THE POINTY END OF PRIVATISATION IS BEING FELT IN BROKEN HILL
When the poles and wires of the NSW electricity network, along with the transmission lines, were sold off by the previous Government, many people raised the concern that a privatised single provider (when that provider is not Government) could lead to big risks.
Broken Hill was left without power after a freak storm knocked down 7 structures along the transmission line. That shouldn’t have been too much of a problem because the new private operator had a responsibility, under contract, to ensure that 2 backup gas-fired mini power stations were ready to be switched on. This backup plan was exactly the same as the one that had been in place since forever, when the Government previously owned and operated the line.
The trouble is that the gas-fired plants had been allowed to fall into disrepair, as money, it seems, was stripped out of the required maintenance and instead tipped into maximising profits under this new private ownership model.
So, when the bad storm event came along, the backup plan was not ready to go.
Broken Hill, a town with more than 20,000 people, as well as several other smaller communities with several thousand more people, have been without power for some 72 hours at different times in the past week. People have lost significant food supplies from their fridges and freezers, while businesses with much larger stock supplies have been left devastated.
In amongst all of this, some residents require power supply for medical purposes like breathing machines and cold storage of medications and they have been deprived of this. Further, on hot days of 36oC, residents have been unable to turn on air-conditioners and unable to simply charge phones or computers. And, Year 12 students were trying to study and complete the HSC.
In the coming days, with power supply still not secure, hotter weather is predicted and this could lead to tragic consequences as a result of the heat effect on people’s health – particularly the elderly.
Meanwhile, the money that went to Government as a result of selling off the poles and wires and transmission lines, went into building a new road in Sydney which, an Inquiry has proven, was designed to inconvenience road users that didn’t use the toll road tunnels. And the purpose for this was so that the Government could then privatise this new road, at maximum price with the new owner knowing that the cards were heavily stacked in the favour of their profits.
So the consequence is that Broken Hill and surrounding towns are in dire straits; people in Sydney are paying dearly for the use of new privately owned toll roads; and taxpayers across NSW are left subsidising the toll damage that is being done right across the Sydney road network. All of this, and its impact on the people of NSW, is the pointy end of privatisation.