Pathetic NSW conservatives wavering on privatization

Any conservatives worthy of the name support privatization of government businesses. So why is the NSW opposition not enthusiastically supporting privatization of the NSW electricity industry? The letter below from the NSW Labor party treasurer (Michael Costa) is full of good conservative thinking. It is as much a credit to a nominally Leftist writer as it is a condemnation of the alleged NSW conservatives

There is no question the Government does not have the numbers in the upper house in its own right to pass its electricity restructuring bill. If the legislation is to go ahead it must have the support of the Opposition. Barry O'Farrell said on the weekend his decision would be based on his party's "philosophical beliefs [and] what's in the best interests of the state". On these two criteria alone the Opposition will be supporting the Government.

Stripping away all the noise and drama that has surrounded this debate, at its heart has always been one fundamental challenge: how do we deliver the additional electricity generation the experts have said we need and need soon, without hindering our ability to provide other crucial infrastructure or cripple the state's finances? The Government's strategy - a strategy that has now been debated for 12 months - meets this challenge.

The Government's plans to reform the NSW power industry have now undergone no less than four inquiries, which started with Professor Anthony Owen's identification of a looming shortfall of baseload power. His report said $15 billion would need to be spent to meet the state's power needs if the Government retained ownership of the industry. The most recent review, last week's report by the Auditor-General, gave the process a tick and warned that any further delays would endanger energy security.

A rural community impact statement established there will be benefits from the Government's reforms in terms of jobs and investment in rural and regional NSW and that the consumer protections in place ensured there would be no adverse effects on the community. Both the Auditor-General's report and the rural community impact statement were requirements of the Opposition. But the Opposition's initial reaction to these reports shows them scratching around for excuses to avoid stating a position, none of which stand up to scrutiny.

They have raised the Auditor-General's suggestion that a reserve price be set for the transactions. The calculation of retention values - that is, the cost of keeping the businesses in Government hands - involves discounting estimated future dividends, tax equivalents and any future equity injections or capital returns under state ownership. The reserve price follows on from this. The Government will, of course, have this figure. But it should be pointed out Treasury's transaction strategy already sets out that retention values are to be calculated for each of the businesses before calling for expressions of interest.

The Opposition is also ignoring the $15 billion we would need to spend on the state's power needs - by carrying out the Government's plans the state is already at least $15 billion ahead. No excuse there, Barry.

On market timing, the Auditor-General makes the point that no one is able to predict what future market conditions will be. Indeed his report says there is no guarantee conditions will not deteriorate further. But it also points to the successful privatisation program of power assets being carried out in Singapore. The first sale of a Singaporean generator has been successfully undertaken for $3.2 billion, which was more than 50 per cent debt funded. On the basis of strong investor interest, the Singapore Government is set to continue with its sale of retail and generation assets. Yes, current market conditions are challenging, but the Singapore experience shows that the world hasn't stopped. No excuse there, Barry.

The Auditor-General's report does not recommend the lease of generators be delayed until the Commonwealth's emissions trading scheme (ETS) legislation is passed, as the Opposition tried to argue last week. The Auditor-General did recommend the generation transactions not take place "until ETS details are known". That will happen at the end of the year with the release of Senator Penny Wong's white paper, after which a generator will be placed on the market. The Auditor-General says there is "no evidence to question this approach". No excuse there, Barry.

The Opposition is right to point out that the obstacles to reform encountered 10 years ago have already cost the state billions of dollars. This makes it even more important that we act now before taxpayer value is further eroded. On the basis of the overwhelming evidence in favour the assessment should be easy, yet the Opposition is struggling to come to a final decision.

That this issue has been difficult for Labor, with its public sector union base, is obvious. But O'Farrell has no such political constraints, other than a lack of political courage. If he fails this test the Government will, as it must, seek other ways to keep the lights on in NSW. But the price of O'Farrell's folly would be readily apparent, and would run into billions of dollars.

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Breast milk bank closes doors due to lack of funding

There's billions for Greenie nonsense but nothing for tiny babies in danger of death??



QUEENSLAND'S only breast milk bank has run dry after a government funding failure which has put babies' lives at risk, midwives claim. The Gold Coast-based bank was one of only two in Australia set up to help save the lives of sick and premature infants unable to get milk from their mothers. It operated with financial donations and volunteer help for 18 months at Tugun's John Flynn Private Hospital, but has been forced to close after promised federal funding never materialised.

Milk bank director and midwife Marea Ryan said funding for the milk bank was committed by the Howard Government after a federal parliamentary inquiry into breast feeding last year. But after the change of federal government the money never made it to Queensland, leaving babies and mothers "in limbo". "It's very upsetting and frustrating because we get requests for milk every day," Ms Ryan said. "We need a milk bank for babies who can't get their nutritional needs met by their mothers. Donated milk can prevent serious infection in babies, save lives and greatly improve health outcomes." Ms Ryan said one of the biggest killers of premature babies, necrotising enterocolitis, could be prevented by feeding babies donated breast milk instead of formula.

Gold Coast mother Lisa Nielsen volunteered to help the milk bank after being forced to feed formula to her seven weeks' premature first child, Isabel, now 2, while waiting for her milk to come through. Ms Ryan said federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon and state counterpart Stephen Robertson were hopeful funding could be found.

