Across the ditch-NSW ALP tensions surface-lessons for NZ

The Australian has some interesting articles on public sector reform in Australia, centred around the privatisation of the NSW electricity industry, so as to ensure investment and security of supply.

The links are:

here – The Elephant in the Room

here – Power tears ALP apart

here – Rudd has a stake in this

here – Iemma staring into abyss

They reveal how unions and factions dominate the ALP and frustrate attempts at reform.

If anyone need to see what Roger Douglas freed us from, it is here. In NSW a few thousand electricity unionists hold the state and indirectly the country to ransom.

It is interesting to think that in NSW they want to sell off the electricity plants and companies in the interest of being able to invest more in other areas.

This what Clark and Cullen appear to want to return us to.

This is an extract from one of the articles linked above:

KEVIN Rudd has a lot riding on NSW Premier Morris Iemma’s having the courage to defy Labor’s state council and push ahead with the $10 billion privatisation of the state’s electricity industry. To his credit, Mr Iemma says he is standing firm. If he were to back down, despite having already made overly generous concessions to minority interest groups, it would send the message to all Labor premiers that difficult reform is not worth the effort. This is precisely the wrong message for Mr Rudd, who has staked his reform credentials on his ability to foster federal and state co-operation through a revitalised COAG process because of the Labor brotherhood. If electricity privatisation can be defeated because unions representing a few thousand electricity workers don’t like it, how difficult would it be to stare down union interests to overhaul health and education?

Preferring to bask in the rock star adulation from federal Labor’s nil-cost symbolic actions in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and saying sorry to the Stolen Generations, Kevin Rudd did not refer specifically to electricity privatisation in his address to yesterday’s NSW state Labor conference. But there was nonetheless an unmistakable coded reference in his speech. Mr Rudd warned delegates, as The Australian has noted, that Labor did not win the November election by a landslide as many mistakenly believed and could lose government with just a small swing against it at the next election.

Much of the economic strength of Australia stems from its’ minerals not from any intrinsic competitiveness or labour freedoms.

The unions believe they can dictate to the ALP. Sound in any way familiar?

They have significantly more say in the running of the party than their actual membership numbers would suggest. Sound in anyway familiar?

Their problems could be our problems.

The articles referenced and others should sound a warning to all new Zealanders.

Rudd will need great testicular fortitude if he is to succeed with any reform, albeit that it is necessary.

Similarly, National will need the same, as despite the fact that Key is committed to certain policies, that does not mean he is committed to waste, incompetence or failure to achieve quality outcomes. Therefore, there is much reform that ca and should be undertaken.