In all the current kafuffle about the NSW selloff of electricity, one very important point thus far has not been mentioned to my knowledge.

CONTRACTS. Does the proposed sale contract include true benefits for the people..or the power companies? For example, does the contract allow the Government to make decisions which will directly impact negatively on the power company bottom lines, withOUT compensation?

EXAMPLE. If the government decides to invest in alternative energy for every home. Lets say it legislated as follows:

"All homes (new and old) will have to install 'high efficienty lighting' within the next 3 yrs"

Lets say this redUCES power consumption by 10% and thus, the power companies will lose 10% of revenue.

QUESTION 1.. Does the contract prohibit power companies from simply raising prices to compensate for this loss of revenue?

QUESTION 2.. Does the contract prevent Taxpayers or Government from having to compensate the power companies for this loss of revenue.

We have all been BITTEN by the 'privatization' of public utilities, and thus, I don't have GAS which ends 1km away in 2 directions. Now..the Gas companies would charge about $100,000 just to take the main the 1km along the main road, going down side roads after that would be additional.

WATER.. is it not true that when residents started to use water tanks, thus reducing the consumption of 'private' water, the government had to either charge licence fees for the tanks (which then went in part to Water companies?) or.. allow water companies to raise prices etc to compensate? (Just questions)

Very good questions, but do you think you will get an answer.

Remember he said before the state election he wouldnt sell and those gullible enough to believe that will believe any answer that may come.

I wouldnt hold your breath but remember this , as with all the problems in victoria it is not the government to blame but climate change.

Stuart Ulrich
Independent

Great question Boaz. The NSW Govt. has 'form' by destroying alternative roads to funnel people into the tunnels and tolls.

Dear David,

Another interesting thread - with great questions.

This will keep us busy for sometime, trying to find out what the
answers could be.

Thanks - keep them coming.

Boaz,

I was once in a Rostrum club with a senior [had a PhD] manager wityh electricity commission. At the time the government owed five billion dollars for power stations. He said if everyone used low-power globes, the unit cost of the use electricity would have to increase, so government could its bills.

Independent et al,

A rule of thumb for a reasonable return is seven percent compound interest over time, meaning money is doubled every ten years. Fifteen billion dollars would fund Government for two terms. Beyond that point we have lost the Asset.

Ieema is working against the wishes of the People and his own rank and file. I think there are many names he could be called for his anti-democratic behaviour. But note, no ALP politicians have resigned or crossed the floor in protest: Services to the People or their own ambitions?

Hi all...

well.. I don't know if there will be an answer, but I'm sure as heck going to raise the question, and if GY is right about 350,000 people viewing this site per month, lets hope SOME of them 'count' in matters such as these.

This is a most important question which is usually lost or overlooked as the 'privatization' bandwagon drags on.

I just look at the Commonwealth Bank and ask "How... how did privatizing this help the people"? nada..nyet.. nothing.. just making BILLIONS for the banks shareholders.

PROBLEM... as usual there is one. IF.. as Iemma says "we need the money" it indicates they have been living/operating beyond their means and if only this kind of 'ad hoc' money will save their sorry asses, what does that say about when there is nothing more to sell off?

It says PLENTY..... and its alllll bad.

....and...HERE are reasons to be ask these crucial questions !

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/solar-panel-plan-fried-by-quarrels/2008/05/07/1210131069596.html

<<The Age has learned that Environment Minister Gavin Jennings' plan for a generous scheme to encourage more Victorians to power their homes with "green" energy was rejected after the forceful intervention of Energy Minister Peter Batchelor.

Sources said Mr Batchelor convinced cabinet colleagues the Jennings' plan would mean unacceptable increases in the electricity bills of the vast majority of Victorians who relied on traditional energy supplies.>>

THERE YOU HAVE IT! If we reduce our power consumption (a good thing) we are PUNISHED... and non solar users have to pay...MORE!

Why..and how?

Hmmm MAYBE it's because the contracts guaranteed a commercially attractive outcome for the low life parasite amoeba like share holders of the privatized Utility companies?

SO... you NSW folks..take CAREFUL NOTE!

Good questions indeed, B_D!

