NSW: Iemma says no plan B if power sale fails

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2008
NSW: Iemma says no plan B if power sale fails

By Nick Ralston

SYDNEY, Aug 27 AAP - Premier Morris Iemma says he'll walk away from his bid to privatise
NSW's electricity sector if it fails to pass state parliament.

Mr Iemma's plans to sell-off parts of the power sector will go before NSW parliament
tomorrow, with the proposal's fate likely to be decided by the opposition.

Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell and Nationals leader Andrew Stoner are yet to declare
their party's intentions on how they'll vote on the plan.

A number of Labor MPs have already declared they will cross the floor in the hope of
defeating the legislation.

Mr Iemma said he would not delay the vote if he didn't have the numbers, and would
instead have to seek alternatives to secure the state's electricity needs.

"There's no plan B," Mr Iemma told reporters.

"We'll have to deal with the consequences of this having been defeated and respond.

It's not going to be a case that we're going to deferring this and coming back.

"The time to act is now."

The first vote will take place in the upper house, where the government does not have
a majority, with Treasurer Michael Costa to make amendments to the legislation following
a review of the sell-off by the state's auditor-general.

Mr Iemma today denied this was a tactic to avoid embarrassment by having the legislation
defeated in the lower house, where Labor has the numbers but could lose due to dissenting
ALP MPs voting against his plan.

"You can read nothing into the fact that it's going into the upper house at all," Mr
Iemma told reporters.

Mr Iemma said Mr Costa had not issued a financial ultimatum to Labor MPs considering
voting against the sell-off.

Mr Costa was reported to have issued the warning at a meeting of Labor branch delegates
as the government pushed for support for the privatisation plan.

"I rang the treasurer and he flatly denies it. Absolutely not true," the premier told reporters.

Mr Iemma would not be drawn on what consequences Labor MPs who voted against the government
would face.

The premier today took out full-page newspaper advertisements to set out reasons for
the controversial sell-off .

In his open letter to the people of NSW, Mr Iemma warns that "without new investment
now, we face potential blackouts".

However, Mr Stoner said the threat of blackouts was "crap".

Mr Stoner, who yesterday stated he personally opposed the sell-off, said privatisation
would not secure NSW's power supply.

"I think that's crap, frankly," he told Macquarie Radio today.

"What we saw in Victoria was that state move down the privatisation path, I think about
a decade ago, and that state actually faces shortages of baseload power earlier than NSW
will."

AAP nr/evt/srp/bwl

KEYWORD: ELECTRICITY IEMMA LEAD

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