Interesting research Graham.

So it's full speed ahead Mike and dam the electoral torpedoes?

The Sydney opera house cost a veritable fortune! However, nobody thought they needed to sell income earning assets to pay for it! Instead, someone with a great deal more vision than Mike, used a simple long term casket to raise the essential funds.

Selling income earning assets is just dumb.

Sure there's an influx of money, but just once; and then the income derived from the assets has to be replaced!

In the ABC news this morning; Comparisons between privatized generation assets, show the privatized ones have created consumer costs four times higher in any fair comparison.

Do you seriously believe the electors in NSW would sit still for that, even as just a possibility; particularly the way electricity charges affect industrial development and jobs/jobs/jobs!

I also wouldn't rule out the crusading Alan Jones factor and just how hostile this man has become toward the coalition on all manner of things, i.e., new coal mines, CSG, and the patently unfair way the Abbott Government has attacked the less well off?

Alan Jones told us on Q+A, that he pays 48 cents in the dollar tax, the highest rate?

And then went on to explain, that by investing in his own super, he can save 33 cents of that; meaning an effective tax rate for him and his ilk of just 15 cents in the dollar!?

And Mike Baird has yet to try 30 year self terminating bonds, to build all manner of income earning assets. And we now have super funds larger than our economy, for heavens sake!

Arguably, we are one of a few countries, that simply refuse to do so, but were high up in the queue when it came to worthless derivatives, the reason some of our municipalities are now unable to pay for essential infrastructure?

I also believe it will be close, and with Alan Jones mounting a hostile campaign, it is not yet a forgone conclusion the Mike Baird will win, or that assets sales will progress?
Cheers, Rhrosty.

The Libs may hang on in NSW, but they have now produced a one term government in QLD and VIC with NT most likely to join them. In SA Labor will hang on despite being hopeless cause the Libs are even worst and WA is up in the air with their financial crunch starting to bite.

Tony's Libs will most likely be a one term government because they hang the wrong leader. i agree with Graham that voters tend to vote against then for things. People will be queuing impatiently to vote Tony's Libs out at the next election.

The Libs can not sell their message of economic austerity with an credibility, while they will not go after the big end of town

We're told that only 30% of us understand politics, that only 30% understand economics, with the remaining 40% understanding neither.

It is the ignorant and easily manipulated 40%, who decide all our elections.

And it is this 40% that is the target audience of shock jocks like Alan Jones, and it seems, who think the sun shines out of his proverbial.

Little wonder even Prime Ministers are it seems, afraid of this outspoken man, who simply does not mince words, and seems to be hostile to all thing coalition, at this time!

And may well have been a factor in Campbell Newman's downfall?
Rhrosty.

The Mantra I would be endlessly repeating is; a vote for Mike Baird and his coalition, is a vote for privatization; and as has occurred elsewhere, quadrupled electricity charges!
Rhrosty.

Typical tory tactics.
Dont sell your own policies just trash your opponents.

"You have to frame your opponent as a risk, or you will most probably fail."

Pure gutter politics! All that we expect from the liars and dissemblers on the right these days.

How sad. And you wonder why people have no respect for politics and cant be bothered. There's your answer right there.

The Abbott factor will account for a lot of swinging votes. As time gets closer the smaller the gap. It will be a certainty that Abbott will put his foot in it just to seal NSW fate. With 15 seats already moved away from Baird govt; with 40% undecided.

Support for Premier Mike Baird's plan for the privatisation of NSW electricity assets has fallen, despite his promise to use the proceeds to fund $20 billion worth of infrastructure projects.

Mr Baird has announced that if reelected on March 28 he will privatise transmission company Transgrid and 50.4 per cent of distribution businesses Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy via a 99 year lease. People won’t like that because it’s Abbott’s idea.

Sorry Mikk, but Labor ran a negative campaign in Queensland and won. There's you "gutter politics". It's your side. That's why they are winning. Of course you wouldn't want the other side to adopt successful tactics.

