Power workers will soon be hitting the streets of the Oatley electorate to campaign against the NSW Liberal Party over electricity privatisation.
Create a free account to read this article
or signup to continue reading
They will be letterboxing and knocking on doors to ask voters to support Labor, the Greens or the Shooters Party in the March 28 election because they were the parties standing up for continued public ownership of money-making community assets.
‘‘This is not about taking a party political line but about supporting those parties that support public ownership,’’ Electrical Trades Union organiser Mark Buttigieg said.
‘‘We are fighting for the future of our industry and for our jobs.’’
Mr Buttigieg spoke to 60 workers at Oatley on Thursday afternoon (January 29), telling them that eight out of 10 were likely to lose their jobs if the Liberals plan to privatise electricity companies Ausgrid and TransGrid went ahead.
‘‘Workers in the industry are passionate about protecting what is NSW’s most valuable public asset which returns $1.7 billion every year to fund other services such as our schools and hospitals,’’ Mr Buttigieg said.
‘‘The community needs to know what is at risk under the Liberals electricity privatisation plan and we will be working around the clock to make sure people are informed.’’
Mr Buttigieg said there was no reason why the building of new infrastructure such as the WestConnex project needed to be tied to the privatisation of a valuable income generating public asset.
‘‘Selling public assets is lazy politics driven by a desire from the Liberal Party to line the pockets of their big business mates,’’ he said.
‘‘When workers mobilised in Victoria, it made a massive difference which ultimately resulted in a change of government after just one term.
‘‘We are confident that by campaigning we can — and will — make a difference because our communities do not want essential services such as electricity privatised.’’
He said the privitisation question should be put to a referendum so the community could have a say.
ALP candidates for Oatley and Rockdale, O’Bray Smith and Steve Kamper, also spoke to the workers at Oatley.
Do you support privatisation of electricity?