E D I T O R I A L

Power Plays
Depending on where you sit, the decision by a State Labor Government to sell off the division of the power industry responsible for its long-term planning is either bold or reckless.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Still Flying
ACTU Secretary Greg Combet looks beyond the bid to save Ansett to a broader union agenda for 2002.

Women: Suffrage or Suffering
Alison Peters marks International Women's Day by surveying the achievements - and shortcomings - of a century of female suffrage.

Industrial: No Coco Pops For Brenda
The working poor get short shrift from the hypocritical Minister For Workplace Relations says Noel Hester.

Unions: Back to the Heartland
Lidcombe, western Sydney. A boring cultural desert, right? Wrong, wrong and wrong again according to CFMEU officials who talked to Jim Marr about relocating their headquarters to a working class base.

Activists: Getting to the Point
Rowan Cahill reports on a development battle that has fractured a South Coast community and the role the union movement has played to drive a just outcome.

International: Push Polling
On the eve of elections in Zimbabwe, trade unionists are paying the price for their commitment to democracy.

Economics: Debt Defaulters
Amidst the colour and movement of CHOGM little was said about the pressing issue of debt relief, writes Thea Ormond.

Poetry: Those Were the Days
The Golden Wing lounges have closed. The last of the commiserating Ansett workers have long since departed those makeshift taverns.

Review: Black Hawk Dud
If you want to find out exactly what went wrong during the US Marines' 1993 peacekeeping operation in Mogadishu in Somalia, do not see Black Hawk Down.

Satire: Fox-Lew Launch Rescue Bid for Beta Video
Businessmen Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox have shocked the financial sector with a daring bid to rescue the communications giant Beta Video.

N E W S

Egan Sells His Brains

Spying Bill Targets Strikers

Dunny Wars: Will Workers Carry the Can?

Drivers Appeal To Commuters

New Tack on Asylum Seekers

Go Forth and Multiply � Unions on Women

Howard Shuts Workers Out Of Steel Talks

Questions Remain As Rio Rings Changes

Labor Hire Swifty Exposed

Unions Fight 'Industrial Blackmail'

AIRC in Contracting Debacle

Mayne Chance For A Wage Deal

IT Workers Get Their Own Geek Scopes

PNG Women Visit Australia

Brazilian Unions Study Aussie Experience

No Shangri-la in Jakarta

Activists Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Love Thy Neighbour
Bruce Childs explains why he's reactivated the Palm Sunday committee to take a stand for refugees.

The Locker Room
Debt Before Dishonour
In a week that featured allegations of drugs in footy, fast horses and faster cars, Phil Doyle struggled to keep up.

Week in Review
Bullies Rule, OK?
Jim Marr considers a week which highlighted the absolute joy of being big, rich and powerful in a lassez faire world.

Tool Shed
Leader of the Free World
George W Bush barricades himself in this week's Tool Shed with the sort of double standards that gives world domination a bad name.

L E T T E R S

WHAT YOU CAN DO

	About Workers Online
	Latest Issue
	Print Latest Issue
	Previous Issues
	Advanced Search

other LaborNET sites

Labor Council of NSW
Vic Trades Hall Council
IT Workers Alliance
Bosswatch
Unions on LaborNET
Evatt Foundation

Power Plays

For a Premier and Treasurer still smarting after being rolled by both wings of the labour movement last time they tried to sell-off the power industry, it is a bold move to privatise the industry by stealth.

The move to explicitly reject ALP policy and privatise Pacific Power International comes in the middle of a review into the future of the Party, where the very decision making structures they have just subverted are under consideration.

It comes when relations between the government and the union movement are still at a low ebb after the bitter battle over the diminution of workers compensation entitlements last year.

And it comes as international skepticism grows over the whole power privatisation agenda, courtesy of supply crises in New Zealand and California, then the Enron debacle.

To get the Cabinet to agree to the sell-off proposal so it can be presented to the May ALP State Conference as a fait accompli was a sleight of hand by a pair of wily political operators.

But to unions who have blown the whistle on the sell-off, believing that the power industry is too important to be hived off to the private sector, the decision is altogether reckless.

On its face, they can argue that - having hived off all the generators, Pacific Power International is nothing but a bunch of engineers and consultants who would be more at home on a company board than a picket line.

But just because they don't wear overalls, doesn't mean they are not central to the future of a publicly owned power industry. These are the people who plan network capacity, design new power supply solutions and construct them when necessary.

With the current system to reach capacity within 10 years, the PPI sell-off will take the capacity to plan our future power supply out of public hands and into the private sector. From there, the path to fully-fledged privatisation is assured.

For the ALP Caucus, many of whom were uncomfortable with the workers compensation legislation last year, the PPI sale decision is a stark choice between the Party's policy and their leadership's personal policy agenda.

Whether they're prepared to roll the Premier, his Treasurer and his Cabinet to uphold Party policy that has proven to be electorally successful will be the question of the week. Either way, it should be quite a conference in May.

Peter Lewis

Editor

  View entire issue - print all of the articles!

  Issue 127 contents

© 1999-2002 Workers Online
Workers Online is a resource for the Labour movement
provided by the Labor Council of NSW
URL: http://workers.labor.net.au/127/editorial_ppi.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005