[Greens-Media] Lost opportunities mark mini-budget

[John Kaye]

Lost opportunities mark mini-budget 
 
Media Release: 11 November 2008
 
The Rees' government's AAA fetish, its rejection of borrowing and its obsession with electricity privatisation have created a mini-budget that could plunge NSW into a longer and deeper recession, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
 
Dr Kaye said: "The Rees government is captured by 1980's economic dogma while the rest of the world has moved on.
 
"Even the credit rating agencies have moved beyond slash-and-burn recipes.
 
"Treasurer Roozendaal has persisted with the flawed electricity sell-off, unnecessary increases in household costs and a failure to prepare the state's economy for climate change.
 
"His failure to invest in the future of the state will ensure that NSW is the first into the recession and the last out.
 
Electricity privatisation
 
"The mini-budget commits the state to sell the retailers and lease the trading rights for generators.
 
"Electricity trading when it is separated from power station operations becomes a high risk activity. At a time when banks are increasingly cautious with their lendings, it is unlikely that there would be much enthusiasm amongst potential buyers.
 
"The Rees government is expecting investors to pay a premium for the risk associated with the trading rights for the generators and to put themselves at the mercy of the power station operators.
 
"With potential trading losses running up to $2.7 million an hour, Treasurer Roozendaal will either have to accept a substantial discount on the price or offer cash incentives. Either way, the people of NSW will lose out.
 
"As soon as privatised retailers entered the market in Queensland prices rose 10 percent to pay for telemarketers and households were slugged up to $120 a year.
 
Fire sale of public lands
 
"Treasurer Roozendaal has upped the sell-off of public properties by $890 million for this financial  year.
 
"Balancing the budget by off-loading public lands at the bottom of the market is poor economics and bad management.
 
"More than $230 million worth of public school and TAFE lands will go by 2012, leaving the system struggling to meet the expected increase in school-aged students.
 
School Student Transport Scheme
 
"Treasurer Eric Roozendaal is allowing more than $200 million to be leached out of the school student transport scheme by transport operators and private schools. 
 
"Instead of tackling the waste on phantom trips and the expense of moving students past their nearest public school, parents are facing an impost of up to $180 a year.
 
"The Rees government will raise less than $33 million a year from the co-payment.
 
"Stopping payments for phantom rides and ending subsidies for students who travel past their nearest public school would reduce costs by more than $200 million a year and make the co-payment unnecessary.
 
Greening the economy
 
"US President-elect Barrack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown have recognised the importance of public investment in the green economy to shorten the recession and create new job opportunities.
 
"They are prepared to borrow money to kick-start the growth in green-collar jobs and position their countries to be leaders in the renewable energy revolution.
 
"Treasurer Roozendaal and his discredited policies are leading NSW into an economic backwater.
 
"This mini-budget is a lost opportunity that could have future-proofed the state with clean green sustainable jobs in an economy that would be well placed to take advantage of the inevitable upturn in the business cycle.
 
"Instead the Rees government has succumbed to Treasury's opposition to borrowing.
 
"Working households around NSW will suffer for many years to come because Nathan Rees lacked the courage to stand up to Joe Tripodi and the Treasury bureaucrats," Dr Kaye said.
 

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455 
 
 
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John Kaye
Greens member of the NSW Parliament
phone: (02) 9230 2668
fax: (02) 9230 2586
mobile: 0407 195 455
email: john.kaye at parliament.nsw.gov.au
web: www.johnkaye.org.au
 
mail: Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000