal had been done.

The three main criticisms from Telstra's rivals of the RFP for the open access fibre network are that it lacks public scrutiny for such a large investment of public funds, that it could entrench a monopoly provider and that it disadvantages Telstra's rivals in the bidding process.

The Australian understands that a number of companies are currently crafting letters to the minister expressing their concerns about the deal, and the CEOs of the G9 group of Telstra's rivals are planning to meet within days to discuss how to respond to the RFP.

The federal Opposition has also raised concerns about the inclusion of a gag order in the broadband tender which prohibits bidders from discussing it publicly. Opposition communications spokesman Bruce Billson says that he has received legal advice describing the gag order as an "extraordinary" inclusion in a government RFP.

"Legal opinion I have sought is also contrary to the claims from the minister's office that the gag order is common. I am advised it is quite uncommon in both private sector and government contracts," he says.

Are these the nongs who want to set off rabbit hunts at the office?

Yesterday I woke to find that the Rudd Government had lost its tiny mind and finally lurched so far right that it was convincingly lost in a strange black ops forest.

Yep, it had called up the terrorist bogey man to insist that it was fit and proper to let an employer snoop unannounced into every email passing through an office computer or a company laptop being used by a worker while out in the big bad world.

 

So who or what has been whispering in the shell-like ears of our fearless Cabinet members?

After US Homeland Security and FBI, the first Aussie culprit appears to be The Research Network for a Secure Australia, a "multi-disciplinary collaboration established to strengthen Australia's research capacity for protecting critical infrastructure from natural or human caused disasters including terrorist acts" and provide security "commercialisation opportunities", funded by the Australian Government (at least until next year) and administered by Melbourne University.

 

Looking at the Network's management and advisory line up, I am flabbergasted that all these academics and professionals could apparently come up with to 'protect' Australia from cyber threats was a plan to spy on ordinary people.

 

The management committee contacts are:

A/Prof. Priyan Mendis
Reader, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering
The University of Melbourne,
Prof. Ed Dawson

Director- Information Security Institute
Queensland University of Technology
Prof. Joseph Lai
Associate Dean (Research)
UNSW @ ADFA
Australian Defence Force Academy

 

Its advisory committee is made up of the following:

Chair:
Mr. Mike Rothery (Director, Critical Infrastructure Branch, Attorney-General's Dept.).

Members:
Dr. Richard Davis (Head, NSST Unit);
Dr. Lynn Booth (DSTO);
Mr. Bruce Howard (Engineers Australia, Security Commissioner);
Prof. Ed Dawson (QUT);
Prof. Peter Anderson (PICT, Macquarie University);
Mr. Jason Brown (General Manager, Thales);
Craig Sharkie (CSL Ltd);
Tony Sleigh (NSW Lands);
Mr. Warwick Watkins (Director-General NSW Lands);
A/Prof Priyan Mendis (Convenor of RNSA);
Prof. Joseph Lai (ADFA);
Ms. Jennie Clothier (DSTO);
Mr. Terry Vincent (Australian Bomb Data Centre).

Advisory Board Secretary:
Mr. Athol Yates (Australian Homeland Security Research Centre)

 

The Australian Homeland Security Research Centre  which gives the advisory board its secretary also has an expertise roll call that makes for interesting reading. An employment background  combination of business, military, embassy and spooks all seemingly looking to sell us something to fight that bogeyman.

 

Of course the bogeyman is just as likely to be an infrastructure company like Telstra who very recently repaired an internet exchange box storm-damage fault with an equally faulty computer card and launched its own 2-day denial of service cyber attack on Yamba customers by bringing down its broadband service.

And in the process actually realising the observation that being struck by lightening is more probable than a terrorist attack!

'Water poverty' - a case of back to the future

With Australian government at all levels looking to cost increases to the consumer as a way to off-set increasing demand for essential services, this scenario out of Britain does not reassure.

Nothing I have heard from our own politicians has truly come to grips with how increasing costs for water, electricity, gas and petrol will affect low-income families over the long-term or explained how limited and periodic government handouts to compensate for increases will actually avoid this type of Third World poverty trap.

