Paul Keating backs NSW electricity privatisation plan
The Australian
6:43PM November 28, 2014
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FORMER Prime Minister Paul Keating has endorsed the performance of NSW Liberal Premier Mike Baird and his plan to privatise the state’s electricity networks and taken a backhanded swipe at NSW Labor leader John Robertson.
Appearing besides Mr Baird at the announcement of the name of Barangaroo Point, part of the revitalisation of Sydney’s former industrial waterfront, Mr Keating praised Mr Baird saying he was going “exceptionally well”.
Mr Keating said he supported the Premier’s views on power privatisation, even though “there are still some obscurantists in the Labor Party”.
“The Labor Party has been too late in making clear what belongs to the state and what belongs to the private economy,” he said.
Mr Keating is on the record as being no fan of Mr Robertson, having once said: ”If the Labor Party’s stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future.”
But his praise of a Liberal leader was still extraordinary, and a blow to Mr Robertson at the end of a disastrous week for him in which other Labor figures including former federal minister Martin Ferguson and former NSW minister David Borger also endorsed the sale of the state electricity assets.
Mr Ferguson praised Mr Baird’s privatisation plans last week, saying: “The truth of the matter is John Robertson is a person who best represents Labor leaders of the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, not the 21st century or the Hawke, Keating, Carr and Iemma legacy.”
Despite this, Mr Robertson claimed that all of Labor was united behind him in opposing power privatisation.
“Paul Keating is just wrong when he talks about Mike Baird. Mike Baird is making life tougher for people in NSW.
“What we have in NSW is a government that is making promises that it just can’t deliver and are not in the interests of the public.
“Paul Keating and I have been opposite sides of this argument for a long, long time. My position has always been clear. It’s been unwavering.”
Mr Keating’s intervention was a reminder of Labor’s deep divisions over power privatisation which led to the downfall of former premier Morris Iemma, for which many senior figures has still not forgiven Mr Robertson, who led the opposition as head of Unions NSW.
This week Mr Baird announced a $26 billion plan to fund a wide range of infrastructure projects with the proceeds from the sale of NSW distribution and transmission networks.
Mr Robertson was left to argue that the state’s existing capital works program was sufficient to fund the infrastructure program.
His only promise was to fund to fund the M4 and M5 East motorways, which are being paid for with the proceeds of the state’s ports, which Mr Robertson also opposed.
Mr Robertson’s case that electricity prices would rise under private ownership was also damaged by the Australian Energy Regulator’s report which found that private networks in Victoria and South Australia were more efficient than the government-owned ones in NSW and Queensland.
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