Power privatisation update: 139 to 1

The State Government's attempt to privatise NSW electricity is creating sparks with a Labor Party branch pushing to have Premier Morris Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa kicked out of the party.

The Alexandria branch laid internal party charges against the Premier and Treasurer with the party's head office, alleging the two were breaching party rules over the planned sell-off.

These charges will not be dealt with until at least a month after the state Labor Party conference because the next meeting of the Administrative Committee is not until June. ALP members believe the Premier and the Treasurer are breaching party rules by committing to the privatisation without the agreement of the state conference.

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Of the 140 branches and electorate councils that have submitted resolutions on privatisation, only the Kiama state electorate council on the South Coast has endorsed it.

A report of the ALP's finance and economic committee, which is compiling submissions from party branches before the conference, shows the Kiama council was outnumbered by 139 party organisations demanding that power generators and retailers stay in public ownership. ALP branch leaders say overwhelming opposition to the sale among members signals that the Government's attempt to push privatisation through the conference is doomed.

Most unions, including the ETU, the USU, the CPSU, and the CFMEU have pledged to vote down the privatisation proposal.

Robyn Fortescue, a vice-president of the ALP's Darlington branch said "This will be very damaging to Iemma if he stays on this course. If they don't get the message from Labor Party members, who put them in their jobs in the first place, I don't know what will."

The Unions NSW assistant secretary, Matt Thistlethwaite, said the finance and economic committee report, reflecting hostile branch sentiment, had sealed the fate of the privatisation attempt.

"If both halves of the conference - unions and rank-and-filers - are against this, it's almost certain to go down in May," he said. "The Premier and Treasurer should just back off."

The Minister for Housing and Tourism, Matt Brown, who holds the seat of Kiama, has confirmed that two of his personal staff serve on the electorate council. Kiama branch members pointed out that only two of the five branches affiliated to the state electorate council had supported the privatisation proposal, but Mr Brown's staffers "had rammed the motion through".

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