 

According to BBC News last Saturday.

 

The number of people in "water poverty" will rise, says the water consumer watchdog for England and Wales.

The Consumer Council for Water uses the term for people whose water bills cost more than 3% of their income after tax.

It estimates a third of people living in the South West will fit this criteria by 2010.

Give Mac Bank the flick & bring back bonds says Motorists Action Group

This turned up in the Inbox yesterday.

It seems that the Motorists Action Group has joined those sending Morris Iemma a message about his planned privatisation of NSW electricity supplies.

 

Draft Media Release

 

Government Bonds Not Selling-off Assets To Fund New Infrastructure

 

The NSW Government has been asked to re-issue once popular government bonds to fund new road, rail and services infrastructure projects instead of selling-off publicly owned infrastructure such as the electricity generation network to pay for such works.

 

Richard Talbot, President of the Motorists Action Group (MAG) & long serving NRMA Director said: "A once off sell-off of publicly owned assets to pay for new infrastructure is not the way to go. Nor is handing over new infrastructure projects to merchant bankers who create debt ridden financial models to hoping they can on-sell these financial basket cases and exit the scene to make a short term profit.

 

"Good government is about providing long term, sustainable and user affordable solutions to this countries growing and changing needs. Government bonds were a traditional way previous generations have funded many road, rail, water & electricity projects. They were very popular with mums & dads investors as a safe way of saving for their retirement as they were government guaranteed. Importantly they were a relatively cheap way of the government gaining access to a large pool of funds without having to go through a middleman.

Government bonds were phased out of existence when the economic rationalists took the helm of successive state governments and conga lines of private sector lobbyists became regular fixtures at expensive political party fundraisers.

 

"We should learn from the mistakes of the past with a number of infrastructure funding failures such as the Cross City Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel and the Airport Rail Link. The new transport initiatives such as the North West Rail Link and M7 Extension (from Blacktown to Kariong) can all be funded by giving the public and superannuation funds to directly invest in the projects. Additionally other already built projects can be bought back through such an investment method.

 

"Selling-off the silver wear then handing it over to privateers to extract short term profits is not in the best interests of residents and taxpayers. Gaining the support of the people who'll be using the final product by giving mums & dads a chance to invest in their own infrastructure is in the best long term interests of both governments and consumers".

 

Richard Talbot has written to the NSW Government urging the re-introduction of State Government Bonds.

National Generators Forum wants major Australian emitters to be given greenhouse get-out-of-gaol-free card

In January this year the National Generators Forum wrote to the Ganaut Climate Change Review recommending that, in any future national carbon trading scheme, major energy companies using conventional dirty production methods be given consideration by way of "appropriate allocation of permits" "to recognise past investment made in good faith".

In other words both public and private energy suppliers would like a free pass on much of their existing infrastructure and production practices. Even though these suppliers could have made an informed decision to apply mitigation measures anytime in the last ten to twenty years.

Such a free pass would also involve considerable dollar compensation to the Forum's 22-strong membership.

It seems that the National Generators Forum is quite happy with the notion that the poor will bear a disproportionate burden when it comes to predicted increased energy costs, but it is less than happy at the thought of its own members bearing any financial burden at all.

