Well here we go again.

After I had said labor would sell off the electricity they havnt stopped the idea, and the unions are now backing them.
It seems that those who are their to stand up for the workers, as it is the workers who pay their wages are gettting the wrong end of the stick.

We have labor cutting childrens school transport
We have labor acting unconstitutionaly
We have Rudd making a fool of himself to the international community, and

where are those standing up for the worker and their families.

They , the unions must be waiting for the right media coverage just like at Beaconsfield, where if they had done their job nobody would have died or got hurt.

Come on, it is time you started to make a stand and not blindly follow as you are told to do.

Thanks for having set up this forum, tapp.

I have to admit I haven't been following this story that well lately, but some articles, I have written may also be of interest. These include:

"How decades of privatisation have impoverished NSW" at http://candobetter.org/node/823

"Media contempt for facts in NSW electricity privatisation debate" at http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/2509 http://candobetter.org/node/765

You may also find the discussion "NSW power without pride" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2103&page=0 to be of interest.

I think it is important to distinguish the Labor Party from those anti-Labor pro-privatisation elements within it who have seized control of it at most state levels and at the Federal level.

Where other Labor Party members hold out against these people such as when the NSW ALP branch stood up to Costa and Iemma earlier this year, they should be given all possible support and every encouragement.

If we look at the electricity we had labor and the unions saying it will not be sold.

But before the state election i was warning people that it would be sold and even rudd was backing it back then.

Where is combet, still licking rudds boots and backing the sale.

Well i told you so.

We also have students will have to pay to travel to school on buses.

Tafes to be cut back

What we have here people is the labor parties education de revolution.

We have state governments australia wide who are illegal and unconstitutional.

This also includes the federal government and these parties know this so all we have is a party dictatorship parading as constitutional governments.

A for a mandate unless these people in government are being paid by their parties then they are to represent the people of their electorates and the people have their say.

have a referendum that will see but these political parties like to do things not for the people but themselves.

tapp,

I take it that you're a Liberal supporter.

Same old tactics, same old attacks, same old
criticisms.

No not a liberal supporter

I am somebody who stands up for the people and not party dictatorship.

I do not bend over for these parties.

Foxy if you dont like the facts, stay away from the fire.

tapp,

You haven't presented a balanced argument.
Or offered any solutions.

It's easy to attack and criticize.
Anybody can do that.

But, there's always two sides - and if you're
really interested in presenting the "facts."
Give us a balanced view please and what you
suggest can be done about it.

Stop with the cliches. We've heard them all
before, and frankly they don't mean or
achieve anything worthwhile.

If you're really interested in having a
serious debate on this subject - you have
to do better than just make generalisations,
and statements that don't actually mean
anything.

Try again.

Veritas Et Ratio...
(Truth and Reason).

Foxy

you are the one who is attacking and not commenting on the issues.

You can attack me as much as you like , but this shows how arrogant and ignorant of the australian constitution you are and the people.

just like rudd saying he will be open and give the information to the public,

yeah right, just labor propoganda.

You have your dictatorship, so deal with it.

When will schools now be privatised
when will hospitals be privatised

when will these governments open there books fully so we can see where our money has gone.

Cutting the free bus to school for the school children is obscene.

Many young children from poor families may be forced to walk because they cant pay the fare...and that would expose them to the lone porn-fired paedophile prowlers that cruise the streets looking for victims.

I often wondered if Labor really serves the people.

tapp,

I'm not trying to be contentious or attack
you.

But, it does get a bit tedious when people
criticize the current Government when its
only been in power for a relatively short time.

Give them a chance, wait at least a few years,
and then criticize them for what they did or
did not do.

The last Government was in power for twelve years.
These people haven't been there long enough
to warm the seats.

Give them a break.

Let them at least try to keep the promises
they made.

Then judge them at the end of their term.

*Veritas Et Ratio...
(Truth and Reason).*

Dear Foxy.
I am not a lib person either but how can you say they have just got into power.
Its almost a year and all they have done is hold enquiry after enquiry.
It`s Rudds standard reply if he`s asked a question- Oh that matter is subject to an enquiry.

I still cant believe that our biggest supply of water was sold off to another country without any meetings with Government.

I could go on and on. What about the farmers. Look what the twists are doing to our farmers blocking their water for their minerals to China.
The coal will run out but we will always need food. Trouble is her wont be any farmers.

