I doubt that Mick Costa reads much. The day the Australian Stock Exchange suffered its biggest crash since October 1987, Costa was talking up the glories of handing over the electricity system of New South Wales to corporate raiders.
Perhaps Costa hasn't heard that the inability of the US to provide affordable housing to a goodly chunk of its population has caused a global credit crisis, and the days of cheap money are over for quite some time to come. As a result, even if a buyer can be found for the NSW electricity system there's a fair chance the buyer won't be able to find a lender to provide the necessary credit.
Even if the buyer does find a lender, the credit is likely to be so expensive that the buyer will demand a bargain price for the public assets of NSW. As well, of course, electricity users should be prepared for very steep price rises.
Costa is the Treasurer in Premier Morris Iemma's NSW Labor government, and an enthusiastic right-winger. He was on the left for a while when he was younger, briefly a member of two Trotskyist groups, firstly the Socialist Labour League (now Socialist Equality Party) and later the Socialist Workers Party (now Democratic Socialist Perspective).
Costa got himself into parliament by way of a stint as a railways union official and then head of the NSW Labor Council (now Unions NSW), and one of his passions in office has been building freeways at the expense of investment in rail and other infrastructure. No doubt he said thanks and goodbye to the railways employees who helped to bump him into parliament.
The fact that Costa is a member of the Labor Party seems to be purely accidental. His present politics would more naturally place him in the Liberal Party — and not necessarily its liberal wing.
Costa may be the purest example in Australian parliamentary politics of a true extremist: someone who swings whichever way the breeze is strongest. If it's to the left he's far left, and if it's to the right, he's all the way in that direction. This is not meant as a reflection on any section of the left, but on Costa's weird political gyrations.
With a bit of luck Costa's boat will run aground way out there on the far right and, like so many other Labor politicians, he'll take the money and run — straight into the arms of the merchant bankers and other corporate creepy crawlies he has represented so well in his time in parliament.
That's a strong possibility, as he's unpopular in the Labor Party, unlikely ever to be top dog, and there are strong rumours that he won't stay in politics for very long after he clocks up 10 years in parliament, at which time he will become eligible for a very generous lifetime pension and other lifetime perks of office.
It must be a fair bet that he will eventually join the growing ranks of former politicians, Liberal and Labor, on the staff of Macquarie Bank or some other corporate raider.
The outcome of the NSW government's attempt to sell the electricity network is by no means certain. The NSW Labor Party rejected a previous attempt, by the Labor government of Premier Bob Carr, to privatise electricity. This attempt will go to a NSW Labor Party conference, and plenty opponents of the privatisation are working hard, as Greens MP John Kaye points out.
Other links: Privatise Costa, not services, Hundreds target Costa over electricity privatisation, Privatisation news, Iemma is too stupid or too proud, Public power not private profit, Critique of the project to privatise and marketise electricity, Montana's public power movement, Power sell-off will lose NSW billions, The baseload myth
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Mick the bankers' mate isn't too popular in the Hunter Valley, according to a message I've received from the NSW Greens about a meeting of 600 people on Wednesday evening at the Newcastle Panthers club. The auditorium was packed and about 180 people had to stand.
Four Labor MPs attended the meeting along with Greens upper house MP John Kaye.
There's an ABC report on the meeting in the web link above.
The meeting in Newcastle adopted a resolution, as follows:
"We, the Hunter Community pledge to fight Privatisation of the NSW Electricity Industry.
This includes selling, leasing or any other method of privatising NSW utilities including electricity.
This meeting agrees to fight the NSW Government by all lawful means at our disposal and will include the following:
Formation of a Stop The Selloff Hunter committee to be comprised of relevant community groups. This group to agree on a paper as soon a possible to be distributed widely within the community
Widespread distribution and collection of petitions
Formation of a lobby group to meet with all Hunter politicians
Further public forums with local members outlining their positions
Email , fax and phone campaign to local politicians and the Premier, Treasurer and senior ministers.
Letterbox drops and railway station handouts, shopping centre visits, to distribute relevant information as it comes to hand
Participation in the February 26 protest at Parliament House, Sydney
Public rallies in support of any electricity industry workers who are disciplined by the Government for failing to co-operate with the privatisation process
Any other activities as agreed by the Stop The Selloff Hunter committee
This meeting also condemns the underhanded manner in which the NSW Government has attempted to force privatisation on NSW residents without any consultation with the community and the union movement and in breach of NSW ALP policy.
This meeting calls on ALP members to insist on a special state conference as soon as possible to debate the issue of privatisation and calls on elected ALP parliamentarians who have voted on privatisation to accept the wishes of their constituents and vote against privatisation.
Post a Comment