Update on the Electricity Sell-off

With the recent turmoil in NSW Government, there was some uncertainty as to whether the new Rees/ Tebbutt ALP government would continue with the policy of selling off the electricity it inherited from the Iemma/ Costa circus. On September 5, Nathan Rees indicated that he intended to follow through with the sale of the retail arm of the power industry.

Since then, Unions NSW asked the Power to the People group to call off a rally it had planned on September 20, which has now been replaced with a large campaigning stall and a speak out/ media stunt outside of Parliament on September 23, the first sitting day of the Parliamentary session.

On September 9, the Employment & Industrial Relations, Industry & Infrastructure and Finance & Economic committees of the ALP (comprising representatives of around twenty ALP-affiliated unions) met to consider the issue, and have reaffirmed their opposition to the sell-off.

The next meeting which will have a bearing on the direction of the campaign against the sell-off is this Friday, September 12, when the NSW ALP Administrative Committee meets, and which, according to assistant-secretary Luke Foley (August 29 edition of Stateline) will decide on “whether that plan complies with the ALP platform”.

The Wombats will keep everyone informed of developments as they unfold (see below for upcoming actions).

NEW MODEL MOTION
(Note: This motion has already been carried unanimously by the Concord Hospital Banch of the NSW Nurses Association)

Stop the Sell-Off

This meeting of ______________________ (union/workplace/organisation) calls on the NSW State Government, the Premier and cabinet to respect the opinions of 86% of people in NSW, and to abandon, once and for all, any plans to privatise NSW electricity (including retail, generation and distribution).

We express our concern with recent media reports that the sell-off of electricity retail may still be on the government's agenda, and we commit to active solidarity and support with the continuing union and community campaign against the sell-off.

While affirming our opposition to the sell-off of electricity retail, we also acknowledge the threats against other public services such as transport, including Sydney Ferries, rail maintenance, roads, and water, and commit to support an ongoing campaign to save our public services and to keep them in public hands.

Moved by: _____________________________

Seconded by: ___________________________

FURTHER INFORMATION

Upcoming activities:
Saturday September 20 - Power to the People stall, collection of petitions, banner-signing from 11am at Town Hall Square
Monday, September 22 - Next Meeting of Power to the People. 6pm, level 1, AMWU Council Room, Tom Mann Building, Devonshire St, City.
Tuesday, September 23 - Power to the People lunchtime action outside NSW Parliament on the first day of sitting.

Telephone Colin Drane on 0419 698 396 for further information

NSW power sell-off: Iemma & Costa dumped, but what about the policy?

Dick Nichols

Following the August 28 decision of the NSW Labor government to implement its "Plan B" privatisation of the state’s three electricity retailers, tensions within the Labor Party reached breaking point.

Faction leaders, MPs and party administrators, already scrambling for a circuit breaker in the long-running power sell-off dispute, went into overdrive as electricity workers from the retail sector struck for three days. Ben Kruse, secretary of the United Services Union (the main union covering the sector) commented: "There are so many problems with this arrangement that it should not go ahead".

On August 29, NSW ALP assistant-secretary Luke Foley told the ABC's Stateline that a “special committee” to investigate the Premier's new plan would report to a September 12 meeting of the party's Administrative Committee on "whether that plan complies with the ALP platform".

Of course, it doesn't. The May ALP state conference resolution that voted down electricity privatisation by 702 to 107 opposes the sell-off of any part of the power industry. As Bernie Riordan, the NSW ALP president and state secretary of the NSW branch of the Electrical Trades Union said at the time: "The policy of the party has been set by the conference and that's what must be adhered to."

In the end the only circuit breaker with a chance of working had to be treasurer Michael Costa’s dumping from cabinet. Premier Morris Iemma was made to realise that there would no chance of his remaining premier or of Labor winning the 2011 state poll if his provocative and arrogant treasurer remained. But shortly after Costa announced his resignation, Iemma himself resigned as premier! He is to be replaced by former water minister Nathan Rees.

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September 20: Power to the People rally

Power to the People (which is a coalition of ALP members, unions, the Greens, Uniting Church groups, Socialist Alliance, Solidarity and environmental and community groups against the sell-off of the power industry in New South Wales) has confirmed that the September 20 rally against privatisation of electricity will go ahead. It will also be a rally against privatisation of ferries, water, rail, prisons...

Rally details:
11am, Saturday September 20
Sydney Town Hall Square

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The pressure began building before the government’s August 28 defeat over the power sell-off in parliament. Backbench MPs from the Centre Unity (right) faction, many of whom face political extinction in their outer-metropolitan Sydney marginal seats, had had enough.

