The money vanishes !

" Oh what a tangled web we weave .... "

The enquiry into the fire sale of electricity assets is starting to reveal a very different picture. When the need to create a new coal mine and provide subsidies for it's output - and to retire the existing debt owing by Eraring and Delta are taken into account - that $ 5.3 billion shrinks to a mere $ 400 million.

Way back into the Bob Carr days the state government was desperate to shed it's ownership of electricity production and distribution. This publicly owned asset was run down and incapable of keeping the lights burning without a massive injection that the government would need to borrow to provide - and that would mean big hikes in the cost of power.

The problem was that increased electricity charges would be blamed on the government - so the obvious answer was to sell it off to private enterprise - and let them take the blame when the chickens come home to roost !

Typically, this is bad government walking away from it's responsibilities.

The purpose of a state government is to provide the citizens with affordable electricity, a reliable water supply, roads and a transport system - and to maintain both education and public hospitals.

Selling off electricity was an act of sliding out from under that responsibility - and doing it under a smoke and mirrors regime of pretended benefits for the public.
Once electricity passes into the private sector - it is gone forever.

What remains is the faint hope that out of this enquiry may come salvation. The sale may be stopped in it's tracks - and what the public now has will remain in the hands of whoever governs the state after the March election.