Public forum - NSW electricity privatisation
Event date/time:
23 January 2008 - 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Public Forum
Wednesday 23 at 6pm
Panthers club (Newcastle), Auditorium 2
This forum will llaunch the campaign to oppose the privatisation of the NSW electricity industry.
Come along, show your support, and hear Greg Piper, Mayor Lake Macquarie and NSW Independent Member of Parliament, and Dr. John Kaye, Greens Upper House Member of NSW Parliament.
Join in the information sharing and help form the strategies that will help the community to stop the privatisation.
More information, contact us on 0417 422 738 John Kaye on www.johnkaye.org.au
Comments
Power Sell Off
Greg Piper MP (Ind) has commissioned community engagement website BangtheTable.com to host a public consultation relating to the proposed sale of NSW Electricity assets. As Greg says, he is hosting a consultation because the NSW Government will not. Results will be used to assist Greg in his campaign on the Power Privatisation. Bang the table hosts and independently moderates community consutations on behalf of a variety of clients. This forum will allow those who cannot get to the event or speak at it to have a say that counts.
It would be great if you could help spread the word on Greg's forum. The more people using the page the more powerful the results will be. The direct link is www.bangthetable.com/powerselloff
The Iemma givernment is not providing fair government in NSW
It seems that leasing the provision of electricity provision to private enterprise has been on the agenda for a quite a long time in this state and does not want to keep public utilities under their care, selling off to the highest bidder. I believe this is because these politicians do not want to be answerable to the public for anything at all.
I am curious indeed as to what a state government will be answerable for in the future and what they will govern? It is all very easy to sell off utilities to private enterprise on the recommendation of a Professor. I note we have never had one of these 'Professors' in our universities previously. He is obviously very much a private enterprise advocate. I dare say he won't have any trouble paying his power bills in the future, nor will any of the people in this government who advocate leasing the power. They are all very highly paid individuals - why should they care?
I don't accept these sell off/leasing scenarios or the reasons 'Professor Owens' has given for it. Nor do I accept any other utilities being sold/leased, whether it is NSW or other states. Privatisation which, in the long run is what will happen with energy in this state if this goes ahead, will not benefit the general public, merely the top end of town once again. There will be a cost to taxpayers, there has to be in the long run.
A Metro-style train service for Sydney? Only in their dreams and not in the lifetime of this government. That is a spin if ever there was one.
How can you guys form a
How can you guys form a forum against something so understandable and practical?
I am not an Iemma supporter and not opposed to his policies either. However, one lesson that I have learned in life is that a good policy is not always the popular policy. And probably this is what you guys are trying to prove.
Public sector state owned monopolies have a proven track record of ending up being inefficient, riddled by high costs, and a place where it is good to work, because you never end up getting fired (all thanks to the unions) no matter how much loss the industry is suffering.
"Doesn't matter, the tax payers can pay for the loss. At least it will protect the few thousand people working in the industry, compared to the benefits it will bring to the whole population"
You people were against communist powers during the cold war, but it seems to me that you are all communist at heart.Because that is what they believed in (the state providing for all essential services). Will love it if you all moved to North Korea.
Funnily enough, Anonymous,
Funnily enough, Anonymous, Rising Tide wasn't around in the cold war and so we didn't align ourselves with either of the Great Powers (unfortunately for the Great Powers).
I think though that if you do the numbers selling off the power isn't a great idea. Putting Australia's biggest source of greenhouse gas pollution in corporate hands is not a very good idea either.
The arguments for not
The arguments for not privatising NSW electricity in part or in whole are environmental. More specifically, it is the kind of privatisation which they plan, i.e. sell off to one or several companies, which will cause these problems. There is a privatisation and capacity increasing method, which will reduce greenhouse gas production, i.e. micro generation by households through the solar/hydrogen technology developped by the University of NSW.
The University of NSW has developed GREENHOUSE GAS FREE hydrogen generation for electricity (and later transport) from solar which they say on their website could be on 1.6 million roofs and thus supply about 4.8 million people.
This technology makes part of the grid, some retailing and some power stations obsolete. It brings power to the people, literally - but like converting Jews to Christianity raises the price of pork (The Merchant of Venice), it also makes part of the assetts which Morris Iemma wants to sell obsolete and worthless.
The business of the buyer can only be good and growing if subsequent NSW governments will disallow the greenhouse gas free technology by not licencing it. I have experienced tactics for innovation stifling from the electricity industry in Germany. With our current greenhouse gas problems, we can no longer tolerate that. (Write to me for details about the German example.)
The ideologues in the think tanks and rating agencies have forgotten to update their rule book or they would have seen the subprime crisis coming. We must start to take their recommendations with two grains of salt, since they have failed too often, the biggest recent failure being the subprime crisis affecting people worldwide. They only ever have that ‘one size fits all’ solution, privatise. Micro generation of electricity does privatise, but in a benign way.
Analysis of corporate privatisation of NSW electricity versus micro generation by householders:
1. Buyer will want to keep working with the asetts they have bought.
2. Buyer will not want greenhouse gas free electricity production through solar on private dwellings, because that does not make money for them.
3. Buyer will lobby to prevent licencing of these solar/hydrogen units. There may even be a ‘stifling clause’in the contract that the seller (government) will ensure future business is not affected by allowing new technology that does not make money for the buyer(s).
4. Buyer will have no problem with paying carbon taxes - consumer pays.
5. Buyer will criss cross the continent with multibillion Dollar pipelines for carbon sequestration - consumer pays.
6. Electricity prices, unnecessarily high through carbon taxes and sequestration, will drive up wages and inflation.
7. Large scale, corporate electricity generation (as opposed to mircro generation by households) has jobs for politicans seeking career changes. There are no jobs for former politicians when householders generate their own greenhouse gas free elctricity.
8. The media favour privatisation because big and competing companies bring in advertising revenue, which micro generation will not.
Privatisation will be a disaster for the environment, the economy, and social cohesion because it reinforces the upstairs/downstairs structures of society.
What next then to make people and stakeholders aware that this corporate privatisation is a product of outdated ideology?
A. Contact prospective buyers that purchasing NSW electricity assetts means buying a dud.
B. Contact the banks not to provide finance.
C. Make people aware of the greenhouse gas free hydrogen technology developed by the University of NSW. (Read their press release, request updates or simply type in your search engine +hydrogen+solar+University+NSW)
D. Demand contracts be public in all detail to ensure there is no innovation stifling clause hidden in the fine print.
E. Write into blogs etc on the net. Make sure that you do not waste your time end energy in writing endless letters to the traditional commercial media (Murdoch, Fairfax etc.) because they have an interest in corporate privatisation.
F. Take all recommendations by think tanks and rating agencies with two grains of salt. They are driven by old, very old ideology which was set up as a bullwark against the Soviet Union but - hello - parameters and especially technologies have changed since 1989.
If one were to make a list of where the think tanks got it wrong, it would be an impressive list indeed and adding the NSW electricity issue to that would be a great pity.