One of them told the August 25 Australian: "We're sending a team to let Morris know what backbenchers think, as opposed to what so-called powerbrokers [like Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obied] think. The delegation will be expressing support for him, but putting other points of view regarding Michael Costa's role in the scheme of things...If there was a quarter of an inch of give, and Costa was seen getting wacked over the head, the unions would readily acquiesce."

On September 4, Deputy Speaker Tony Stewart said that Costa had "made comments publicly on numerous occasions that he would resign if he doesn't get his way and I'm saying he should put his actions where his mouth is."

Stewart was backed by many cabinet ministers. Even Labor grandees like former prime minister Paul Keating—who backs electricity privatisation and ridiculed the ALP state conference vote—told Iemma that he could no longer afford loyalty to Costa if Labor was to have any chance of saving the privatisation policy.

But will the end of Iemma and Costa also bring the sell-off of the electricity retailers to an end (and mean a complete victory for the opponents of electricity privatisation)? Powerful pressure is now being brought within the ALP apparatus for a “compromise” solution. Luke Foley himself said on August 29 that “I am confident that we can resolve the issue of electricity policy and once we resolve that there will be complete unity again. The issue of generation is always the one that has attracted the most heat within the Labor Party.”

Similar pressure is coming from senior federal minister Anthony Albanese (a supporter of large-scale private involvement in infrastructure): “I want to see the parliamentary party, as well as the organizational wing of the party, unite in a constructive fashion to move away from any recriminations that have occurred.”

It is not at all clear what the basis of a unity compromise solution might be. Costa's counterattack after losing the battle to sell off the state’s electricity generators was a mini-budget that would push a Jeff Kennett-style wave of privatisation into nearly all other areas of the public sector--ferries, water, Lotto, rail maintenance and lots more. Its message to the NSW union movement was: “You bastards have stopped me privatising electricity generation, so now I´ll privatise the rest.”

On the very day of Iemma and Costa's defeat the ratings agency Standard and Poors (which, unlike its rival Moody's, usually just reflects the NSW treasury line) also announced that it was placing NSW's credit rating "under review". This provoked a sell-off of NSW government debt, increasing the interest repayment burden.

Will new Premier Rees and his new treasurer now try to implement “Costaism without Costa”? Iemma has been at one with his treasurer on the content of electricity privatisation. Indeed, his attack on opposition leader Barry O'Farrell as an "economic vandal" (written in the Sydney Morning Herald when Fairfax journalists were on strike) underlined the message to NSW's appalled corporate elite that Labor in Macquarie Street remains "open for business" despite everything.

Iemma and Costa’s message for the big end of town has been clear: if the union movement and the ALP party machine persists in defending public ownership, the NSW economy will be made to suffer. If the NSW ALP and unions think that they can buck the trend of the last 40 years--where ALP governments state and federal have been able to implement the corporate agenda irrespective of ALP policy — they have another thing coming.

The stakes in this fight are beginning to look like those in the two other major crises in NSW ALP history--the conscription battles of the First World War (which led to the desertion to the conservatives of NSW ALP premier and conscription supporter William Holman), and the splits produced by the Great Depression and the Lang government's 1932 rejection of the federal Labor Scullin Plan (which involved cuts in salaries, pensions and government spending).

In both cases ALP policy came into conflict with the needs of majority sections of the ruling class (and the Labor politicians supporting them). In the first Holman presided over a Nationalist government until 1920, when the ALP was returned to power (and Holman lost his seat). In the second, eight years of factional warfare was needed before "Industrial Labor" (later known as "Heffron Labor") finally defeated "Lang Labor".

The battle lines of the next stage in the electricity privatisation war will be decided very soon. If the ALP Administrative Committee cracks on September 12 and "finds" that the privatisation of the retailers is in line with Labor policy, the ball will pass to Unions NSW. In such a case it must continue to defend retail electricity workers jobs (and ALP policy) against its recent allies in the fight against Macquarie Street.

The answer to this latest conundrum in the ongoing power privatisation saga will--once again--be most influenced by the one factor that the mainstream media never wants to acknowledge — the persistence of the ongoing community and union campaign against the sell-off.

The next step in that campaign is the September 20 Sydney “Power to the People” protest rally. The bigger that mobilisation, the greater the chance of burying electricity privatisation in NSW once and for all. The overwhelming public opposition to electricity privatisation has toppled the former premier and his hated treasurer. Let's press on for a total defeat of the privatisers!