Rudd might think its ok to depend on China with their sub health standards for food but I dont.

Lets really look at this man Kevin Rudd . Two weeks pre election he had his pitch for ALP on landline re live exports.Two weeks after being elected he dumped that rep and went back on every promise made.
Tapp
What I have found about them is they are very different players.
With Howards lot you could ring up and talk with a Ministers advisor until the cows came home. ( But at least you could discuss policies with them.)
labour tell you they dont have to inform anybody the advisors name of different polys. Half the time they staff dont even know!

If Rudd is upfront Foxy WHY did he run when asked to inform the public that AWB money to SH wasn`t just from wheat but live exports.

After all it was his job and he knew the public interest.
Thats down right dishonest.
The problem with labour people is they cant manage money, power and their standard move is to bully.
Even now the unions demand more more more.


Anyway I am sure I am not making an impression on you.

Your old loyalty is misplaced.
Gone are the good old labour people.

Much of our dilemmas have to do with Govt waste and the growth of the bureaucracy,but most of it is due to foreign debt.We have a foregn debt of over $600 billion.Due to the recent depreciation of our currency it is now $750 billion or $150,000.00 for every working couple.This means that at least $10,000.00 pa per family leaves
country just in interest without paying any principal.

Is it any wonder that we don't have money for infrastructure or medicine?

We have to break the debt enslavement.This means that we as a country have to become more autonomous,ie real fair trade and breaking the monopoly of the banking cartells.

As I recall it, my local bus company that was contracted to transport kids to school - was being paid a fare for every local registered student, whether they actually travelled on the bus or not. Not a bad deal for them.

In these days of economic rationalism, how can that be justified?
Why should I be taxed to pay for a universal service that may not even be fully utilised?

It's a bit late now to start complaining about that as well as rampant privatisation after electorally supporting the architects of such philosophies for the last several elections.

I could write a book about the false pretenses and lie of politicians, both Liberal and Labor, and the hypocracy of the Greens, so I will not go there.

What I would like to know now is what happens to country kids?

Years ago many one teacher schools were closed for 'economic' reasons and the kids have been bussed to school in larger centres. Are the parents now going to have to take the kids many kilometres to school and pick them up again or will the busses still run with parents paying the cost. Seems the cost of providing busses is the governments own doing. They closed the small schools and sold them off.

Another example of NSW meaning Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong!

Foxy wrote,

"Give them a chance, wait at least a few years,
and then criticize them for what they did or
did not do."

A chance to do what?

Legislate for the theft of publicly owned assets to line the pockets of corporations and investment bankers?

We gave Keating that 'chance' after he won the 1993 and quietly accepted his breaking of his election promise not to fully privatise the Commonwealth Bank and look where that led us to - 11 dark years under John Howard.

The way you oppose the pro-business anti-democratic political agendas is to oppose them regardless of who implements them. If Labor can't be dissuaded from dancing to the tune of the corporate sector, then we need to find an alternative that represents the wishes of the majority of Australian citizens who oppose privatisation and other pro-business policies and not just simply vote for the at-least-equally-pro-privatisation Liberal Party(1) as most Australians did in 1996.

---

1. To their immense credit the NSW state Liberals, unlike the Federal Liberals after the 1993 elections, did block privatisation this year on many grounds including that the NSW Government had no mandate to do so.

That the Liberals and Nationals behaved far more decently than most of the Labor MPs opposite should be acknowledged whether or not one intends to vote for them. See also Upper House Liberal Leader Michael Gallacher's speech against privatisation at http://candobetter.org/node/754#speech in article "Privatisation debate exposes Costa's hypocrisy and incompetence", "NSW Greens defend O'Farrell" at http://candobetter.org/node/761, "NSW state Opposition announces intention to block electricty privatisation" at http://candobetter.org/node/798

Banjo: << I could write a book about the false pretenses and lie of politicians, both Liberal and Labor, and the hypocracy of the Greens >>

Fair general comment, Banjo - but with respect to privatisations I think you;ll find that the Greens are the only major political party that has consistently spoken and voted against them. For example:

"Electricity retailer sell-off is bad news for households & climate

Media release: 31 October 2008

The Labor party's decision to support the privatisation of retail arms of Energy Australia, Integral Energy and Country Energy will expose consumers to soaring power bills and mounting greenhouse gas emissions, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye."

