LNP’s Energy Bill labelled as “Jackboot takeover”
ETU demands State LNP publicly reject asset sales and privatisation
The Electrical Trades Union QLD NT labelled the Federal Government’s poorly written legislation as nothing more than a dangerous distraction and a full-on jackboot takeover of Queensland’s public electricity assets.
“The LNP are addicted to asset sales and Morrison said as much back in 2016 when he heralded the NSW Liberals electricity privatisation plan as a way of reducing power prices. Guess what Queensland’s electricity prices are lower than NSW, South Australia and Victoria, because NSW, Victoria and South Australia all have privatised or partially privatised electricity networks.” ETU Queensland NT State Secretary Peter Ong said today.
Mr Ong said the dangerous distraction was merely aimed at drawing attention away from the crumbling facade that is the LNP Government. “This latest outrageous attempt to totally disenfranchise Queensland voters, is merely a distraction from the main game, this dysfunctional Government has given up on any semblance of unity and are now intent on saving the furniture, now they want to sell ours. The Federal Government is behaving like a North Korean dictator, running roughshod over Queensland voters who have overwhelmingly rejected assets sales and privatisation for the last three state elections,” Ong said.
Mr Ong also questioned the deafening silence from the state LNP.
“Frecklington, Nicholls and co profess to be opponents of assets sales and privatisation, where are their voices? Failure to come out and publicly condemn their federal colleagues will be seen as nothing more than approval, and their weasel words will come back to haunt them”
Mr Ong also took aim at the LNPs blatant hypocrisy in its attack on the energy regulators they created.
“A cursory glance at the history of the regulatory frameworks shows the LNP were the very people who created the regulator that dictates the rate of return for businesses, the only differences being because Queensland assets are public owned, profits are reinvested in Queensland whereas in the other privatised states Vic, SA and NSW the profits go to private predominantly overseas owned corporations,” he said.
“The ETU would be the first to sit around the table in productive dialogue if the LNP were fair dinkum about ways to bring electricity prices down, but they aren’t, they rely on old failed technologies and old failed ideologies. If they want to get fair dinkum about sustainable energy policy, they should publicly abandon their addiction to privatisation and instead push for public ownership of all electricity assets and embrace a renewable energy future.
Any push for privatisation either overtly or covertly will be met with the full force of the ETU.”
See video here