All of the questions serve to highlight an expectation with respect to 'privatised' utilities: that they, corporately, seemingly expect, and are perceived by the community at large, to be being granted or sold a 'protected monopoly' position with respect to their particular markets.

This expectation seems to rest upon the recognition of such public utilities as being 'natural monopolies', created as such by the very nature of their generation, conservation, and/or distribution requirements. If this is correct, it would seem all the more necessary that public policy should remain able to be implemented with respect to these utilities, especially given that these enterprises have been built, over the years, at public expense. It is difficult to see how that can be better done than by preserving them in public ownership.

It is perhaps somewhat trite, but this comment, made to the topic 'NSW power: Sell or not?' (See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1732#34718 ), is interesting:

"Public-Private Partnership: A partnership where risk and overruns go to the public sector, profit to the private sector and political donations to the party in government.
Posted by Usual Suspect, Monday, 5 May 2008 10:11:27 AM"

The overwhelming impression I have is that of 'pre-selected elites', elites already at or near the pinnacles of where their talents can take them, selling off public assets in order to make their individual and collective political careers an easier row to hoe in the short to medium term.

The long-term policy imperative of such a regime? Creation and maintenance of artificial shortage in a land of plenty!

Serious as the issue of such sell-offs may be in themselves, a more serious issue for all Australians is that as to how such 'pre-selected elites' who are prepared to fly in the face of overwhelming public disapproval, get the electoral endorsement the official record claims. With assistance of a long-term thumb resting over many decades upon the electoral scales, perhaps?

Consider: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1306#23663

Great questions Boazy, with the potential to be a very good thread.

I don't always agree with your point of view, but this time I am all ears (don't push 'you know what' too far though, ok?)

Will tune in later.

Boazy: << Does the proposed sale contract include true benefits for the people..or the power companies? >>

Yes, a very good question indeed, as are the subordinate questions that flow from it.

From a consumer's perspective, I can't think of single case where consumers have ultimately 'benefited' from the privatisation of any utilities, particularly for those of us who don't live in metropolitan areas. However, this toothpaste is well and truly out of the tube in Australia - I can't see any government wanting to resume responsibility for the provision of essential services, now that they've effectively abrogated it to the market in many areas.

CJ... fair point. The contracts MUST look after the interests of the people and guarantee that they don't hamstring the government from making FUTURE changes to legislation which will result in:

**Decreased costs to the consumer, or alternatives**

If they cannot guarantee this, then it is only in the interests of (as Forest so well pointed out)

<<'pre-selected elites', elites already at or near the pinnacles of where their talents can take them, selling off public assets in order to make their individual and collective political careers an easier row to hoe in the short to medium term.>>

Now.. at this point I choose to live 'dangerously'. Q&A I beg your kind indulgence here..because I want to make a point about the prophets of the Old Testament. Their message was very much on the side of the oppressed and victimized. Their TARGET was the 'big corporations, rich elite' of the day.

Haggai says it beautifully:

"Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"

Yes, he was addressing the rampant materialism, and his call was to put God first, (re-build the temple) but while many readers will not see the connection between alienation from God and rampant materialism, the fact remains that there are a LOT of awfully selfish people out there in 'elite-land' who don't care a scrap for the masses (thats us) but simply want bigger and better "paneled houses" with harbour side views.

Haggai's message was about 'priorities'..and it's the same message I, and I'm sure all of us have for our government.

WE THE PEOPLE...elected you, for OUR benefit..NOT the benefit of a small, powerful social/political elite!

The benefit we seek is not an extravagant one. We simply seek 'just and fair' outcomes. Selling off capital works which WE paid for.... and then structuring the sale such that we are then VICTIMS of "shareholder value" (ooooh how I despise that phrase)and greedy harbourside tyrants and robber barrons, is neither Just nor Fair!

Go Don Quixote, go!

CJ said all that can realistically be said on this:

>>However, this toothpaste is well and truly out of the tube in Australia<<

The concept that drives all this is "the private sector will always be able to do it better, and more efficiently", when there is absolutely no logic that supports this theory. Private investments are made with the expectation of a return to investors; taxpayers' investments are made to benefit the taxpayer. This tilts the playing field before a single card is played.