Dick Nichols is the National Coordinator of the Socialist Alliance.

Socialists call for defiance of anti-democratic pope visit laws

July 2, 2008

The Socialist Alliance today called on all people wanting to show their concern about the positions of Pope Benedict XIV on issues like same sex-marriage, condom use and abortion to collectively ignore the New South Wales government’s new powers to arrest and fine people up to $5500 for “causing annoyance” to World Youth Day participants.

(The new regulations, which were quietly gazetted by deputy premier John Watkins last Friday, could make it a crime to wear a t-shirt with an anti-papal message and empower police and volunteers with the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service to stop a person engaging in conduct which “causes annoyance or inconvenience in a World Youth Day event”.)

“The Iemma government has lost it”, Dick Nichols, the Socialist Alliance National Coordinator said. “Faced with a peaceful July 19 protest against Pope Benedict’s mediaeval positions on issues like condom use, the ministerial clique in Macquarie Street has introduced laws that would be laughable if they weren’t such a violation of civil liberties.

Pic: Socialist Alliance member Rachel Evans is one of the main organisers of the NoToPope Coalition protest during the pope visit

“The laws give police the right to ban propaganda and strip-search people at hundreds of sites across the city, including at bus stops and train stations, checking to see if they are wearing an ‘offensive’ t-shirt.

“With their draconian regulations Iemma and Co. have decided to prevent the possibility of a Chaser-style stunt against the Pope by becoming a permanent Chaser skit themselves”, he said.

“These rules were deliberately gazetted while the parliament wasn’t sitting, stifling debate and removing parliament’s right to block them. So let’s all get those t-shirts out that proclaim our support for women’s rights, same-sex marriage and safe sex,” Nichols stated. “And then let Iemma and Co. try to apply their buffoonish laws against us.”

Nichols commented that the Iemma government was showing “weird” similarities to the autocratic and unanswerable papacy.

“Not content with pushing ahead with an electricity privatisation plan opposed by 80% of people in New South Wales Iemma’s comedy team has now introduced regulations opposed by 89% of respondents to an online Sydney Morning Herald poll.

“It is also spending around $86 million to support World Youth Day: whatever happened to the separation of church and state?”

The Socialist Alliance spokesperson predicted that “just like the heavy-handed police powers introduced in the lead up to APEC last year to intimidate people out of protesting, Iemma’s latest effort will have exactly the opposite effect to its intention. “Most rational people, including many Catholics, are opposed to the dangerous and antiquated policies of the Catholic hierarchy on condom use, abortion and homophobia. Now the Iemma government has attacked their freedom of expression they have a powerful additional motive to join the July 19 NoToPope Coalition protest”, he concluded.

Contact: Dick Nichols 02 9690 2508 or 0433 390 872

NSW power sell-off: workers prepare response to parliament vote

By Dick Nichols

SYDNEY—A mass meeting of Central Coast power industry workers voted on July 11 for an “immediate stoppage of work by all members across the industry If the sell off legislation is passed by the Lower House of NSW Parliament”.

The meeting also resolved to lift current overtime bans and “comply with the terms of our awards and agreement” and that “if any member is disciplined or has their employment harmed in any way there will be an immediate set cessation of work by all members.”

Before the mass meeting discussed the resolution it was addressed by Greens Member of the Legislative Council (upper house) John Kaye, the most prominent parliamentary opponent of the Iemma government’s electricity privatisation plan.

As the behind-the-scenes battle for MPs votes continues in Macquarie Street the “word” is that Iemma could well lose the numbers in the Legislative Council—provided the Liberals don’t vote to support the power sell-off. The Central Coast mass meeting resolution seems aimed at putting spine into wavering upper house ALP MPs: if enough join the Nationals and Greens and the Liberals also vote against the power sell-off it will be dead.

Speculation is also rife as to if and when the sell-off legislation will next be debated in parliament, with many convinced that there is no way it Iemma will reintroduce it in this session if he is not certain of “the numbers”.

In the meantime the Stop the Sell-Off Community Group, which meets weekly in Sydney and brings together rank-and-file ALPers, Greens, socialists and union activists, decided to prepare an afternoon protest picket outside Parliament House during the present parliamentary session. The group will ask Unions NSW and individual electricity sector unions to advertise the action when the details are finalised.

The group also continues to organise Saturday stalls in Sydney shopping centres, gathering signatures against the sell-off and keeping people up to date on the campaign. Details of the stalls are available of the Socialist Alliance web site at www.socialist-alliance.org.

