Foley accuses Coalition of secrecy over meeting with Chinese power company
|
Version 0 of 1. Luke Foley has accused the Baird government of being less open than the Chinese Communist party, after it was revealed the New South Wales treasurer had met officials from Chinese power company State Grid Corporation over the sale of the NSW electricity network. The premier, Mike Baird, argued foreign interest showed how strong the state’s economy was and said Labor was running the “biggest scare campaign the state has ever seen” on the proposal to privatise electricity assets. The meetings, between the treasurer, Andrew Constance, and State Grid Corp, took place late last year and were revealed in China Daily. Foley’s accusations came on the same day an advertising campaign by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union began, warning voters the Coalition was considering selling the “poles and wires” to a Chinese state-owned company. The Labor leader also called for Baird to reveal the reserve price on the 49% of the electricity network that the Liberals have committed to sell on a 99-year lease. “Why is it that the Liberals and Nationals couldn’t admit they were meeting with the China State Grid Corp about them buying the NSW electricity network?” said Foley. “Why is it that the Chinese Communist party is more open with its citizens than Mr Baird’s government is with the people of NSW? “Why is it that the Chinese people’s daily can report its treasurer has met with its state Grid Corp about selling them the electricity network but Mr Constance won’t admit it to the people of this state?” Baird said there was strong interest nationally and internationally in NSW’s power network and it was an endorsement of the state’s economy. “There’s interest across the world but there is also significant interest here in Australia, there’s a huge array of interest in Australia super funds for these sort of assets, more importantly the reason we’re seeing that is they see New South Wales’s economy is moving, it’s the strongest in the country and investors will only want to come to an economy that’s moving,” he said on Tuesday. Baird said foreign interest in the network would be dealt with by the Foreign Investment Review Board and there would be protections in place if such a deal was to go through. “We are leasing 49%, so government retains 51% of these assets, it is a scare campaign, it is a distraction, what we are about is getting the economy going, maintaining those jobs and building the infrastructure to make the difference to people’s lives and providing the services that make a difference to people’s lives,” he said. “… The opposition has run the biggest scare campaign in the history of this state, that’s it, they don’t have a plan, they don’t intend to make a difference to anyone’s lives, they just want to get into power for power’s sake. We’ve seen it before, they’re dishing it up again.” Asked whether he was “dog whistling” on the issue, Foley said he had spoken at many Chinese community functions and those communities were equally opposed to privatisation of the network. “I don’t want the Chinese government, or the French government or the Russian government or even my friends in the Irish government owning the NSW electricity network,” he said. “I want to keep it owned by the people of NSW turning those very large profits every year to pay for our nurses and teachers.” Foley is spending the last week of the election campaign touring electorates in the northern rivers, where sitting National candidates on margins upwards of 20% are in danger of losing to Labor and the Greens. But Baird remains ahead in polling and appears to be on track to win the election on Saturday. Labor’s campaign has centred on the privatisation of the electricity network and Labor’s promised moratorium on coal seam gas. While Labor issued the original licences prior to 2011, Foley has now apologised for Labor’s role and promised the northern rivers would remain gas free. Foley said he had listened to the community campaign on the issue and committed that there would never be coal seam gas in the northern rivers under Labor. He met community groups, including the Knitting Nannas Against Gas, which succeeded in forcing the Coalition to suspend Metgasco’s coal seam gas licence at Bentley. He then stopped at a Transgrid station to hold a media conference. The privatisation deal involved selling 100% of Transgrid, plus 50.4% of distributors Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy. Under the deal negotiated with the National party, the government would retain Essential Energy. Foley said while the National party was suggesting country electricity jobs were safe, 40% of Transgrid’s workforce were in country areas. |