and

"Greens call for justice in disadvantaged school funding

Media Release: 1 November 2008

Greens NSW MP John Kaye is asking twenty-seven of NSW's wealthiest private schools to return 29 per cent of their state subsidies to restore Priority Action funding to twenty-seven public schools serving disadvantaged communities."

and

"Power sell-off is Iemma in Rees clothing

Media Release: 2 November 2008

The NSW Labor party has been dudded by its parliamentary leader Nathan Rees into believing his 'Plan C' power privatisation is different to his predecessor's, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Dr Kaye said: "Behind the words of unity, there is not much difference between Premier Rees' plan announced yesterday and Michael Costa's vision for handing over the electricity industry to the international utility companies and the big banks."

Etc etc.

I don't pretend to have all the answers.

If I did I'd be a man. (Just kidding).

Seriously though, my view of things is
as follows:

This current Government was elected after
12 years of inadequate performance by the
previous Government, gradually leading to
our diminished standing both on the local
and global stages.

In any Government, it takes the first full
term to set the scene, and a second term
to achieve any progress. That is why
in the US, the President is given two terms
to prove himself.

We, in this country, gave Howard three years,
then six years, then nine years, and when
we saw that he wasn't going anywhere rationally,
he was voted out after 12 years.

All I'm saying is give this current Government
equal time before criticizing.

Don't look for short term solutions.
Look at the bigger picture.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Now Foxy
With reference to the federal government which is by the constitution just a political union of the states.

Give them a chance.
they were in opposition for 12 years and as soon as they form a government they require enquiry after enquiry, what were they doing for 12 years.

The education revolution is nothing more than a fake which rudd did not mention that the states had to pay as well.

Lets have a look at clean coal,
Now i have been scrubbing some coal to get it clean but it really is a contradiction of terms and a waste of money.

Global warming, has anybody taken into account the millions of tonnes of brine water that is pumped into our oceans everyday from about 11000 desalination plants, do they care No.

Public Education,transport,hospitals as per the constitution are state not federal so why is rudd sticking his nose in, just to big note himself.

Also we shall not forget the heiner affair, and you say give him a chance,well you should ask those who he just washed his hands about, and i would say not in this lifetime.

I grew up labor and unions but during my time i have seen what they have done and no longer am I, but now an independent fighting for the people and not standing up for a party.

daggett,
I have no wish to get into debate with you but have you not forgotten that John Fahey, as NSW Premier, sold (or rather gave away) the State Bank. I think he also, in Federal capacity, had something very much to do with selling Lithgow Small Arms Factory to a French consortium.

Both the major parties have been busy selling off our assetts.

They all have forgotten about the needs of Australians in the rush to privatize and get on the globalization bandwaggon. Telstra has always been the goose that laid the golden egg, so it just beats me why anyone would agree to sell that.

daggett,

I think you'll find that the Libs just delayed the electricity sale because they want to sell it themselves when they get back into power.

The offical reason was that they weren't opposed to the sale itself, just the terms of the sale.

wobbles says:

"It's a bit late now to start complaining about that as well as rampant privatisation after electorally supporting the architects of such philosophies for the last several elections."

Fair enough, too, if the elected party truly won genuine majority support in those various elections.

But consider: what if an elected party became elected innocent of the knowledge as to having been fraudulently assisted to do so? Would not any opposition party, in the face of such defeat, seek to modify its policies, tailoring them to be more acceptable to what they thought represented genuine majority public opinion, so as to increase their chance of winning power next time around?

Now what if this process had been going on not just for several elections, but over decades: what do you think would be the effect upon the policies of both parties? Would they not tend to become very similar, as each strove to match its policy with what seemed to be genuine majority community acceptibility? Is not this extreme similarity of performance in office exactly what Australians are seeing, and remarking upon?

Now, stepping just for the moment away from our individual political team loyalties, in such circumstances of the elected in the vast majority of individual cases not enjoying true majority community support, would it not be an environment in which a manipulative influence could with great ease advance, or retard, the political careers of individuals on both sides of politics? Would this not constitute a way for those doing the manipulation to obtain governments that always delivered what the manipulators wanted, public opinion notwithstanding?

What if many, on both sides of politics, unknowingly over the years have only held their seats by virtue of fraudulently influenced results? Could that not push policy in both parties in one direction in the face of overwhelming public opposition?