Meetings of the Stop the Sell-Off Community Group take place every Wednesday in the AMWU building, Chalmers Street, Surry Hills. For details contact Colin Drane on 0419 698 396.

NSW Labor - Et tu, Carmel?

The wombats aren't in the habit of swallowing any old tidbit or piece of unsubstantiated trash that floats to the surface of the corporate media trough, but this one's a doozey.

According to the gossip-mongers at News.com.au, an amorphous team of "rebel Labor MPs" are positively slavering at the prospect of overthrowing the current order, and supplanting Premier Morris (I can only muster 28% support) Iemma et al with "a new "dream team" of former minister Carmel Tebbutt and rising star Nathan Rees."

Of course, Carmel - whose husband is Federal MP, and left-faction heavyweight (read, head-kicker) Anthony Albanese - would never dream of such a thing. She wants to look after her son, after all. Mind you, that WAS in May, and many an Iguana has been licked since then. And there was that travesty called "the Budget". And we still haven't seen all the fallout of that great big Circus - the one with the elephants, and christian-eating lions, and all those delegates. What was it called....? Ah yes... STATE CONFERENCE.

Mind you, even if, as a "cheeky" "left-wing source" told the Sydney Morning Herald of Tebbutt: "The only bad thing you can say about her is she's Anthony's partner", that's bad enough for me. Pity the others are worse, really.

More than anything, this all shows the woeful state that NSW Labor had led itself into: ministers found guilty or accused of speeding, drink-driving, drug use and pedophilia, graft and corruption, wife-beating, drunken loutish behaviour, and worse (I still haven't mentioned the abomination which is Mick Costa, or the generalised ineptitude with which the Government "runs" the state).

On top of all this, we have the blood-feud that's sprung up with the unions around the proposed electricity privatisations, and there is now another juicy piece of gossip to hand, which if true may well blow the lid right off the pressure-cooker. The NSW Government is planning (or at least seems more or less willing) to refer its industrial power to the Commonwealth, further undercutting the state powerbase of the unions, and saving the Government a small mint (some $20 million) along the way. The plan also has the added bonus of being a direct attack on John Della-Bosca (as if he needed MORE trouble), as well as the unions - just what Iemma and Costa wanted.

So, the stage almost seems set for a bit of High Drama (preferably the kind with plenty of bloodshed). I wouldn't be surprised if there was a move to shift Iemma (and hopefully Tripodi, Sartor and Costa). If there is, you'd better hope it comes soon - there is a building sense of imminent implosion about NSW Labor. If Tebbutt and Watkins are the best they can do, well so be it.

Just so long as noone has any illusions that the corruption, bribery, intrigue, backstabbing, privatisation and corporate thievery is going to stop anytime soon.

The stage is set, the actors upon it. "Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war!"

Marcus Strom - "Maintain the link, defend the pledge"

Unions are the bedrock of the Labor Party, writes Marcus Strom

from Labor Tribune

Will no one rid me of these troublesome unions? So must be the thoughts of NSW Premier Morris Iemma.

The stoush over electricity privatisation is turning out to be a dress rehearsal for a showdown over a more fundamental issue: the future of the link between organised workers and the Australian Labor Party.

The first shots in this battle under a Rudd government came from Mark Aarons, Iemma's former hired hand. His essay in Dear Mr Rudd has described union power in the ALP as so pernicious that it "threatens to grow into a cancer''. He recommends limiting union representation to the party conference in line with affiliate union density, at about 12 per cent. ALP branch membership has fallen below 50,000. Yet unions affiliated to the ALP make up more than 1 million people; that's roughly 90 per cent of membership with 50 per cent of conference vote.

There is no doubt the union link needs to be democratised, but diminution is not the answer. Political parties are not microcosms of all society, they are voluntary affiliations of a broad range of people committed to pursing common political ends. They percolate and crystallise ideas into a shared agenda. Traditionally in Australia, this has been along a right-left class line. With the Australian Labor Party, there is a bit of a clue in the name. Unions formed this party and remain its bedrock.

However, the message from the managerial elite of Labor - the staffers, hacks and careerists - is that the business of politics would be a lot easier if our parliamentary representatives did not have to kowtow to these unions.

On top of this is the stink about corporate donations and the push for state-funded election campaigns. Hand-outs from developers and the hotel lobby have become politically unsustainable. If the ALP is forced to give up the corporate cash cow, it will become more reliant on union funds. For Iemma and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, that is not on. But to remove the unions from the equation creates a financial problem for the ALP. Enter state funding for elections. From the corporate teat to the state bottle.

