What do you reckon...should they sell me ?

[Shannow]

Coming up to the last election, Morris Dillema stated that he understood that the people of NSW wanted to keep public ownership of the electricity generating assets.

Immediately I called "weasel words", and predicted privatisation of the business.

Turns out that's exactly what he had planned, sell the business and the employees, lease the metal bits.

What are your thoughts pro/con ?

Me personally...

morally, I think electricity, water, air etc. should be in public ownership, as there's not many people (can) live without them.

environmentally, as has been demonstrated by Hazelwood, privatisation allows the most archaic polluting plants to keep running, at attrocious efficiencies...but as has been demonstrated with the Moomba NG plant, former fed Govt only gave lip service to environment, allowing Moomba to release a million tonnes of CO2 per annum.

As a person, actually looking forward to it at present...

 

[Southy]

The pinko commie in me says keep it public, but so does the not so pinko socialist in me, Water, Power, Sewerage all that shit should be publicly owned and controled

 

[chrisvp]

From what I have read it should not be sold, seems he is not listening to anyone and wants to sell it for a song anyways because they need the money, I dont know much more about it but I think that unless the NSW public vote in a majority for the power to be privatised, then public it should stay.
Its just common sense really.

 

[Iron Zombius]

If it is privatised you will end up working for the shareholders. Shareholders want improvement in THIER bottom line, and in my experience working in the private sector, this will be at a cost to work practise.

Will they pay you more for doing the same job your doing now? Probably not.

Will they keep current staffing levels,if they realise that they can afford to cut corners at no loss to productivity? Probably not

Is it a good idea? Probably not!

I have a feeling that if Morris goes ahead with the idea of privitisation of electricy production in NSW, the party will file a no confidance motion in thier leader and that will spell the end of him

 

[TinMan666]

If it is privatised you will end up working for the shareholders. Shareholders want improvement in THIER bottom line, and in my experience working in the private sector, this will be at a cost to work practise.

Will they pay you more for doing the same job your doing now? Probably not.

Will they keep current staffing levels,if they realise that they can afford to cut corners at no loss to productivity? Probably not

absolutely.

 

[Goreripper]

A couple of years back, I read a story in the local paper about a taxi driver who was taking the CEO of Telstra to a conference in Katoomba. The cabbie had Telstra shares, but he was concerned about Telstra removing several payphones in the area. "Those payphones," he was assured, "cost our shareholders thousands of dollars every year". "Oh, well in that case," replied the cabbie, "get rid of them". It didn't matter to either of them that the one phone call made on that phone might be one that saved someone's life. To them, it was about saving money for the shareholders. When saving money for the shareholders becomes more important than providing a service to customers, regardless of how rarely that service might be used, that is when privatisation fails.

 

[Winmar]

I hate privatisation, for there are so many examples of it fucking things up for consumers or those who rely on the services.

 

[Goreripper]

Not to mention the workers.

 

[Iron Zombius]

Not to mention the workers.

I work in the private healthcare industry. You dont need to tell me about management and what they will do to the workers for the sake of the shareholders.

Of course shannow you could always become a shareholder in whoever should become the owner and supplier of your product. That way you can have input into the company you work for and a forum at the AGM to raise concerns over workload and safe working practises should you need it.

also, as a shareholder that would mean your boss is working for you.................in a round about way!

 

[Sydo]

F'king communists.

 

[Shannow]

Nah...the communists are the ones who want to buy us.

http://www.skynews.com.au/business/article.aspx?id=233103

Dillema has been courting them for half a year.

 

[Stonewall]

Of course it doesn't help that the board of directors of a corporation's primary legal obligation is to make money for their shareholders (obviously in theory without breaking any other laws) and they can be held personally accountable if they are seen to have failed in this. It's what they are there for.

 

[Goreripper]

That's what makes the privatisation of public utilities so problematic. If you go back to my Telstra example from before, the shareholder only cares that a public phone box on a deserted stretch of highway costs more to fix than it brings in from being used, and it is therefore the CEO's job to get rid of it because of the cost to shareholders. As for the customer, who may be stuck on that very stretch of highway with a bung mobile phone (or none at all) and no way to call a cab at 2am in the middle of winter, well they just should have utilised the facility a bit more and it wouldn't have been taken away.

 

[Iron Zombius]

If you go back to my Telstra example from before, the shareholder only cares that a public phone box on a deserted stretch of highway costs more to fix than it brings in from being used, and it is therefore the CEO's job to get rid of it because of the cost to shareholders. As for the customer, who may be stuck on that very stretch of highway with a bung mobile phone (or none at all) and no way to call a cab at 2am in the middle of winter, well they just should have utilised the facility a bit more and it wouldn't have been taken away.

And if said phonebox is no longer required, then there is no need for repair man.

 

[Goreripper]

True. So you save on wages too.