it would be nice if politicians were actually interested in the good of the people and the country. Seems to me all they are interested in is the glory of saying I WON nerner ner and getting paid big bikkies to sit around not actually do anything worthwhile. Much easier to just sell off everything to get the economy going, then leave at the end of term knowing you'll be getting a huge pension/super etc and be sitting pretty for the rest of your life on some nice little farm or beach house far away from mines and csg wells
"I disagree with privitising utilities as money just ends up leaving the country and they don't seem to reinvest any of it back into improving or maintaining things like power poles. It's also not true that prices come down"
AUSTRALIANS who live in states with privatised electricity supplies have faced smaller price rises over the past two decades than their counterparts in other states.
Analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data provided exclusively to The Australian finds that privatisation has not led to consumers paying higher prices, despite union and ALP scare campaigns.
The analysis is a boost to the Baird government in NSW, which goes to an election this month on a platform funded by the partial privatisation of poles and wires.
The Grattan Institute work shows retail prices have risen more in Sydney and Brisbane than in Melbourne and Adelaide, where the Victorian and later South Australian governments had privatised the electricity industry from the 1990s. It suggests that from 1996 to mid-2014, in nominal terms, retail electricity prices have increased by 207.7 per cent in Adelaide and 158 per cent in Melbourne — compared with 212.1 per cent in Sydney and 217 per cent in Brisbane.
It is notoriously difficult to get reliable historical data on electricity prices because of changes in ownership and regulation, while other factors such as customer density and weather conditions complicate comparisons. But the latest analysis supports a recent Ernst and Young study commissioned by the NSW Treasury that found network prices had fallen in real terms since privatisation in Victoria and South Australia, but soared by more than 100 per cent in NSW and Queensland.
Because network prices typically make up 35 to 55 per cent of the final bill, rises in electricity bills had been contained where the poles and wires businesses were privately owned.
“Privately owned businesses run at lower cost to the benefit of consumers,” the Grattan Institute’s energy director, Tony Wood, said.
The figures give weight to support by other groups, including the Productivity Commission, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and peak business groups, for privatisation.
Rest of the Australian article is to be found here:
"The former chairman of the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Authority, Tom Parry, said the “all the evidence” was that privatised networks “have much better cost controls”. “I don’t see why there’s any basis to suggest that network charges will go up as a result of privatisation,” he said."
I do however note that NSW has a State election very soon, and this topic in NSW is very much subject to " union and ALP scare campaigns". A little like telling the bleaters 