Just like what we are all seeing right now, with Rees seemingly becoming the new Iemma, and proposing the sell-out of electricity retailing in the face of 80% community opposition. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2103#49034

It was a sad day when the ALP started talking up economic rationalism and the sale of public assets.

The short-term gain of some quick cash to offset debts without raising taxes does no favours in the long-term. When there are no more public assets to sell, governments (of both persuasions) will have to learn to better manage their economies (State and Federal).

What sort of a society do we want? One where there are some commonly owned community assets that benefit us all or one where all services are provided by the private sector where the prime motivating factor is profit and the only real 'customer' is the private shareholder.

Privatisation does not always create better service to the public as some might have us believe.

Economic rationalism really means - we pay more for less - so real services are reduced and the public will continue to pay for it.

Pelican,

Privatisation, almost NEVER creates better services.

---

I note CJ Morgan has pointed out that NSW Greens have fought hard against privatisation, which is true as I have noted extensively at http://candobetter.org/NswElectricity

If anyone therefore wonders why people like myself, in seeming agreement with CJ Morgan, don't join with him in common cause in areas in which we seem to agree, I suggest they acquaint themselves with his vicious personal attacks upon myself and others who question the U.S. Government's whole underlying rationale for the "War on Terror" in the "9/11 Truth" forum at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166&page=0#47512

I truly wonder how many Greens would feel proud to have him in their ranks.

Still trying to pick fights, James?

Get help.

CJ Morgan wrote, "Get help."

Don't you think it's time you expanded your repertoire of put-downs, CJ Morgan?

So, what you're telling is that it is OK for you to try to pick fights with me (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#45987 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#46114 ... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48792 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48866) ?

... but it's not OK for me to try to pick fights with you?

Anyway, the way I see it, I wasn't trying to pick a fight.

It just occurred to me that it may have looked a little weird to others the way we aren't talking to each other, so I thought I might try to explain the situation to them.

Just imagine how it would look to others. First they see me making posts against electricity privatisation and telling them about articles on my own site, including articles about the very same NSW Green politicians that you subsequently posted about.

Then you come along and tell everyone about those NSW Greens politicians, but don't even acknowledge me or my posts!

If I was another OLO user and didn't understand the circumstances between us, then I would have thought that that behaviour was a little strange and spooky, particularly if daggett went on to make more posts but didn't acknowledge CJ Morgan either.

So, I thought I would clear that up before I proceeded.

So, you needn't feel any concern that I feel let down because you have not been provoked. Quite the reverse, in fact.

And I certainly won't feel let down if you fail to post any more to the "9/11 Truth" forum. I am sure we can all manage perfectly well there without you.

Now, run along, CJ.

The vital struggles now being waged against religion and political incorrectness may founder without your presence.

Grow up, James. Any vestigial credibility you might retain is under severe threat.

As I've said, get help.

I'm offering a different view. I seem to remember that America was settled on privatisation (of the railways). I am NOT pro privatisation. Certain things (roads, rail, post office to mention a few) are the responsibility of the Government ...and Governments are not good business men . These are provided with our taxes. They belong to the people and should stay with the people.

Our Government (Federal) is also responsible for our safety. However, I object to paying $b's for fighter planes and state of the art war ships not even built and trialed yet!

Privatisation?? Humbug! it's inept governing and capitalist propaganda (said a little tongue in cheek) Governments are for governing not making profits. Because we live in a Democracy, we can vote the Government out if we are not happy with their performance.

Thanks guys :)

I've read most of the posts, and need to know, am I the only woman here?? If I am, then you guys will have your hands full as men and women think differently AND women ask questions :)
Thanks guys :)

rache,

In regard to the NSW Liberals, there is no way to be sure what their underlying motivations were although it seems to me that they resisted enormous pressure, in order to behave decently back in August when they opposed privatisation.

I believe in giving credit where it is due. Even though I am normally highly critical of Liberal Party politicians, I believe on that occasion they deserved to be applauded. If they had voted for privatisation then, it would now be law.

---

Mally_p,

Welcome to the discussion. I am a male and I do ask questions a lot, as well as provide answers, where I am able to.

---

CJ Morgan,

As I said, I still think you need to expand your repertoire of put-downs.

Mally_p

Welcome to the discussion.

I'm a woman, but think as a person. You won't find me a shrinking violet or one to die wondering without asking the tough questions.