Taking the power from the people

Sydney's central business district (CBD) experienced its worst power 
failure in living memory on Tuesday last week. The big question is, did it 
have anything to do with privatisation and should we see it as a sign of 
more trouble ahead if we continue down the privatisation road?

While Energy Australia has played down the incident as a "rare and isolated 
occurrence", the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) has blamed job cuts and a 
corresponding lack of maintenance.

The union's State Secretary, Bernie Riordan, said "Workers have been 
expecting this for some time."

Mr Riordan said, "We made that claim to EnergyAustralia 12 months ago 
because our concern was that during the Olympics the insufficient 
maintenance could be a major problem."

He claimed the maintenance budget had been cut over the past five years by 
at least $500,000.

The blackout, which lasted two-and-a-half hours, caused about 80 sets of 
traffic lights to fail. Police rescue squads were sent to seven city 
buildings to rescue people trapped in lifts, some for as long as two hours.

Restaurants, banks and stores were closed for about two hours and about 40 
cinema screens went blank.

The blackout was caused by the explosion of what is speculated to be an 
"old" electrical component at a substation and the failure of the back-up 
system to kick in.

An internal investigation by EnergyAustralia is under way and will 
certainly report on the failed component and similar technical details in 
order to explain the blackout.

Unfortunately, it is not likely, as an internal investigation, to go any 
further and look at the link between the failure of the machinery and the 
history of job cuts and reduction of maintenance.

NSW electricity has been corporatised and prepared for privatisation. The 
last attempt by the Carr Labor Government to privatise it nearly caused a 
split in the Labor Party with the Government being forced to back off for 
the time being.

Wherever privatisation has occurred in electricity overseas it has lead to 
problems associated with cuts to staff and maintenance in order to increase 
profits.

We should not forget the New Zealand experience in February, 1998, which 
blacked-out Auckland.

The corporatised power "trusts" in NZ were at a similar stage of the 
privatisation process as we are now in NSW. They were pursuing a drive for 
profits and takeovers. They slashed the staff by half.

The focus on profits and cost-cutting lead to a lack of maintenance of the 
distribution cables and they collapsed, plunging the city into darkness for 
months.

The lesson should be heeded; the warning signs in NSW are here. The lesson 
is to reject privatisation and the chaos it brings with it and give the 
power back to the people.

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