Ultimately the problem is ours - we continue to believe that politicians are motivated by noble and selfless ideals, when in fact they are no more than venal, money-grubbing parasites who continue to find new ways to line their own pockets and fund their luxury retirement by sucking ever harder on the public teat.

We let them get away with it by failing to demand that they abide by the same rules in their chosen profession that we do - meet the commitments you make to the electorate, honour the promises you make to work on behalf of the people, or be summarily sacked.

(That makes two in a week Boaz. That can only be good.)

Have I stepped into an alternative universe?

A discussion thread started by Boaz that is actually pertinent, important and raising intelligent questions?

Fantastic. I am looking out my window, watching for flying pigs.

Anyway, not to waste a moment - the points raised by both CJ and Pericles are spot on, there is no advantage to the privatisation of public essential services to the public. Once profit is the primary motivation, then standards drop and prices rise. Everything is for the benefit of the shareholder and consumers are the sheep being fleeced yet again.

Can Iemma be stopped from proceeding with his 'evil' plan?

Probably not.

But in the new alternative universe maybe it is possible to push some toothpaste back in the tube. I will continue to hope.

Look up in the sky, I see wings...... just a bunch of cockatoos

GOOD.. we are all basically on the same page here.

NOW... lets look at what can be done!

SHAME...might be the name of the game? Perhaps we can quickly cobble together a vid for youtube.. which highlights this question, and focuses in on the 'dwellers in paneled houses' such as the Premier and his cohorts. (gang?)

Perhaps the Media (if it was dutiful and responsible) would actually ASK this question do so with such persistance (they can learn a bit from me:).. that the contract details (specially any bits which guarantee commercial success) will be opened out for all to see.

Failing this, we can be our OWN media yes.. Youtube of course.

Then..the horror of this disgusting pox of political syphilus will stare us in the face, as we see the 'end' at the beginning, and hopefully don't jump into bed with this WHORE of a government, or at least stand it naked on some prominent street corner with a sign around its neck saying "I SOLD YOU OUT... SORRY"

One Simple Question Mr Iemma
Have you Maurice seen the statistics that other countries have experienced after selling off. ?
Britain Higher Bills per unit since infamous Thatcher did the same.
Extroadanary high Salaries to Executives at the cost to the Consumers.
No Mr Iemma is following a right wing ideology that is now within the Labor Party.
We had it with Keating and Brian Burke who helped to try and destroy the Labor Party which Mr Iemma is doing today. It is not only the Trade Unions who are against his blikered decision it is also most of the ALP Branches he is actually ignoring those who placed him into that Office.

"PROBLEM... as usual there is one. IF.. as Iemma says "we need the money" it indicates they have been living/operating beyond their means." - Boaz

Yep. Or at bleast governments fund for their own presivation, A decade then Commonwealth owed 90 billion dolars. The Govenment held onto its suprpluses to buy votes: e.g., baby bonuses. We no see state govenments clloectivelu owing about the, you guest it, 90 billion dollars. Funding was withheld. Fifteen billion dollars help fund NSW for about three years? And As I ointed above efficient lihjt globes mean nothing if you have huge debt.

Recently zi Californin. Government put no money away for maintainance of the those super-free we admired on TV as kids. Here are plenty of patchy places now.

Th Hong privatiation of the rail system seems work. The roads, "no". People dodge tunnels there too.

For a quasi-socialist government by name; it stange the ALP has adopted Thatcherism

Dear David,

I've just been reading Ross Gittins (Business Day, 17/3) statements on the struggle over NSW power. His argument rests with the statement that "Governments shouldn't be doing those things the private sector can do just as well, if not better."

Gittins argues that "Since the advent of the national electricity market, there is no longer any good reason for a government to stay in generation and retailing. It should focus its (clearly limited) attention on doing well those things that only it can do."

However as pointed out in a recent article in, The Age, Gittins ignores the main reason why privatising the NSW electricity generating and retailing industry is not in the public interest.

I quote," The Government-owned generators in NSW set an effective cap on the wholesale price of electricity on the east coast, preventing the privatised Victorian assets getting the returns that were expected when they were sold at apparently inflated prices in 1995 to foreign generating companies.