To achieve this seismic shift the ALP machine will need an ideological package. This partly explains the national executive's move to revisit the party's pledge to democratic socialism.

Every year at ALP state conference, delegates go through a little charade. One branch or other recommends removal of the party's commitment to democratic socialism. Some more modern, neutral words such as fair-go, equality, solidarity are suggested. And every year the party's hierarchy recommends its rejection, all in the interest of party unity.

But not this year.

Last weekend the Georges Hall branch submitted a motion calling for the scrapping of the party's socialist pledge. Rather than recommend rejection, the rules committee suggested conference "refer to the ALP national executive for consideration in the forthcoming Review of the Party Pledge''.

This is the first time most party members will have heard of any such review, but it should come as no surprise. Rudd has emphatically rejected this aspect of Labor's heritage: "I am not a socialist. I have never been a socialist and I never will be a socialist.'' (The Age, December 14, 2006)

Troublesome unions, controversy over corporate funding and the review of the socialist pledge: together this is a recipe to attain what even Tony Blair could not fully achieve in Britain the delabourisation of Labor and the establishment of a centrist liberal party without the unions.

This outcome echoes ALP assistant state secretary Luke Foley's concerns as voiced on Four Corners (Dirty, Sexy Money, April 14). "If we're simply a brand with a good advertising campaign every time an election comes round and nothing else, we only engage in the empty pursuit of power.''

Elections and democracy will be seen as an even more stage-managed affair on behalf of the state and the "urban elites''. Cynicism of the political process will increase. Citizen involvement will decline.

What is at stake is not only the democratic heart of the Labor Party, but the very fabric of our democracy. Without active citizen participation in the political process, what sort of democracy is it? We cannot afford to let a managerial elite cut itself free of civil society and hook up to a self-perpetuating state-government-party funding cycle.

Of course the funding process needs radical reform. The corporate donations must stop and the process must be transparent. Donations and declarations must be simultaneous. Further we need participation of party members and beyond that an active and engaged citizenry; we need accountability of our representatives and ALP members deserve accountability within the party. For a start, rather than union secretaries appointing their delegates to state conference, we should move to rank and file election.

Let's not contemplate abandoning the pledge or ending the union link. Let's work to make it stronger, democratic and accountable.

Marcus Strom is secretary of the Summer Hill branch of the ALP and editor of Labor Tribune

This article originally appeared on crikey.com.au on May 7, 2008

Questions for Sydney’s future

The wombats have been flat out with stuff, nonsense and politics for the past couple of weeks, making it hard to keep up to date with the 1000 and 1 things that appear to be happening around us (sometimes, frustratingly, to no particular purpose). Consequently, we've been looking for bits and bobs that might be worth replicating. This is one such, from The Guardian, paper of the rapidly ageing Communist Party of Oz. While we do, of course, agree with their last point, we tend to think that this might be a better option than the CPA.

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Peter Mac

Just before the NSW ALP Conference last weekend the popularity rating of current premier Morris Iemma had fallen to just 28 percent, reminiscent of Prime Minister Howard’s last popularity rating before his recent electoral annihilation.

But it’s not all bad news. For example, the NSW government and the Sydney Council have agreed to erect 700 new inner-city flats for workers on low and medium pay.

That’s welcome news. Sydney’s workers now travel from as far as Newcastle, Nowra and Blue Mountains. However, the proposal will certainly not meet Sydney’s inner city housing demand, especially given its current appalling rate of mortgage defaults and evictions.

The government has admitted that the housing proposal is crucial because Sydney needs bus drivers, nurses, police officers and cleaners, but it seems to have overlooked the idea that working people have a right to live in affordable housing in the inner city, a principle which underwrote many of Sydney’s great post-war public housing programs.

The government is also seeking to associate itself with the far more popular Sydney City Council, currently headed by Clover Moore. That’s pretty ironic, given that numerous Liberal and ALP governments spent enormous time and money over many years attempting to prevent the progressive Ms Moore from gaining the mayor’s position.

Ms Moore recently announced a number of highly imaginative, if in some cases extremely expensive ideas for improving the human qualities of the city. In comparison the stench of corruption clings to the Iemma government relentlessly. That’s nowhere more evident than in the changes to planning regulations.

Odious developments

New planning laws in NSW will in effect grant Frank Sartor, the NSW Minister for Planning, near-dictatorial powers. Sartor has recently announced his intention to appoint a new temporary External Advisory Panel, to make recommendations on major development proposals.

Sartor is at liberty to ignore their recommendations. The Panel will expire in three months, after the government’s highly controversial new planning laws create the new Planning Assessment Commission.

