The story lays bare the folly of privatisation in NSW and NSW small businesses and consumers are paying the price. 

Ever since disgraced former NSW Labor treasurer Eric Roozendaal hastily privatised NSW Lotteries, selling the lucrative business to Victoria’s Tattersalls, five minutes before the 2011 election, we have seen newsagents close their doors and consumers having to pick up the bill for six-monthly price increases on NSW Lotteries products and, of course, now we see much- needed revenue for the state of NSW going to a Victorian public company. 

No provision was made to protect the rights of NSW newsagents –  unlike Queensland which mandated the sale of lottery products by newsagents only.

This week legislation pertaining to the sale of the NSW electricity poles and wires, another lucrative revenue-raising asset for the government, was being rushed through the NSW Legislative Assembly. 

So, on one hand, our elected state representatives will shed crocodile tears for the drop in income that newsagents will suffer when the big Coles/Woolworths supermarket duopoly take on the sale of Tatts lottery products after 2018, and on the other hand, we are expected to believe that electricity privatisation will provide competition, will be good for the consumer and there’ll be a big pot of gold waiting for each local state member ready to fritter away before the next state election. 

Not quite.

Joe Hockey’s Asset Recycling Fund, a policy designed to bribe the states into selling their publicly owned revenue-raising assets to multinationals or Liberal and National party donors, has still not passed the Senate and the NSW government is relying on it.

We know implicitly that further privatisation of the state’s assets will severely affect the revenue of the NSW government and will be the cause of revenue black holes into the future. 

What is replaced in its wake will be poor service, service cuts or no service, job losses, higher state taxes and more state asset sales to try and plug the revenue shortfalls.

 With the proposed electricity privatisation agenda, electricity prices will rise, vital jobs in rural NSW will be lost, revenue to local businesses will drop, and schools will be affected as those redundant workers are forced to take their kids out of small rural schools and move to a metropolitan area to look for work.

Decentralisation will be proven to be the joke the state government has made it, as more services are cut to rural NSW, making small rural towns less attractive to live and increasing the exodus to the capital cities and coastal areas. 

We are advised that Essential Energy is safe from privatisation this time, yet the executive of that organisation is currently considering dispatching more than 1500 workers, all from rural NSW. 

Did I mention the folly of privatisation?

Education and health facilities will be wound back because the government will not have the revenue to sustain the services and already we see a dark shadow cast over the future of TAFE – a fantastic educator of the people of our state – where a diploma might now cost you $20,000, placing it way out of reach of many average rural NSW kids.

When our local National MPs turn up to parliament to rightly express their concern for NSW small businesses and particularly newsagents, I trust they will also show some concern for their constituents in rural NSW when electricity prices rise, workers become redundant, services are cut and we have to wait a week or more for repairs to the network following a blackout. 

How brightly do you think our state will shine then?