As your readers would be aware, the NSW Premier Mike Baird and Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner recently made a joint announcement about the future of our state’s electricity network, a decision that will be taken to the next state election due in March 2015. 

Should NSW voters re-elect a majority of Coalition MPs, the premier will accept this as a mandate to privatise 49 per cent of the entire electricity network via a 99-year lease. It might make some government MPs feel better to call the sale a lease but it will provide electricity stakeholders like you and I minimal protection from electricity price hikes. 

Most importantly the partial disposal will lead to the loss of half of the current $3 billion in revenue the electricity network provides to help fund hospitals and schools including those located in our region.

With the sale proceeds already earmarked for infrastructure projects, the government has not addressed the $1.5 billion budget black hole that the sale will create through the loss of this revenue.

Inevitably the next conversation local MPs will be having with constituents will be one about tax hikes or service cuts – possibly both to address this loss of income.

The government has been out there selling the benefits of privatisation, if you can call them benefits. It has announced big infrastructure projects such as a $10 billion harbour crossing – hardly useful to the people of Tamworth.

Unfortunately I don’t share the enthusiasm of some MPs when they claim this is a tremendous win, a battle won and great deal for regional NSW by temporarily saving Essential Energy. 

In my mind the battle to protect Essential Energy is well and truly lost. 

What many people do not know is that the premier is determined to privatise 49 per cent of the entire electricity network. With Essential Energy being temporarily excluded this means a larger portion of the remaining companies – Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and TransGrid – will be sold and in some cases up to 100 per cent.

TransGrid employs around 65 local people at its Tamworth depot. 

When broken down, the sale of the electricity network will deliver $13 billion in proceeds with the NSW government banking on a further $2 billion from the Commonwealth Asset Recycling Fund – which is yet to pass the Senate and only payable once money has been spent on new infrastructure – and 

$5 billion in interest over five years following the investment of the sale proceeds.

Based on the premier’s own numbers, NSW will have to secure an interest rate of 5.9 per cent in order to turn $15 billion into the reported $20 billion – pie-in-the-sky stuff and an example of how the people of NSW are being swindled. 

Despite all the promises and pork barrelling, legislation for this sale will need to pass both houses of parliament and, if electoral history is anything to go by, I doubt that the Coalition will have control of the Legislative Council after the next election. 

The government will have to negotiate with the Shooters and Fishers Party, Christian Democrats and others. 

With ICAC hearings set to recommence in Augus, I believe the NSW government has very little political capital to trade on, making this pre-election promise to sell off our electricity network a risky electoral problem for the government. 

Perhaps a better decision would have been to draw loans or issue bonds to grow NSW and build the infrastructure we need, not sell off assets that are valued by the people of this state and return billions of dollars every year to the NSW Treasury. 

Should the sale proceed, I’m 100 per cent for our region getting on the front foot to secure our fair share of the proceeds, however, it will be obvious all too soon that the spending on infrastructure won’t help struggling households pay their increased electricity bills and it won’t help the thousands of country electricity workers when TransGrid and Essential Energy are sold.

Ultimately the privatisation of this essential service represents a dud deal for rural NSW and will exacerbate the decline of our rural towns. 

I fully support the position adopted by Nationals MPs Andrew Fraser (Coffs Harbour) and John Barilaro (Monaro). Both men stood up and actively opposed the sale of our most valuable public assets, and their loss in the party room highlights the urgent need for 

public initiated referenda on important issues such as this. This model exists in New Zealand and it should exist in NSW to allow the people, not politicians, to make important decisions concerning the long term future of our state. 

Finally, I am disappointed that some of our rural MPs failed to oppose outright the privatisation of any part of our electricity network. If privatisation was not an option for our region and Essential Energy workers, why is it an option for 

metropolitan areas and Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and TransGrid workers? 

I believe I am an old school conservative, manufactured in the mould of the old Country Party that fiercely stood up for rural Australia. I believe my opposition to this proposal astutely reflects community concerns about electricity privatisation. 

In politics I am reminded that you have to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.