The Communications Electrical Plumbing Union (CEPU) has slammed the Tasmanian Liberal government’s proposal to sell off energy assets.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff said on March 4 that his government would make “a detailed assessment of the benefits of moving several entities out of government ownership”, with Metro Tasmania, the Land Titles Office and the Motor Accident Insurance Board on the sell-off list.
He said Hydro Tasmania would not be sold.
However Chris Clark, CEPU Secretary, warned on March 5 that “asset leasing” is the equivalent of privatisation. “A 99-year lease is a sale. If it’s leased, it’s as good as sold — it’s gone,” Clark said.
“Privatisation doesn’t work anywhere, ever. You don’t take a profitable, essential asset, sell it for pennies on the dollar, never see another cent in the future, and call it a good deal.
“Tasmania will not be better off selling a profitable asset for next to nothing just to pay for this government’s other mistakes.”
The CEPU represents energy workers in The Hydro Tasmania and TasNetworks, both of which are partly privatised already, known as Government Business Enterprises (GBE).
Clark said the economic case for privatisation is “indefensible”.
He said TasNetworks does need “a management cleanout”, but it should not be sold.
“We’ve seen this playbook before. In 1999, the Liberals tried to sell Hydro Tasmania for just 20% of its actual value — a terrible deal for the state.”
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman took a 99-year power lease proposal to the Queensland election in 2015 and it became “the worst electoral defeat in Australian history, fuelled by the community-driven #Not4Sale campaign”.
“We will mobilise the same resistance here,” Clark said.
“This isn’t about economics: it’s about ideology. No credible economist supports privatisation. This is just another failed trickle-down experiment, the same ideology that has eroded Tasmanian and Australian living standards since John Howard’s Liberals embraced it.
“TasNetworks is currently mismanaged. That’s because of its half-privatised GBE model.
“It’s a mess of competing interests pretending to be a public service while really acting as a greedy corporation. Full privatisation would only make it worse — higher prices, massive job cuts and an unaccountable private monopoly.”
Clark pointed to Victoria and South Australia’s privatisation of their power networks in the 1990s as proof that it does not work. It led to large scale job cuts and skyrocketing energy prices.
“Victoria’s energy privatisation directly contributed to the Black Saturday bushfires — a devastating loss of life caused by private companies cutting maintenance to increase profits.
“Across Australia, governments are now being forced to re-nationalise assets because private investors have bled them dry and walked away.
“Privatisation is a failed experiment — and we refuse to let Tasmania become the next cautionary tale.”