The legislation will also enable development proposals which are now dealt with by councils to be handled by "independent" authorities, i.e. private certifiers, arbitrators, joint regional panels and the Planning Assessment Commission, all of which would be appointed by the government.

Planning experts and legal authorities now claim that the new laws will slow down the development application process, and make it extremely contentious and expensive.

They also claim that the new alternative planning authorities will be in legal competition with the Land and Environment Court, because the development applicant will be able to apply to the alternative authority if that promises them a more satisfactory outcome.

A good example of the implications of the new planning powers is the Aboriginal housing complex known as "The Block", in central Redfern.

In 2004, after the government created the Redfern Waterloo Authority, Ken Morrison from the Property Council of Australia declared with great enthusiasm: "If Redfern Station is to become the hub of a new commercial zone, then the Block will just have to go." The Authority can override local councils and heritage laws, and under the existing planning laws Sartor can compulsorily acquire property and sell it off to developers.

Greens MP Sylvia Hale commented: "How better to fulfil two of the minister’s long-term ambitions — to move Aborigines out of Redfern while simultaneously assisting those generous donors to the ALP, the development lobby."

How to get there

The Iemma government has failed to address the crying need for better, cheaper and more extensive public transport in Sydney.

That need is nowhere more painfully felt than in Sydney’s western suburbs. Sixty percent of western Sydney residents travel to work alone by car, compared with 53.7 percent for the whole of Sydney. In one western council area the average house has 2.1 vehicles, compared with the city average of 1.5. Only 13.6 percent of western suburbs residents catch a train or bus to work, whereas the average for the city as a whole is 17.7 percent. In some western areas buses come only once per hour, or not at all.

Water at a cost

Big rises in the cost of Australia’s water are to be expected, because of long-term diminishing rainfall, which will force the government to invest in extra water supply infrastructure.

However, the situation in Sydney has been exacerbated by the State government’s assumption that critical new situations demand big, visually impressive new projects, which of course involve huge commissions for the private sector. The government has virtually ignored proposals from the Greens and many environmental groups for extra rainwater collection and the recycling of waste water.

Construction work is now proceeding for the controversial Sydney desalination plant. The first results were the spillage of construction spoil into the waters of Botany Bay, followed by structural damage to nearby houses.

That hasn’t helped to the Iemma government’s plummeting popularity.

Planning’s about the future

A refusal to focus on issues which will become of crucial importance in the next twenty to thirty years is evident in government planning in NSW and elsewhere in Australia.

Climate change and the dwindling supply of petroleum will force enormous change on the way we live, on the economy and on our systems of government. The current incentives for energy and water conservation and renewable energy production are praiseworthy, but are entirely inadequate.

Australian governments have failed to implement good policies with regard to these crucial issues. And that’s the message. If we really want to tackle crucial planning policy issues, we have to look to parties other than those which currently rule Australia’s political domain.

Ozleft: 'The charge of the corporate heavy brigade'

Ruthlessly lifted from Ozleft:

by Ed Lewis

After last weekend’s revolt of the NSW Labor Party ranks on electricity privatisation, the media are suddenly full of praise for Morris Iemma, previously execrated by the very same media as an incompetent leader of a bungling and corruption ridden government. Iemma is urged play the strongman in opposing the Labor ranks and offered the carrot that this might his improve his dismal opinion poll figures, never mind the fact that he’s going against the opinions of something like 80 per cent of the state.

This media support for Iemma will be a five-day wonder, and as soon as any danger of a Labor government carrying out Labor policy has passed, the likes of Imre Salusinszky will return to their more customary role of campaigning for the Liberal Party. Labor MPs might want to ponder who Salusinszky and his mates will be barracking for when next they go looking for foot-sloggers for an election campaign.

The media have even done what they can to help snarling Mick Costa retrieve something from his personal train wreck at the Labor conference, presenting his smiling visage on the front page, rather than the bulging-eyed fury to which he was driven by the prospect of the Labor ranks having any real say in policy.

Part of the post-conference offensive was to roll out some big guns from the past to advise the Labor caucus not to defy Iemma and his privatisation push. On Tuesday caucus members were given a letter signed by three former Labor premiers, Bob Carr, Neville Wran and Barrie Unsworth, and two former Unions NSW (previously NSW Labor Council) leaders, Michael Easson and John MacBean. This was backed up by an opinion piece by former Labor prime minister Paul Keating in the Sydney Morning Herald, reinforced by a front-page article quoting extensively from Keating.