Privatising the NSW system will make electricity on the Australian east coast more expensive, the supply less reliable and the whole operation more profitable."

Good point Foxy,capping the wholesale price is key. I can live with the further privatisation of the retail end, am currently a Truenergy green customer. Imagine banking if the CBA had never been privatised.

The NSW govt. has blown windfall revenues worth billions over the last 10 years; and is also reaping the whirlwind of successive govts. raiding of Utilities, the "hollow logs" first f'ed by Neville Wran.

Even more basic than the Bob Carrs mantra of 'roads,schools and hospitals' is 'power and water'. If our state govt. abdicates responsibility for these then why bother having them?

CJ, hate to be a party pooper, but our faltering telecommunications would be even shakier without the privatisation of the retail end of Telecom, and the partial privatisation of the 'engine and transmission' of the network. Always seems to escape attention that allowing Optus to exist was a de facto privatisation.

Yes we have a philosophy of not allowing Govts to own enterprises these days because the assumption is that Govts cannot run businesses.They are just too inefficient and incompetent.Well why do we not even try to reform our slothful bureaucracies?China wants to buy our power.How can a communist Govt turn a profit and provide new generating capacity when our own Govts cannot?
It is all about Govts negating their responsibilities.Give the RBA more power,sell off public assets so Govts cannot be held accountable.Why bother having govts at all?

A good post David Boaz.

The Coalition of the willing privatised Iraqi OIL. Venezuala want to Nationalise it's own oil. Can you imagine if our own oil was not privatised it would then be accountable to us the tax payer. Can you imagine if the Commonwealth Bank was not privatised it certainly would not be crucifying its customers and borrowers as it is today it would be keeping the rest of the Banks honest. This is why we need a National State Bank that would start operating from the Australian Post Offices. Look how Qantas now have delays due to poor maintenance when it was in the tax payers hands it was the safest in the world. Look at the power cuts we have in Western Australia because part of it has to rely on a certain amount of privatisation due to privatisation. Telstra was in the wrong hands during the Howard years and now it is no longer accountable to Government.

Hi team...it should be clear to all of us by now that there are many dimensions to this issue... and some of those are very dark!

Points from Foxy:

"Inflated Price" of the selloff.... oooh yes! Imagine,

a) The State 'needs' money.
b) To 'get' lots of the green stuff it must get a good price for the assets.
c) To get a good price it must be an 'attractive' proposition for a private company.
d) For it to be 'attractive' one suspects that the evil government will offer 'incentives' such as:
i) Non interference/caps on pricing for a given period.
ii) No legislation which impinges on shareholder value by making decisions such as the planned implementation of alternative or high efficiency energy.

SO.. MR IEMMA.. FESS UP! OUT WITH IT... TELL US THE TRUTH!

Then, it still comes back to those mentioned by Oliver "elite at the pinnacles of their current career paths" who now want to go to the next level. (from "High powered public service beurocrat" to Higher powered private company executive!)

Yes.. Private companies CAN do this kind of thing 'best' UNDER a given context...with defined limits.

BUT.. once privatization occurs..then its the struggle for either monopoly or virtual monopoly, buying out other stake holders and finally UNCONSCIONABLY EXPLOITING "us" with this new power for the sake of their precious 'share holders' and EXECUTIVE BONUS's.

Foxy,

Excellent quote re the effective imposition of a price cap on electricity. Who was the author? It completely deals with EasyTimes view expressed here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1732#33977 .

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia is a published document, repeatedly reproduced in the Australian Year Books. Surely any foreign investor would be aware that just because one State may have seen its way clear to sell off its utilities, there could be no automatic guarantee that any, or every, other State would do so?

For experienced foreign investors to have failed to take into account the implications of our Constitution, and the pronounced historical reluctance of Australian electors to approve any change to it, is evidence of either extreme naievety and incompetence, or some seemingly well-based contempt for our Constitutionally established process of governance.

Do these foreign investors know something about the 'buyability' of Australian public policy or electoral outcomes that is not yet well known to the Australian public?

B_D,

I have to disagree that 'SHAME' is the name of the game that will do it. The present NSW government seemingly knows no shame.