North Coast action group speaks out on NSW coastal freight corridors

Climate Change Will Make the NSW Coastal Freight Corridors Unsustainable

On 27th November 2007 in the case Walker v Minister for Planning [2007] NSWLEC 741, Justice Peter Biscoe of the Land Environment Court ruled against a coastal development at Sandon Point, on the NSW south coast on the grounds that it will be likely to suffer from coastal flooding as a result of Climate Change. He found that the NSW Planning Minister had failed to consider "whether changed weather patterns would lead to an increased flood risk in connection with the proposed development in circumstances where flooding was identified as a major constraint on development of the site".
A part of his judgement relating to Ecologically Sustainable Development Principles
covers 49 pages and follows the history through the United Nations and other world forums of these principles which relate to, inter alia, preserving biodiversity and taking inter generational responsibility to ensure current developments are sustainable and will not impose an unnecessary burden on future generations.
An area of coastal vulnerability noted in the case was land within 3 kilometres of the high tide mark and under the 6 metre contour.
When we look at the current transportation policy in relation to road and rail freight corridors between Sydney and Brisbane we find that both the rail line which transports mainly bulky goods and the road freight corridor (Pacific Highway) which transports mainly non bulky goods both run within 1 kilometre of the coast when they pass through Coffs Harbour and both are situated under the 6 metre contour.
Lands within 3 kilometres of the coast and under the 6 metre contour have been recognised by planners and the Insurance Council of Australia as being vulnerable to severe weather events and coastal inundation.
A CSIRO report to the Victorian Government suggested that 1:100 severe weather events could occur every 5 years by 2070.
Buffer zones at Hearnes Lake (calculated for the Sandy/Hearnes Lake Estuary Management Plan) where the proposed motorway will run within 600 metres of the High Water Mark take into account rising sea levels and it has been suggested by WBM Oceanics (authors of the EMP) that planning horizons should cover the next 100 years and that the creation of major infrastructure within the coastal zone should be avoided.
The Environmental Assessment for the Sapphire to Woolgoolga section of the Pacific Highway indicates the cost of the new 6 lane motorway upgrade will cost close to $850 million by completion.
Given that $450 million has been invested in the Sydney Brisbane rail line recently and about $850 million will be spent on the 25 kilometre Sapphire to Arrawarra section of the Pacific Highway alone one has to wonder why is so much money being spent on ecologically unsustainable motorways.
The Tourism Transport Forum Ltd claims responsibility on their web site for lobbying the Howard Government into committing AusLink funding for the Hexham to Tweed upgrade of the Pacific Highway to tolled motorway standard and having it declared a national road freight corridor.
SHAG wonders if its members like the NRMA, the RTA, Toll Transport, Macquarie Bank and the AbiGroup who profit from motorway building will ever display the same awareness of Justice Peter Biscoe and others who embrace Ecologically Sustainable Development Principles and face the challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil and the responsibility to future generations with wisdom and courage.
It is alarming to think that since the WBM Oceanics paper was written, the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets have been found to be melting at a rate of 150 billion cubic metres every year (Refer Appendix F).
Climate Change expert with NASA, Dr James Hansen (Appendix F), predicts that if the Earth’s temperature increases by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius this century that ocean levels could rise by up to 1 metre every 20 years. He claims the last time the Earth was 2 to 3 degrees warmer sea levels were 25 metres higher than they are today.
The Planning Minister Frank Sartor, should adopt the Precautionary Principle, refuse Pacific Highway upgrade works in the Northern Beaches of Coffs Harbour and get on with securing a "fit for purpose" rail freight network between Sydney and Brisbane as well as returning road freight to the New England Highway.

Wayne Evans
Sandy Hearnes Action Group (SHAG)

*Guest Speak is a new North Coast Voices feature airing serious or satirical comment by local individuals or groups.

Morrie and the Multinationals sing 'It's you and me against the world'

Well the report into the electricity privatisation plan has been presented to the Iemma Government.

Predictably, it comes down predominantly in favour of the Iemma-Costa proposal.

Also predictably, NSW unions hold a dissenting view.

Uncomfortably but not unexpectedly, Prime Minister Rudd weighed in to support his little mate and sang from the same hymn book.

What is a little surprising is the strong rumour that a number of North Coast Labor Party branches are very unhappy and at least one has made known its opposition to Morrie's little scheme to sell-off an essential service.

 

So, apart from most of his 21-strong front bench, some hardline economists and the big multinational energy companies, who is in favour of what appears to be a $25 billion Telsta-style sell out?

Anyone? No-one?

 

Not even the three reports that came before the NSW Government gave an unqualified tick of approval to this sell-off. Doesn't that give you pause for thought, Premier?

Morrie, I hope that they hang you high by your heels at the ALP state conference in May.

 

A collection of papers and the final report are at Securing the State's Electricity Supplies.

The March 2008 Impact Statement with dissenting positions by Unions NSW and the Total Environment Centre is at this link.