Three of these worthies are now employees of investment banks, either directly involved in the case of Keating, or likely to be involved in the case of Carr and Easson, in any privatisation of the NSW electricity assets, or for that matter any other public assets in Australia. But more of that shortly.

How about the other loyal servants of the Labor Party who signed this letter.

Well, Neville Wran is a non-executive director of Cabcharge, who owns 250,000 shares in that operation, valued at $9.08 each, or $2,270,000 in total. Not bad for an old Labor stalwart and it’s great to see he that didn’t have to go back on the tools after his term in parliament. Of course, lawyers don’t have unions, so it’s unlikely Wran ever was a member of any union, but he knows the worth of union members’ opinions: they don’t count.

Cabcharge is not terribly popular with independent taxi owners, as it has a near monopoly on in-cab, non-cash payments, but it’s a good earner so Nev probably doesn’t care too much about a few complaints. After all, as he has just advised Morris Iemma, a good Labor leader is there to ram unpopular policies down the throats of the ranks. Wran might not be a Labor leader any more, but he hasn’t forgotten the ropes.

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has raised a few awkward questions about Cabcharge donations to the Labor Party, but again, what’s that to Nev the Labor man? That’s just the business of politics, isn’t it?

Then there’s Barrie Unsworth. It’s no surprise that he put his scratch on the letter to caucus, since he headed the committee appointed by the Iemma government to inquire into the electricity privatisation proposal and whether it complied with Labor policy. Predictably, his committee found that the privatisation was just hunky dory, although three members of the committee issued a dissenting report and a couple more said their support was conditional on environmental guarantees (which of course the government was happy to give since they will mean nothing when contracts are signed behind the veil of commercial confidentiality).

Coincidentally, that’s not the only job Unsworth has done for the NSW government. He also conducted a review of bus services, and no doubt his services were well rewarded. Perhaps he can look forward to more consultancy work from a grateful Iemma government, and no doubt his fees will be suitably modest.

That brings us to Michael Easson, a non-executive director of corporate real estate giant ING and of Macquarie Infrastructure Group, an arm of Macquarie Bank. He’s eminently qualified to advise Morris Iemma on how to tell the Labor ranks to keep their noses out of politics and stick to electoral foot-slogging for politicians who will ignore their wishes.

Bob Carr’s role with Macquarie Bank is well known, and we’re sure that wouldn’t have influenced him in his decision in the last few days to tell the media Morris Iemma should ignore the Labor ranks.

Carr says it’s irrelevant whether electricity generation assets are publicly or privately owned. So why is it that he’s so keen for private interests to get their hands on these assets? It couldn’t be the $1.5 billion a year they pump into the NSW budget, could it? What a waste, when all that money could be going into the pockets of private “investors” as they are called in polite company, or speculators as some more honest folk might call them.

Of course, true believer Paul Keating was loudest, as is his custom, in expressing his opinion of the conference decision of the Labor ranks. He was more polite than Mick Costa, restraining himself to calling the Labor Party members “lemmings”, rather than Costa’s “dickheads”.

He gives the game away in his second paragraph, though, describing Iemma and Costa a “pair of honest souls”, a description not many others would have thought of.

Keating goes on to credit Iemma with having won a difficult election for Labor, when in fact it was a huge union effort that revived Labor’s election fortunes, saving a government that was widely recognised to be incompetent. The other factors that saved Labor early last year were that the Liberal opposition appeared even more incompetent than Iemma’s government and the Howard government was on the skids federally.

Keating goes on to savage NSW Labor president Bernie Riordan for being insufficiently ruthless in keeping the ranks in line. It wouldn’t have happened in his time, he says, and no doubt he’s right.

Keating shares Carr’s view that the NSW electricity assets should be sold and, by the way he adds, his views are not influenced by the fact that he’s international chairman of Lazard Carnegie Wylie, a corporate investment house that’s up to its neck in the electricity privatisation process.

Isn’t it a comfort that the NSW Labor government can call on such a collection of good Labor men for advice in difficult times! Why would Morris Iemma need the ranks of the Labor Party when he can assemble a such an impressive collection of disinterested bankers and corporate hangers on?

NSW electricity sell-off: let the people decide, let Unions NSW prepare industrial action

Socialist Alliance Press Release:

“If Morris Iemma is so confident that electricity privatisation represents the best interests of the people of New South Wales, let him put it to a referendum”, Dick Nichols, National Coordinator of the Socialist Alliance said today.

Nichols was commenting on the New South Wales premier’s decision to ignore the 702-107 vote by the weekend ALP state conference against his government’s planned sell-off of electricity.