I think that GAME is the name that could do it! Game, as in Sir Phillip Game, former Governor of NSW!

DISMISSAL!

Only possible in a Constitutional Monarchy.

What am I saying?! Back to the future!

Getting rid by way of dismissal of just one State government would seem nowhere near adequate to rid our body politic of this sell-out malaise, and the inferred underlying corruption of the electoral process that seems may have enabled it. Any presently prospective alternative would also be a 'pre-selected elite'!

Could not our Governor-General get rid of ALL such sell-out 'pre-selected elites' in one fell swoop, given that he is responsible for maintaining this indissoluble Federal Commonwealth? Could he not co-ordinate the appointment of ministries in all seven Parliaments if the Constitution has been so sabotaged? Could he not appoint from among a cohort, pre-selected by lot, long, long ago??

Carthago delenda est!

Exellent point Forest.. CATHAGO DELENDA EST ! Indeed..

and.. dare I say it, to 'spiritualize' the situation in a minor way...

We are faced with a political and economic CARTHAGE in the form of this government! Yes, they are very good with trade.. 'their' trade.. for 'their' benefit... but we poor 'Romans' ? hmmmm we can simply watch.. and be dismayed... while they carry on with their deals and their political "merchants" use their strategic position...for bigger wealth creation... not for the state or the people of course, but for themselves!

We NEED many Cato like figures, who are prepared to speak out... and outline in bullet point form what they WILL do..not 'might' do, and they need to sign a contract of resignation IF they DON'T do it..
i.e.. actually structure any contract for the benefit of THE PEOPLE!

I'm not against selling the asset per se....I'm against selling the asset and SELLING OUT THE PEOPLE... in the process.

So..let us continue with the motto..CARTHAGO DELENDA EST! and apply it in non violent terms to this unspeakably shameless government and all like it.

WHERE IS CATO in the opposition ranks? WHERE?

Speak UP Cato.. we need you!

Urilities should run down in bank money to repair them in twenty years. But politicians don't think that way only about relection, their own power and pockets. The US super road system is starting fall apart and there is no money to repair it. Here in Oz it the two big parties thta have done the same thing. Ieema is just buying two terms and then what?

Even outside of government I have always voted against demutualisation. I am not a commie or a socialist, it is just Board's concerns by law become shareholder profit to client benefit, especially monopolies and oligopolies. Profit? They may take minutes in the Boad but not in the Tattersalls clubs.

Ahh, privatisation - leads to "Private Affluence and Public Squalor".

I think it's too late for Electricity and now Private Water will have a foot-hold due to the desalination plant. It's just an easy step from here to ramp-up the public/private ratio until the whole thing is gone.

This is the result of many idealogies - particularly coming from the World Bank at the top and right down the food chain to greedy investors who are scared they'll miss out on a piece of the action.

The local pressure is the result of all politicians being terrified of deficits and failing to maintain public utilities adequately by cutting costs in vital areas.

Big projects, like power generation, is what overseas borrowings were for.

What was our last large-scale national infrastructure project? A railway line to Darwin?

We will never see another Snowy Mountains scheme or even an Opera House. This will be as good as it gets - unless someone can make a dollar out of it in the short term, why build for the next generation?

Voters should have made their voices heard decades ago - from Keating and especially through Howard - but now it's too late. There were some people warning us about "the thin edge of the wedge" but these were dismissed as troublemakers. Many of the blatant politicial lies (Alston on Telstra for example) were left unchallenged by the media so they got away with it.

Now the money we've saved on Government interest repayment debt is being outstripped by dividend payments to overseas investors as even more wealth pours out of the country.

Somebody is laughing all the way to the Bank, but it's not the public.

It certainly won't be our children.

In my previous post I posed the question: "..... Could he [the Governor-General] not co-ordinate the appointment of ministries in all seven Parliaments if the Constitution has been so sabotaged?".

My use of the word 'Parliaments' was incorrect, and possibly misleading in the context.

