Palimpsest do you think Rees is dirty because he worked for them?
I would have expected another poster to highlight his employment by that pedophile not you.
Soon events will prove me right he can not rule this state as a left wing member.
He will not take easy paths but will do extremely well.
More fallen heads last night from the lost cabinet will assist him.
Daggett you wast nothing in highlighting that demo, I am not offended by it however we are getting close to diverting the thread.
Lets state this clearly Watson is a loss he is from the left and was always unlikely to leave that faction.
His action bought about the end of the worst government my party ever claimed ownership of.
The actions of current leadership of the conservatives let us off the hook.
Time will prove me right hard times to fix this mess but the right team to do it watch the polls.
Rees soon will be very high in them all.
Center unity is the National driving force of the ALP in NSW it has the numbers and controls directions, center unity equals the right of the party.

When I posted that advertisement for a demonstration against the threatened privatisation of oil in Iraq, it was to point out the essential similarity between what is happening in this country and what is happening in Iraq.

(Obviously very few people, who are participating in this discussion, will be able to attend that protest, but, nevertheless, I put in the details on the off chance that someone in the UK might look.)

If we look past the often sectarian violence committed by Iraqis (in addition to that committed by the occupying U.S. forces), there are fundamental issues of democracy at stake, just as there are here. It is instructive that, as in Australia, the principle social force opposing the theft of the people's assets are the unions that work in that industry.

However, on the question of the role of the NSW unions in this, I think it still needs to be said that they should have fought a little harder. For example, why did they never issue a clear ultimatum to Costa and Iemma: either withdraw the privatisation legislation in accord with the clear wishes of both the NSW public, the unions, and the Labor Party, or we strike?

If they could not win public support with 79%-86% opposed to privatisation, when could they ever have hoped to?

Had they done so, there can be little doubt that Iemma and Costa would have backed down very quickly and the NSW public opinion would have been spared months of trauma.

However, instead, the fate of NSW's electricity assets was allowed to be ultimately decided by the normally pro-privatisation Liberal/National opposition and, thankfully (unlike the Federal Opposition which voted to pass Keating's legislation to fully privatise the Commonwealth Bank, which was contrary to Keating's 1993 election pledge) they acted in a principled and decent fashion.

What would the unions have done had they, instead, voted to support privatisation, or even just have allowed the minority in their ranks in support of privatisation to have done so? (See also comment "Why won't the ETU take on Iemma?" of 22 August at http://candobetter.org/node/742#comment-1079).

In the fifth post to this thread I raised the issue of that monument to the Iemma regime, the Kurnell desalinator, or more accurately the seeming inconsistencies in the claim that an INTERMITTENT generation source would supply a 24/7 operation with ALL of its electricity requirements.

Friday's palace coup should not be allowed to push this unresolved inconsistency into the background.

We already see Nathan Rees recognising enormous budgetary problems for NSW, and saying that some capital expenditure plans will have to be deferred or axed completely. Let's start the axing in the right place: stop the Kurnell project dead in its tracks, not because its desalination (which is good), but because its the thin end of the wedge for 'privatisation' of the water utilities. (For 'privatisation' read 'sell-off to foreign interests'.)

Now I reckon that the inconsistencies between the public claims with respect to the electricity provision for the Kurnell project is the tip of an iceberg of massive impropriety. I suspect the improprieties to extend from not just the fiduciary but perhaps all the way up to sabotage of the Constitution!

My guess is that the Iemma government abused its position of public trust in the deal made with Capital Wind Farms, featherbedding that enterprise right from the outset. Don't anybody misinterpret me to say that I am accusing Babcock and Brown Wind Partners of having engaged in any impropriety; I do not suggest that at all. The improprieties I suspect will have come from the other side of the contracting table.

I'm guessing that the Wind Partners entity is/was intended as an investment vehicle for the all but exclusive benefit of a privileged elite: various State and Federal parliamentarians and senior public servants and 'government consultants', and maybe the odd political party as well, just for good measure.

I'm guessing that the speed with which both Opposition and Government moved in the face of public outrage over the proposed electricity sell-off was motivated more by a desire for cover-up than performance of public duty.

What say you?