Rhrosty is also playing from the typical "gutter politics" of the left. He claims that privatising electricity will "quadruple electricity prices" when all the evidence is that it will decrease them. The most recent evidence provided by UnitingCare, not naturally a Liberal Party ally! http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-households-pay-different-amounts-to-access-national-electricity-network-20150210-13b47s.html

It's people on the left who have cheapened political debate, and continue to.

I'm sceptical about Graham's 'readings' of the OLO crowd responses, but he did pick the QLD pole so we'll see.
The major problem with this analysis though is he doesn't mention the federal factor, in QLD or NSW. Abbott's just bought more time, but he and Hockey and the the team are surely still affecting the vote in the states. This in fact is the more interesting aspect of the election; will it kick off another leadership spill?

Looking at Graham's link to the report by Carbon and Energy Markets, and looking further at their recent presentations, on their website, it seems clear to me that privatisation, in the name of efficiency.
Regulated industry is an easy target when ruthless efficiencies is the alternative.
The trouble is the more we go down the privatisation path, the more we burn our public bridges.
The greater the take-up of private health, education and the like, the greater the attrition and redundancy of public institutions.
The brave new world of user-pays looms large (the big take-up of private schools will be regretted by a great many when they lose their jobs! Especially as the public sector concomitantly degrades). And when the public sector has finally shrivelled and died, those who can't afford to pay will have to suck eggs.
What could be more efficient?

One of their presentations, btw, exposes the economically retarded position of the LNP on coal and protection of the industry. It seems solar is much more efficient and their for letting centralised electricity generation go the way of the railroads. The lesson is to never interfere with creative destruction. Those who can't afford solar panels in the future can go back to making candles once they've separated the fat from the offal.

How many of the Overseas Companies that have bought Australian assets, do not engage in tax avoidance/minimization schemes, actually pay their fair share of tax?

So even if assets are sold, Australian's are deprived of ongoing taxation receipts from these companies.

So on one hand, we have energy companies engaging in gold plating the network, and raising energy prices faster then inflation, yet paying the smallest amount of taxation that they possibly can.

"It's people on the left who have cheapened political debate, and continue to."

Seriously Graham? After abbotts ongoing years of sewer politics with character assassination, spite and LIES as its hallmarks you can really blame it all on leftys? Unbelievable. Delusional. Blind.

Just look to abbotts display in QT today to see what "cheap" means.

And your sudden change from impartial forum moderator to partisan shill for the right and slagger of the left is looking a little petulant. Your side lost. Get over it. Stop the born to rule tantrums.
I hate to think how upset you are going to be when rabbott and the rest of the lieberal party get what is coming to them at the next election.

Bravo mikk!

I've never seen such a mob of bad losers.
Labor certainly didn't carry on like this when they lost.
I wonder how much longer we're going to have to listen to the conservatives from Abbott down, winging how it's all Labor's fault, or the electorate voted under the influence of some mass delusion.
It's about time the conservatives manned-up and realised that unlike them, the majority of Australians are not the dupes of neoliberal ideology.
Pathetic!

Taking up Graham's hostile retort directed against Rhosty, and looking at the second presentation here:
http://cmeaustralia.com.au/recent-presentations/

How does Graham square LNP policy on solar V coal? The presentation suggests privatisation can make money from both, though that the former has more of a future than outdated, inefficient, hot and cold grid generation. Neoliberalism dictates that the market should be left to take care of itself, yet the LNP has tried to demonise and sabotage the solar industry while promoting coal-powered generation
How does the LNP square it's support for an ailing and dirty dinosaur--which will survive for a long time yet anyway--while attempting to kill off clean energy market?
They want kudos for saving jobs in the sector, I suppose, while thumbing their snouts at climate change. But the real point is they're not following economic doctrine, indeed the policy is deeply economically flawed.
So much for LNP being the best handlers of the economy. They should go the way of the dinosaur they're trying to protect!