Had I been less focussed upon meeting the word limit, I may have used a term like 'sovereign jurisdictions' or 'components of the federation'. The point I wish to emphasise by now making the correction is that appointment to the respective State and Commonwealth ministries has always been entirely at the discretion of, respectively, the various State Governors and the Governor-General. I was not implying that any ministerial appointees in such envisaged circumstance would necessarily be from among the membership of any of the seven Parliaments.

Now, back to the future.

B_D,

Your 'CATO' is not to be found in any of the seven Parliamentary Oppositions, nor, for that matter, among the parliamentary membership of parties currently 'in government'. Your 'CATO' is, nevertheless, already known by name to most Australians having any interest in public affairs. Why, then, does 'CATO' not speak up?

Perhaps 'CATO' is unconvinced that you have correctly identified the 'CARTHAGE' against which he, or she, must be on guard.

To identify only the performance of the present NSW government as our figurative 'CARTHAGE', a substantial threat to the Australian polity, is to fail to observe that deception, rather than venality, may better explain the perceived (generally declining) performance of many Australian politicians and governments, State and Federal, over the years.

If, over more years than any of the present 'pre-selected elites' have lived, there has operated in Australia a covert systematic process of unlawfully influencing, and/or misrepresenting, electoral results, then such a system could over those years steadily divert parliamentary representation of all political colours into service of interests other than those of Australians at large. Such a system would have, quite apart from influencing the outcome of any election, become a profound influence upon pre-selection for endorsement in any political party. Could this be 'CARTHAGE'?

Wobbles... indeed! see Forests post.

Forrest....

ur scaring me :) I think you began to touch on something that is probably known to some, but not to many, and yes..I could easily believe that what you described is indeed our true 'Carthage'....
But who is Cato? now that I'd like to know :)

Perhaps, what you described, ever so circumspectly, is the reason that state governments 'look' like the Carthages against whom we must struggle... when in reality, there is a darker force out there pulling their strings.

In a way, you are touching on that sensitive area for which men are ..or... have accidents...and that twilight zone where right and wrong are blurred into 'national (vested elite) interest'.....

Clearly you know more than I do here.. so guard your steps mate.

Let's pray that our Sovereign Lord will over-rule the machinations of men.

Oh well, at least the thread started well. Unfortunately, it has now unravelled into the frootloop territory of dubious historical analogy and paranoid conspiracy theory. A pity, really.

CJ... not really a pity.

You see... thus far I've not seen anything really solid about what to DO about this.

I could whip together a video I suppose.. and try out for YOUTUBE :) and may still do.. if time allows.

Once you raise the issue, and most are in agreement with it.. what more is there to say? So.. I guess that's the point where it drifts...

Forest was touching on something I think is important..and using the Carthage analogy is pretty much the subjective 'devotional' approach sometimes applied to the Bible in home Bible study groups. Of course it's not academic, but we can't always be dry and stuffy can we?

I think it's also a rhetorical device (using Carthage) as it links directly to something we have already been discussing, and while it might not be 100% analoguous, there are elements worthy of mention.

History is all about competing forces right? Don't be so sullen :)
Come and have a whack at me in the Kaysar thread.

On that.. I do hope you have the ability to see systematic argument, and to verify sources and chronology of events. If yes...then you might have something worthwhile to say on the Trad thread.
Have think, and try to avoid simply voicing ad hominems, but actually look at the evidence presented, and evaluate that.
cheers.

Wobbles,

"We will never see another Snowy Mountains scheme or even an Opera House. This will be as good as it gets - unless someone can make a dollar out of it in the short term, why build for the next generation?

If you are talking about transnationalisation in Banking and the corporate sector, the Chinese oliarchies could prove masters wuth a brother or sister in each all the Western countries and a familial patriarch with guanxi connection on the mainland.

China really was Communist under Mao or at least didn't adopy many of Marx's system [Pye]. China and Russia are developing into billionaire dictated oliarchies, closer to the old Mercantilisn than Capitalism or Comnunism

Tuning back in Boazy. Not sure about contract law, but is it not best to strictly 'regulate' public utilities like this? They do it with gas, why not electricity?

Dear Q & A....That's my whole point mate.

REGULATE..sure..but it needs to be beefier.

They must NOT have in the contract anything which assures the buyer of immunity from the potentially negative economic impact of future government decisions WHICH benefit the consumer...

