Opposition to power sell-off grows

Green Left Weekly
26 January 2008

The Iemma government’s problem is that the proposal comes very late in the privatisation cycle that began in the mid-1980s in NSW under the government of Neville Wran. It reached a climax with the privatisation projects of Jeff Kennett’s Victorian government in the mid-1990s.

Since then we have seen:

• The greatest increase in retail electricity prices in the two states that have most privatised electricity generation and distribution (Victoria and South Australia);
• Manipulation of electricity markets via uncompetitive bidding to produce the highest possible profits for the private corporations;
• A decline in expenditure in electricity generation capacity;
• Government (taxpayer) subsidisation of private corporations who refuse to take over the cost of the unprofitable parts of previously public operations (like subsidised electricity prices and infrastructure maintenance in remote regions); and
• Privatisation fiascos like Sydney’s cross-city tunnel and airport rail link.

As a result, the Costa-Iemma argument that privatisation provides governments with increased income to spend on “core activities” like health, education and transport has become totally shaky.

more