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Party balloons banned -- for the "environment"

The simple magic of helium balloons has been popped - councils all over Sydney are banning them. One kill-joy council ranger even attempted to stop a toddler playing with a balloon at a local festival. The bureaucrat from Canada Bay Council threatened a priest handing a helium balloon to two-year-old Lewis Sylvester at the Five Dock Ferragosto festival last week. The ranger rounded on the priest with the terse warning: "I've already told you once. You can't hand out those balloons, it's an offence."

Lewis's father Phil Sylvester, a 2GB radio producer for the Chris Smith program, couldn't believe his ears. Canada Bay is among the increasingly officious councils that have outlawed helium balloons. Marrickville and Willoughby have banned them while Manly and Waverley have gone a step further and banned both helium and regular balloons. Sutherland Council, meanwhile, provides their own biodegradable balloons at events.

Under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act it is an offence to release 20 or more "lighter than air" balloons at the same time, with a fine of $200 for an individual and $400 for a corporation.

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Storm over 'ghost' public hospital wards

VICTORIAN Health Minister Daniel Andrews is at the centre of a growing political storm over claims that hospitals have been falsifying patient records to win government funding. The State Opposition, the Australian Medical Association and an independent health policy institute have expressed dismay at Mr Andrews' refusal to investigate the claims, which are believed to involve some of the state's leading public hospitals. "This is an unconscionable state of affairs and must be investigated," Australian Health Policy Institute director Stephen Leeder said.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon last night intervened in the row, warning that evidence of "fudged" patient data would be of serious concern to the Government as it negotiates new funding agreements with the states and territories. Mr Andrews last night was refusing to launch an investigation, repeating that he did not believe the allegations.

The row erupted after The Age revealed that Victorian hospitals had been accused of manipulating patient data, creating "phantom wards" and inconsistently measuring waiting times to meet State Government benchmarks for bonus payments. A survey of 19 emergency department directors by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine found almost 40% of hospitals had been "admitting" patients when they were, in fact, still languishing in emergency department waiting rooms, corridors or on trolleys. The "virtual wards" were used purely for "creative accounting", the doctors said.

Similar allegations about NSW hospitals falsifying patient data to rort funding were investigated by the NSW Health Department last year and have been referred to the state's Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Australian Medical Association president Rosanna Capolingua said allegations of hospitals acting fraudulently should be investigated to ensure new health care agreements were not rorted in the same way. Dr Capolingua said benchmarks should not encourage rorting that would undermine efforts to improve the health system. ''We need to make sure there is transparency, honesty and no perverse incentives in the benchmarks," she said.

Professor Leeder of the Health Policy Institute said the Victorian emergency doctors' claims could be more widespread than thought and must be investigated by the State Government. "If you do not have a person going around checking on what people are doing when they are recording and coding information, all evidence suggests there will be errors, random, systematic and perverse," he said.

Opposition health spokeswoman Helen Shardey said the allegations must be investigated to ensure Victoria's health system was measured properly and did not jeopardise its position under the new health care agreements. "It's extraordinary that a health minister would not want to investigate this immediately," she said. "It displays ignorance and it says he does not trust the people running our hospitals."

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Bulls**t Watch - Rising Sea to Drown 600,000 Australian Homes

A real sea-level rise of a few centimetres becomes a prophesied rise of metres! Comments below from rural publication "Agmates"



The Courier Mail and ABC radio continues on with its Climate Change scare mongering and hence register on our Bulls**t Watch. The headline screams “Homes at Risk from rising sea”. in todays Courier Mail. Online the headline reads: “Sea level rise from climate change ‘underestimated’.”

“THE speed at which the climate is changing has been significantly underestimated, with thousands of Australian homes potentially at risk from rising sea levels, a conference has heard.
Ports, harbours and airports situated near the ocean are also vulnerable to the immediate effects of climate change, said keynote speaker Jo Mummery. Preliminary modelling has found that if there is a rise in sea levels, 269,505 houses could be at risk in NSW and 2,875 houses in the NT.”

And again on ABC Radio: “Australian expert says sea levels to rise four metres”

“Dr Jo Mummery, from the Department of Climate Change, told the delegation that if sea levels rose just one metre - exclusive pockets of the Gold Coast would be completely washed out. She says if water enters a 200 metre buffer zone almost 559,000 residential buildings would be affected across the country.”

In both the Courier Mail Report and the ABC they quote:

“The head of the climate change unit at the Australian National University and science adviser to the federal Government, Professor Will Steffen, says he believes the scientific community is underestimating the speed at which the climate is changing. “The evidence over the past 12 to 18 months suggests that we have underestimated how fast this aspect of the earth’s system can change,” he said.”

Are you alarmed yet? Don’t be - Below is a graph showing actual sea level rises from 1991 to 2005.



And in the last 12 months sea levels have actually fallen almost 10mm.



Since global warming plateaued in 2001 sea levels have risen just 5mm or so in 7 years. Even the alarmist IPCC reports predicts sea levels will rise 50cm by 2100.
Here is a graph of sea level changes over the last 24,000 years. The graph shows that sea levels in Australia have risen 20 metres or so in the last 8,000 years.



And in the last 128 years they have risen less than 20cm.



It’s difficult to take scientists seriously who make such outlandish predictions of sea levels rising 1-4 metres in the next 90 years. Those claims immediatley register on the Agmates Bulls**t meter.

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