Why I will support the Labor Party conference decision

I attended the ALP conference at the weekend as a delegate from the State Parliamentary Labor Party. I supported the conference motion that rejected the Premier and the Treasurer's plan to privatise the retail and generation arms of the state's electricity system. 

I did not speak at the conference but I have received many emails and phone calls from people wanting to know my position on this matter.

I do not support the current plan for the following reasons:

Economic

The sale involves the selling of an essential, valuable, profit making public assets at a rapidly reducing price.  These assets have been built up over many years of public investment. I do not believe that it is reasonable to sell off public assets and steal the dividends from these assets from future generations. A future fund will not adequately compensate the public for the loss of the asset.

What has also become clear is that if the sale is pushed through the public will not get the amount of money that it should for these assets. In the ideological fire sale, the public in NSW will be ripped off.

No guarantees about base load

The plan does not guarantee that one additional watt of energy will be built by the private sector to add to our base load needs. There is nothing that is currently stopping the private sector from investing in base load power in NSW except their desire to remove the government from the market. The experience of other states is that even after privatisation those states still don't have any base load being built.

Environmental

The issue of climate change requires urgent and concerted action. The implementation of energy efficiency and active demand management will become far more difficult in a privatised market where there is no incentive to reduce consumption. This is not the time for government to take it's hand off the tiller when it comes to finding ways to reduce greenhouse gases in NSW and before the final carbon price has been determined.

Consumer

Electricity is an essential service. We need to protect the most vulnerable from increased prices and disconnection. I am not convinced that consumers best interests will be protected by private electricity companies no matter what the government claims it can regulate for.

Job Protection

The experience of privatisation is that costs are pushed down by the newly privatised entity. Workers are the first to feel the pressure with losses of conditions, redundancies and increased contracting out.

Political

This sale has no public mandate. 85% of voters do not support privatisation. An even higher percentage of Labor voters do not support the sale. The people who supported me to be a representative of the Labor Party in the state parliament are overwhelming opposed to the sale. I cannot defy their wishes.

When I signed up to the Labor Party I signed a pledge to uphold the platform of the Party. I intend to honour that pledge.