Public concern about the 99-year leasing of government-owned assets is proving to be a hot topic in the NSW election, with consumers and communities fearful what it will mean for power prices, jobs, profit dispersal and the future of Australia’s assets.
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Rising from the shadow of this decision is the high-visibility, state-wide campaign to “Stop the Sell Off”, whose website claims that privatisation would mean higher electricity prices, a less reliable network with more blackouts, massive local job losses and a loss of $1.7 billion in public profit annually.
Member for Goulburn Pru Goward is standing by her party’s commitment to lease the state's electricity assets.
Ms Goward said Essential Energy will remain in government hands and there are no plans for leasing.
“If we didn’t do it, NSW will be struggling. Unless the Union wants to get rid of the Australian Energy Regulator and turn back to the old days, when every electricity company set its own prices. As a natural monopoly these prices can be set at whatever they like,” she said.
“There has already been changes within Transgrid, and workers will be facing more change in April regardless.”
Local community campaigners Michael McManus and Paul O'Malley, have been out in force over the last few weeks in an effort to raise public awareness about the potential impacts of electricity network privatisation across the Goulburn electorate.
“The biggest issue we face is the loss of jobs,” Mr McManus said.
“The promised funding of the estimated $27 billion will be for infrastructure in Sydney. They propose investing $6 billion back into regional NSW, but places such as Albion Park and the Hunter are classified as ‘regional NSW’.
“The Barton’s problem is deaths, in Sydney they are just funnelling more vehicles into the bottleneck.”
Ms Goward stated that getting her hands on the significant portion of the $6 billion was her job.
“I’m a fighter and my job is to fight for part of that $6 billion and what would you rather me do fight for a share of $6 billion or nothing? Because that’s the option, Labor is offering nothing for this region.”
Mr O’Malley describes the investment into infrastructure as an immediate depreciating asset, but Ms Goward countered by saying every asset that is bought depreciates immediately.
Although the privatisation will be under a leased agreement, Mr O’Malley said that there is a lot of damage that can happen in 99 years.
“Transgrid will in fact be 100 percent privatised, it will be completely out of our hands,” he claimed.
“We have 55 local workers in Yass and over 200 in the Goulburn electorate, if those workers lose their jobs on a salary of around $70,000 pa, in consequence it will have a detrimental effect on the community.”
Ms Goward said that the bottom line is that governments and electricity companies no longer set prices.
“Transgrid have to get their revenue down by 24 percent by April, so there are changes that are going to happen regardless,” she said.
Both campaigners believe the industry will fundamentally change as soon as the sale is made, claiming that private entities will not consider capital expenditure and neither will it look at the future of educating the youth in trade.
“Transgrid have four to six apprentices at the moment and some of which receive scholarships to pursue further education at University, it’s not profitable for a private company to continue this.”