The Greens are the only major Australian political party to reject the spurious “progress” of privatisation. It’s a disease so widely accepted by the corporate press and mainstream politicians that even suggesting it’ll lead to worse services for the public is almost never uttered. Well, it should be and loudly:
The NSW Greens have vowed to try and reverse the $5.3 billion sale of the state’s electricity assets and prevent the future privatisation of state assets.
The Greens will introduce legislation in the next parliament to return the electricity industry to public ownership and stop future governments selling assets without the approval of both houses of parliament, Greens MP John Kaye announced today.
“The people of NSW have had a frightening taste of what privatisation brings,” Mr Kaye told reporters before a rally on the issue in Sydney.…
“They’ve seen a massive loss of value, a threat of rising prices in electricity and they’ve seen an incredible range of problems arising from the electricity privatisation.
“It’s not too late to reverse the botched sale by the NSW government of the electricity assets, bring it back to public ownership and then protect it with legislation to make sure no assets are sold unless they have the approval of both houses of parliament and there is appropriate, proper public debate.”
The NSW Labor government had been “stealing from the coalition’s playbook of policies” to privatise behind closed doors, Mr Kaye said.