Baird prepared to lose job over NSW power privatisation

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird says he is prepared to lose his job over the issue of electricity privatisation, which has again dominated state politics.

Photo: Mike Baird announced an extra $300 million to ease traffic congestion on the proviso that the privatisation goes ahead.

Earlier today, Mr Baird announced that $300 million of the privatisation proceeds would be spent reducing gridlock on the state’s roads.

“There’ll be minutes saved at each congestion point, which means commuting - whether it be getting to work and back, whether it be getting to sport and back, or whether it be getting back to your family - is done in a quicker time”.

There’ll be minutes saved at each congestion point, which means commuting - whether it be getting to work and back, whether it be getting to sport and back, or whether it be getting back to your family - is done in a quicker time.

The $5 billion asset recycling scheme was included in last year’s federal budget to encourage sales of public assets by recompensing states for tax lost through privatisation.

Earlier, Mr Baird defended a decision not to appear before a Senate inquiry into a proposed Federal Government scheme promoting privatisations.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari called Mr Baird a “coward” and accused him of trying to avoid scrutiny of his plan to privatise the electricity network.

“Mike Baird took the idea of asset recycling to Canberra but he won’t man up in his own city, in his own state and make the case,” he said.

Read more here: ABC

    

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  1. peter davies says:

    NSW voters are only just starting to pick up on privatisation fears and the exorbitant costs they will bring. Poles and power aside, the NSW Government is surging ahead with privatising its entire IT Infrastructure. As privatisation and outsourcing are dirty, expensive words, the Cloud is a much better name for the waste of taxpayers dollars. Clouds are fluffy, pretty in the sky and out of the way. On the ground for IT the Cloud is a VERY expensive, drip-priced, vendor-controlled system that I’m aghast as to why there is not much more noise about it. IT personnel will ultimately lose their jobs while the NSW taxpayer will fork out millions of dollars going to overseas multi-nationals to host the personal records of the people.

    When you’re trying to lodge a DA, search for your unclaimed money or using a mobile app and it’s unavailable, today it’s a matter of a business member to walk around the the IT people and get it sorted together. Soon it will have to be a phone call, then a ticket raised, then more information, etc etc. Get ready for an expensive loss in efficiency. Had your license renewed lately? The card used to be issued on the spot. The card printing was outsourced. The Government cited efficiency for something that now takes a week.

    The Government will have you think that the privatisation of its data centres into two, ie Unanderra and Silverwater, and then getting non-Government entities to host operating systems and applications from there will be an exercise in saving money. This can happen ONLY via an economy of scale and ONLY in the short term. Problem is, once the data is in the “Cloud”, it VERY expensive to get it down again. Ah, who am I kidding; it’s VERY expensive to get up there. Millions of dollars already in the planning. It’s the old business trick. Spout massive money savings to create the interest, identify the need and once the client is truly embedded, hit him with every charge that you can get away with. If the NSW Government cannot see this, they must not be in power. I’m a NSW taxpayer and I’m bloody annoyed as to the upcoming waste of money the Cloud will bring.

    Lastly for all you budding extremists, if you wish to take the NSW economy and bring the state to its knees, you have to look only at two sites.

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