Just so viewers can get a fuller picture, I will refer them to the discussion topic 'An absolutely capital wind farm, far from Kurnell'. This link, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1825#36141 is to the opening post in that discussion. In it I have quoted the public claims made about the wind farm, together with the sources for those claims.

The first link in Paul.L.'s first post, the 21st post in this thread, is to a PDF document containing some statistics on the National Electricity Market (NEM). Page 5 of that document has a table containing electricity futures pricing for the NSW region of the NEM. The wholesale price for off-peak electricity for calendar year 2009 is quoted as being $27.21 per Megawatt hour, which equates to a price of $0.02721 per KwH. For 2010 it is $35.37 per MwH, and for 2011 $37.83 per MwH.

Futures for peak load supply (between 7 AM and 10 PM daily, 7 days per week) are quoted at $63.25/MwH for 2009, $65.59/MwH for 2010, and $54.56/MwH for 2011.

Futures for flat load supply (a term the precise meaning or applicability of which I am unsure) are quoted for the same periods as $43.30/MwH, $48.86/MwH, and $45.30/MwH.

Now if I had an absolutely capital wind farm with a 20 year government contract to supply at $50.00/MwH, how could I possibly lose? Only by the grossest of gross mismanagement, I should think. If I was moderately attentive to the operation of the wind farm, however, I would have the continuing opportunity of a price differential of near 100% for supplying off-peak electricity. Even if my wind turbines were becalmed all night I could buy in wholesale and resell under my contract at nigh on 100% profit! If becalmed between 7 AM and 10 PM I could buy in electricity and still probably break even reselling it to meet my contract. That's what I call featherbedding.

Getting it?

Hey Forrest,

Why don't you borrow a couple of hundred million and do it yourself. Surely NO ONE else has ever looked into whether wind generation is profitable. I mean, the great BOGEYMEN of this century, the entrepeneurs, aren't interested in making a profit are they. The only other explanation is that they haven't looked at the numbers themselves and were waiting for some socialist blogger to point it out to them. Thats POSSIBLE isn't it.

And how hard can it be to make money in this type of venture anyway?

I lost it totally when I read your post where you said "Maybe there has ultimately got to get to be a Chinese policeman on every street-corner from the Pamir Knot to the Mediterranean and Red seas before everyone comes to their senses in that region."

Mate you are just a razor sharp analyst. What we really need in the Middle East is the new pretenders to the position of Hyperpower, the Chinese, because those guys are "straight shooters", right?

I mean they play hard but fair in Tibet don't they? Or in Tianamen square? What a JOKE.

Go on, tell me the Chinese Communists are just a bunch of nice boys who are totally misunderstood.

Paul.L.

We might be arguing at cross purposes.

It is precisely because investment in wind turbine generation does not have to be done with hundreds of millions of dollars all committed at once that it can be an attractive investment for much smaller capitalists, like, for example, recently retired parliamentarians or senior public servants in possession of a superannuation lump sum. Business entities like Babcock & Brown Wind Partners simply provide a vehicle for mobilising and managing such investments in wind energy.

There are probably many other small Australian investors who would have welcomed an opportunity to invest in such a seemingly soundly based and sure to be profitable enterprise. The point is that ordinary Australians never got a chance. I am simply questioning why that might have been so.

Another point is that there is a limit to the proportion of grid demand (typically from 15-20%) that can be met from intermittent sources of supply, which wind turbine generators are. There is consequently a limit to the number or extent of investment opportunities in relation to any grid being supplied from such sources. First in, especially with a guaranteed market at nearly twice the going off-peak sale price, may not be merely best dressed, but part of a privileged few who get to be dressed at all!

It was the Iemma government that was in a position to approve such seemingly very favourable contract arrangements for Capital Wind Farms. I am questioning whether there was any effective conflict of interest in its so doing.

I am also beginning to wonder whether the projected shortages in electricity supply that that government was talking about as creating the necessity to sell off the power business were not derived from the electricity futures quotes. The electricity futures quotes are determined by the bids of the relatively few supply corporations in the NEM. It would be possible to create the indications of an impending shortage, without that shortage actually turning out to be real.

The NEM could make it SEEM like NSW had to sell, without there being any real need.