“Iemma and his backers like Paul Keating claim that the ALP conference was unrepresentative, because it was dominated by trade unionists (‘lemmings’ according to the former prime minister). So let’s have a public debate and decision on the pros and cons of his sell-off plan”, Nichols said.

The Alliance spokesperson said he was completely confident that such a debate would see a NSW-wide repeat of the ALP conference result.

“What Iemma and treasurer Michael Costa have to grasp is that people are not ignorant sheep who have to have the benefits of electricity privatisation explained to them by all-wise politicos ancient and modern in words of one syllable.

“The ALP conference debate showed that the delegates, both from the unions and the party branches, actually understood the arguments for electricity privatisation.

“But they knew enough to see right through the Costa-Iemma line that ‘you can have public spending on electricity generation or on public services but you can’t have both’. Even union delegations pledged to support Iemma (and personally lined up for him by Keating) deserted the premier after the debate.”

Nichols added that the decision of premier’s office to publish full-page advertisements in support of the sell-off in today’s Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald showed the government’s growing desperation, and the need for the union movement to organise industrial action and ongoing protest against it.

He concluded: “Unions NSW must commit to organise total union resistance to the sell-off, starting with an industrial campaign of complete non-cooperation with government privatisation plans.

“The whole union movement has to be organised to take whatever action is necessary to win.”

For interviews contact: Dick Nichols 02 9690 2508
Also see: 'Stop the Sell-off: The case against electricity privatisation in New South Wales'

Email nsw@socialist-alliance.org Web www.socialist-alliance.org

Protest Iemma’s power sell-off outside NSW ALP conference

Dick Nichols

9.30 am, May 3, Darling Harbour—be there against Iemma’s power sell-off!

It’s time to apply our pressure against theirs. All the forces in favour of the electricity privatisation proposed by NSW premier Morris Iemma and treasurer Michael Costa have been heavying the delegates to the NSW ALP conference as well as NSW Labor MPs.

Within the ALP the pressure comes from the very top, beginning with Kevin Rudd, energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson and parliamentary secretary and ex-ACTU leader Greg Combet (note to Greg: whatever happened to NSW electricity workers’ rights at work?) All have come out in favour of electricity privatisation.

Within the state government the ministers belonging to the “left” faction (like Ian Macdonald, Linda Burney and John Watkin) also support the sell-off, to the point that Iemma tried to have the “left” component of the 16 parliamentary delegates to the state conference made up of cabinet ministers only!

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· Click here to watch a slideshow of the case against NSW electricity privatisation

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Along with the sticks come the carrots. Iemma is presently working out a new stick-carrot mix for the NSW cabinet. According to the internet gossip sheet Crikey “his advisers believe that he can gain critical backing [for privatisation] within the parliamentary party by rewarding factional hacks with seats at the Cabinet table.”

One obvious ploy would be to give a cabinet position to an MP from the Hunter region, which threatens being as devastated by the sale of the coal-based power industry as the Latrobe Valley was in Victoria. (The only Hunter MP presently in cabinet is hated treasurer Costa).

To date, despite the massive public opposition, only a minority (17 to date) of Labor MPs have come out against Iemma’s electricity sell-off. The spineless majority of the ALP’s “representatives of the people”—petrified at the thought of their parliamentary careers being destroyed by Iemma’s wrath—invoke the fictional rule of ALP parliamentary caucus solidarity to explain their strange silence on the issue.

The only answer to all this filthy pressure coming from the NSW business elite via Iemma, Costa and their “left” cabinet ministers is to strengthen the campaign against the sell-off.

Our most immediate job is to get as many people as possible to the May 3 rally outside the NSW ALP conference at Darling Harbour. The bigger this rally, the stronger the anger with Iemma and Costa that it expresses, the greater the chance of wavering delegates and MPs getting the point that they will have no future if seen to support the sell-off.

The decision of Unions NSW to ask the Sydney May Day committee to shift the city’s traditional Sunday march to Saturday and have it finish outside the ALP conference is a good step towards building the rally.

Over the years May Day in Sydney has become a symbolic stroll through the streets: having it support the May 3 rally against electricity privatisation restores relevance to May Day itself and says that the working class and union movement history it celebrates lives on around the critical issues of the day.

The Socialist Alliance NSW Trade Union Committee will be doing everything it can to build the May 3 protest. It calls on all Socialist Alliance members and our fellow unionists to be there.

Let’s all shake Darling Harbour with a mighty roar of rejection of Iemma and Costa’s power sell-off!

Dick Nichols is the National Coordinator of the Socialist Alliance