Sunday 4 May 2008

Iemma Defies Own Party To Sell Off Power

So the NSW Premier Morris Iemma has said his responsibility is to the people of NSW, and he will progress with the sell off of the state's electricity industry, continuing “down the path the government has started”. Okay what is the Government, my understanding is the (voting age) people of the state of NSW voted in the Labour Party, well enough of their members (and Labour supporting independents and other) so that they had over 50 percent of the vote. So the Government isn’t Iemma, or Costa et al, it’s the Labour party currently represented by Iemma and his ship of fools. So I’m thinking the ALP conference should be attended by those in the party, so when the party members voted on the electricity industry privatisation with a resounding get stuffed 702 votes against to 107 votes in favour. I would have thought this meant the Government was saying NO to privatisation of the electricity industry. Am I missing something here? Or is Iemma & Co missing something, maybe that their days are numbered, mutiny is knocking at the door and max the axe is waiting to strike them out. Which brings me to another question, who would be the new premier? Can we call in the state’s Governor to sack these guys?

I can see the so called industry benefits of privatisation, but the idea of privatisation, going from public to commercial interest, that is to companies that are there to make a profit doesn’t bode well for the little people, especially those in regional areas also known as no profit zones. Oh yes service 85% of the population on the costal regions, screw the 15% in the bush, it’s not like they are doing any good for the country, say if they were doing something like being primary producers (farms producing fresh fruits, vegetables and meat or even sustainable building products) or mining for those resources we just seem to be unable to live without like coal, steel and other precious minerals. Oops they are undertaking those activities in that marginal 15%. That’s okay they can all move to the cities, there’s plenty of spare space there and Australians can just start importing all those goods from other (low cost) countries. What’s a trade deficit? Getting back to my point at hand, privatisation for certain industries shouldn’t be allowed, I’m a believer that important state / country utilities & industries like power, water, roads & public transport should be government owned whether that be at state or federal level should be the only question. That leads me to another question, do we really need state governments, why not just have federal and local, cut out a chunk of the middle layer costs and in NSW case a chuck of relatively useless bureaucracy.

Oh ranting can be fun, and hopefully not too misguided.

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