Will the Chinese Government eventually dominate the NSW electricity transmission network?

One 26 July 2012 Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Would I Lie To You? Gulaptis told The Daily Examiner that there are no plans to sell poles and wires as part of the O’Farrell Government’s plan to fully privatize the NSW power industry.

Yet government is in the process of consolidating all poles and wires networks into a single corporation and, on 26 October last year the Premier told a Budget Estimates committee hearing that there had been no election promise to retain poles and wires in public ownership.

It cannot be clearer than this exchange from the hearing transcript; The Hon. Luke Foley: Did you not give a commitment in Lithgow that poles and wires would be retained in public ownership? Mr Barry O'Farrell: No.  

The Premier then went on to claim that he had been misquoted by Lithgow media on 28 January 2011 when one paper attributed this statement to him; We have absolutely no plans to privatise either the generators or the poles and wires.

By March 2012 the O’Farrell Government had legislation in place which would allow privatisation of state-owned power generators which is expected to bring in between $3-$4 billion in total when eventually sold.

Here on the NSW North Coast privatisation of state-owned assets is a sensitive issue given that historically such state sales are often accompanied by job losses or price hikes to consumers. One estimate is that up to two hundred jobs would be at risk in the Clarence Valley alone.

So it is with some trepidation that I read this in the Business Spectator on 31 July 2012:

The NSW Liberal government is devising a plan to attract greater foreign investment in the state's assets that will see more than $40 billion worth of infrastructure assets made available to Chinese state-owned companies, according to The Australian.

On a tour of China, NSW Liberal Premier Barry O'Farrell said that Chinese state-owned companies would be able to bid on asset sales that will be outlined in an infrastructure blueprint due in September.

Will the NSW Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government decide to offer North Coast poles and wires to the Chinese Government if it shows an interest or to sweeten a deal?

An alternative perspective on the NSW Planning and Assessment Commission

According to the Mid-North Coast Greens, an analysis of 461 development applications considered by the supposedly independent NSW Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) since the O’Farrell Government came to power in 2011 shows:

In 97.6 per cent of cases the PAC approves the development;
- In 98.87 per cent of cases the PAC ticks off on the recommendation of
the Planning Department bureaucrats; and
- In 98.64 per cent of cases the planning department bureaucrats
recommend approval of the development.

This would appear to be a remarkably high number of complying applications and, an unusual number of developers fervently embracing the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 and other relevant planning instruments.

Perhaps Brad Hazzard as Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and, current Commission members Gabrielle Kibble AO (Chair), Donna Campbell, John Court, Lindsay Kelly, Garry Payne AM, Dr Neil Shepherd AM, Emeritus Professor Kevin Sproats, Janet Thomson, and Richard Thorp ( along with Dr Lloyd Townley, Emeritus Professor Jim Galvin, Dr Steve Perrens, and Dr Graeme Batley), might like to explain this almost unnatural behaviour on the part of developers of projects as diverse as coal mining and high-pressure natural gas pipelines through to shopping centres, residential subdivisions and marinas.

Their explanations would make for fascinating reading.

Are Clarence Coast homeowners becoming too greedy?

National Australia Bank (NAB) Quarterly Australian Residential Property Survey: June 2012:
"According to the survey, national house prices fell -2% in the June quarter, from -1.3% in Q1’12, with all states reporting price falls in the 3 months to June.
House price declines were most pronounced in Victoria, down -2.9% (-1.8% in Q1’12). Heavier falls were also seen in NSW (-2.3%), compared with -0.4% fall in Q1’12. Capital values held up best in WA, although they also fell -0.6% (-0.1% in Q1’12). Marginally slower price declines were recorded in Queensland (-1.7%) and SA/NT (-1.6%).
The housing sector is expected to remain under pressure in the next year, with property professionals expecting national prices to fall by -0.7% (-0.2% forecast in Q1’12). There is, however, wide variance between the states.
Prices are expected to continue falling in Victoria (-2.1%), NSW (-1.5%) and SA/NT (-0.5%), but grow in WA (1.6%) and Queensland (0.5%)."
ANZ Research is slightly more optimistic; "prices, capital values and property market confidence in NSW should edge gradually higher through the second half of 2012 in the absence of further deterioration in the global economy."
These reports might explain why First National Real Estate Yamba in its July 2012 property update flyer is stating “some vendors pricing does not reflect the current market” as contributing to the fact that only forty-five homes have been recorded as sold in Yamba in the last six months.
Apparently many of those million dollar plus waterfront ‘mansions’ are only worth a million dollars plus in the eyes of their owners at the moment. Which might explain why they have been very publicly languishing in online property listings representing around three hundred and twenty Yamba properties currently for sale.

Australian Carbon Price Liable Entities - 24 July 2012 Update

The Clean Energy Regulator has released an updated list of corporations and councils liable to pay a price for their greenhouse gas emissions in the financial year 2012-13.

Clarence Valley Council appears to be the only Northern Rivers local government on this list, presumably due to landfill emissions.

Full list here.

Update:

As usual the Federal Nationals local Cassandra Luke Hartsuyker is yelling the sky is falling over the issue and making sure not to mention Council's new residential and business waste management scheme which will divert 60% of the valley's domestic waste away from landfill and see greenhouse gas emissions begin to reduce from 30 July 2012.

Residential supply customers carrying the can for gold-plated electricity industry infrastructure upgrades

Granny Herald points out the blindingly obvious on 27th July 2012:

"If any further evidence were needed to demonstrate how the power companies, both state-owned and private, have been foisting unnecessary price hikes on their customers, it can be found in the industry's own energy forecasts.
Forecasts of demand for electricity have a significant impact on the price of electricity. The higher the forecasts, the more money earmarked by industry for network upgrades in order to cater for this supposed increase in demand. In turn, the higher the financial returns for the industry players.
Ironically, as the transmission and distribution companies earn a regulated return on their assets, they have a perverse incentive to spend for the sake of spending.
Yet the great conundrum of the radical rise in Australian electricity prices
- up 70 per cent in six years and poised to ratchet another 30 per cent higher this year and the next - is that consumer demand has actually been falling, and falling for years.
Actual consumption in the National Electricity Network has been way out of whack with forecasts. For the past three years, the industry has had to downgrade its forecasts, and by a considerable margin. Still, they persist with forecasting large rises in energy consumption, even in the face of a clear downtrend in actual demand - and huge price rises at the retail level to boot.
Not only has the electricity industry failed to recognise a change of trend in total demand, but in peak summer demand and peak winter demand too."

The Daily Examiner insults bloggers everywhere

Hidden away on Page 9 of last Saturday’s edition of The Daily Examiner was yet another example of the mainstream media’s ignorance about blogs, blogging and bloggers.

I could feel the indignation burning up the email I received that same day, which pointed out this sentence from the pen of APN journalist Emma Pritchard and added red highlighting as emphasis:

Edible Bloomer's, an online suggestion through the Daily Examiner website from popular blogger "Yambaman".

Now a weblog aka blog is either an independent or hosted online publication created and controlled by the blogger or bloggers who write the regular posts thereon.

People whose only cyber presence is on Facebook, Twitter or similar sites are not bloggers.

Readers who comment on discussion boards, forums, under online newspaper articles or under blog posts are not bloggers.

To call “Yambaman” a blogger is to insult the entire blogosphere by attempting to stretch the genuine definition beyond all credibility.

Emma should have known better - so here is a 2007 link to a K.I.S.S. style video about blogs just for her.

The story of mining in pictures

Click on cartoon to enlarge