Greens seek points between the lines of MP's letter
The Greens have leapt on a letter written by NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay, which they say shows some serious risks in electricity privatisation.
Mr Gay sent the letter (obtained by the media) to country constituents, plugging the benefits of the State Government’s plan to sell electricity network systems, commonly referred to as the “poles and wires”.
Mr Gay said the Nationals part of the LNP had fought to avoid risks for rural residents.
“I know that country people, in particular, are worried about how a private operator might handle maintenance and emergency blackout response in more remote areas,” he wrote.
“That's why the Nationals negotiated to keep Essential Energy (the regional part of our electricity network) 100 per cent publicly owned.”
Mr Gay said the “best part” was that rural and regional people would see a fair share of the proceeds of the metro network sale for country infrastructure, thereby getting “all of the rewards with none of the risk”.
But NSW Greens MP John Kaye says Mr Gay’s enthusiasm to spruik the deal showed some flaws in the plan.
“Duncan Gay says he has protected rural consumers from the risk of privatisation but what about the rest of us,” Mr Kaye told the ABC.
“What about the people who live in the city? Are they to bear all of the risk?”
Mr Kaye says the “leader of the Government in the Upper House has admitted that there are risks associated with the electricity privatisation in a letter to constituents”.
“That puts [NSW Premier] Mike Baird in a very difficult position.”
The Baird Government has been doing damage control, trying to separate their plan from that of the former Queensland LNP government, which many pundits say was voted out due to its unpopular electricity privatisation plan.
With an election coming up this month, some believe Premier Mike Baird has gambled his political future on the proposal to offer long leases on 49 per cent of the state's poles and wires.
Mr Gay told reporters there was nothing embarrassing about his letter.
“There's nothing embarrassing about what we've done - on the contrary,” he said.
“If we were embarrassed about it we wouldn't be sending thousands of letters out to people telling them what we've done.”
“The Greens are good at selling mung beans and moving rock crystal but they don't understand and they don't believe in people's employment.”