If for example the contract stipulated that "if the government requires the land on which the generator is situation, the owner will be compensated in full for the cost of re-location" (just to use a simple but unrealistic example) I'm ok with that.

I'm NOT ok with them guaranteeing NOT to make decisions which can result in cheaper power for consumers, such as the use of alternative energy for low powered high efficiency lighting, or..hybrid systems.

They should also include incentives for consumers to use grid interactive systems.. where KW/Hrs purchased from the consumer are credited at a higher rate than the rate the utility sells them at :)

Bottom line... any sale must be actually in the current AND FUTURE public interest. Where that public interest is clearly defined.
It is not in the public interest for the utility company to be compensated from tax revenue for lost profits if 10% of us went onto alternative energy.

If only I had a few pitbulls to unleash on them :) (da guvment)

Seajaye, the Lord High Dymo, Thread Labeller-in-Chief of OLO, hath delivered judgement and must be answered!

Dubiosity:

The Punic War analogy is only being used as a literary device in response to the opening poster in THIS discussion, he, BOAZ_David, having opened another recent discussion on just this subject (See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1765 ). The Cato of THAT discussion is portrayed as the persistent identifier of a threat to the security of the then Roman Republic, together with prescribing an appropriate response, and the Carthaginian threat used as an allusion to the 'neo-cons' of today.

My posts here make no such allusion to 'neo-cons', nor do they suggest their involvement in any 'conspiracy' that would explain the proposed sell-off of electricity by the NSW government, a course that a broad cross-section of posters find perplexing and ill-advised.

The opening post outlines seeming abdication on the part of governments from the exercise of legislative power over arguably 'natural' monopolies. It questions whether, alternatively, unrevealed contract provisions bind Australian governments in preserving such monopolies to foreign interests. No interest groups within the Australian community would seem to be served by such divestment.

Conspiracy:

It seems reasonable to question, in this circumstance, whether those representing Australians are effectively doing so. If the consensus is that they are not, then the question has to be asked as to whether, if all are not in some active conspiracy of deceit, the electoral process itself has been subverted to emplace such a sellout mindset.

The identity of the 'Cato' of THIS discussion is no real mystery, and will in relatively short order be revealed, if indeed it does not first become obvious to anyone who really reads, and ponders upon, these posts. This 'code name' is only used to encourage viewers to think through, for themselves, an excursion into the possibilities open under the Constitution for corrective action to an hypothesised situation of Australian politics across the board having been subject to, and moulded by, the deception of long-running sophisticated electoral impropriety.

My apologies to B_D and all for the non-sequitur nature of my previous post. Although able to log in to OLO throughout from Sat 10 May until today, Thu 15 May, I have been experiencing, with the exception of a brief window of opportunity from late on Mon 12 May until around 10 AM on Tue 13 May during which I posted above, a mysterious difficulty in posting. The technical description of the problem may be found here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1714#35565

In the mean time, the discussion appears to have died.

Just as a matter of interest, and returning to a more directly related issue so far as the opening post is concerned, I note the article on page 7 of the Sydney Morning Herald of Wed 14 May headed 'Wind farm vow to power desalination', by Edmund Tadros and Brian Robins.

The article claims:

"The [NSW] State Government has signed a 20-year contract to create the largest wind farm in NSW to power its desalination plant.

This is part of its committment that the plant would use renewable energy, even though it will be a big electricity user.

The 63-turbine Capital Wind Farm in Bungendore, near Queanbeyan - funded by Babcock & Brown Wind Partners and Babcock & Brown Power - will provide all the electricity needs of the desalination plant, the Premier, Morris Iemma, said yesterday. ..."

I don't know about you B_D, but I see a veritable thicket of issues here in relation to the proclaimed intended sell-off of NSW electricity business.

One can only wonder as to how long negotiations have been in process between Babcock & Brown and the State government to establish the wind farm. Also, given the claim as to supplying ALL power for the desalinator, as to what grid it is with which the wind farm will have to be 'balanced' and what effects this must presumably have on other parties, including NSW consumers.

The identification of 'CATO' will have to wait unless you wish to revive or restart the discussion.