NSW State Election

[Rorschach]

Howard seems to be helping Baird with his election campaign and has told NSW voters not to make a protest vote for LUKE FOLEY even if Abbott is on the nose.

Liar liar pants on fire.
Howard has been seen about twice.
They are using a quote from 1 interview.
He never even mentioned Abbott except to say that he is a good politician will bounce back before the federal election which has nothing to do with the State election.

Howard's orders will not enhance Baird's campaign. He will only win because half the electorate probably doesn't have a clue about who he is or what he stands for,

Really?
They have more idea about him than Luke Foley.

but thanks to his relentless advertising campaign - people will remember his name when they're scratching their heads over the enormous ballot paper on Saturday.

Baird has not only been bombarding commercial TV with expensive adds every commercial break, but his recorded propaganda telephone message is infiltrating every NSW household - sometimes twice a day. This must be costing a fortune as well as being an intrusive nuisance.

Really.... more expensive than the Union and ALP campaign?
The one Senior Labor dignitaries have called lies and dishonest?
Wasn't Labor the first party to start this phone call trend in Australian politics? Seems to me both major parties are into it these days.

Martin Ferguson - as I suspected years ago has to be a Liberal plant. Labor should have evicted him a decade ago. He does no favours for them with his support of extreme capitalism.

You are a total Conspiranut... Ferguson, like Keating bleeds Labor blood. Or are you saying Keating is a Liberal plant too?
Everything you said has no credibility.

[Black Orchid]

It's Foley that people don't have a clue about, not Baird.

[Black Orchid]

The Baird Government has tried to downplay the scale of any future loss of budget revenues by referring to the Australian Energy Regulator’s draft determination. This would reduce the reported profits of the retained electricity interests — but their effective return on shareholders’ funds would still be the envy of most listed companies.

Moreover, the NSW Government has avoided any mention of the potential loss of revenues since partly-owned network agencies will be exposed to “real” Commonwealth taxes — a fact conceded by a Treasury official during a recent hearing of a Senate committee inquiry into privatisation of state and territory assets and new infrastructure.

Mention should be made of three crucial matters.

First, a state budget only reflects the financial results of the “general government” sector. State-owned corporations are required by national competition policy to pay commercial rates of interest on debt and, in NSW, this is handled by the payment of a loan guarantee fee to the NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp) which is not part of the general government sector.

Anti-privatisation campaigns have referred to the A$1.7 billion in dividends and tax equivalents that the electricity agencies paid to the NSW government last year. That amount is actually an understatement as it doesn’t take into account loan guarantee fees.

An internal government document distributed to Coalition MPs and selected journalists identified loan guarantee fees from the electricity businesses as amounting to A$338 million in 2012-13. The agencies’ financial statements did not separately disclose loan guarantee fees but aggregated them with “interest” expense.

Second, governments can influence how earnings are calculated. Depreciation expense is a percentage of reported asset values and, in NSW, government businesses have based those values on current replacement costs (not historical costs), and that has led to higher depreciation expenses and lower reported profits.

Third and more significant is the fact that the State Government can choose how much of the electricity networks' (reported) profits are paid into government coffers as dividends. That’s an important point, because of a recent report that the electricity dividends and other payments to the state are set to fall from A$1.7 billion last financial year to around A$1.1 billion this year.

The current privatisation proposal is hardly new. Privatisation was first mooted by then Labor Treasurer Michael Egan in 1997, with a price tag of A$22 billion. Yet, had he succeeded, the State would have missed out on dividends and tax equivalent payments to the budget in the period up to 2014-15 of A$20.2 billion — plus loan guarantee fees, and many billions of dollars in retained earnings. In that time, the electricity agencies were also able to fund tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure renewal.

Currently, NSW is experiencing a boom in real estate prices, which will flow through to increased revenues from land tax and stamp duties on property transfers. This tends to be cyclical. The loss of a relatively stable source of revenues from the electricity network agencies would only make NSW more dependent on volatile property taxes.

Whether it was under Labor in the past or under the Coalition Government now, the push to privatise NSW’s electricity assets is indicative of poor financial management. If it goes ahead, it would be bad news for NSW’s budget bottom line.

https://independentaustralia.net/politi ... -line,7516

When the $20 billion has been spent who is going to make up for the loss of income of $1.7 billion per year? We are.

[IQS.RLOW]

I wouldnt be taking any notice of anything the Independant writes.

They are a union lefty ALP shill site. There is hardly an ounce of truth to any of their articles.

Don't read that garbage. It's poisonous crap that rots the brain.

[Rorschach]

Well it's true that since Greiner the State Government has been ripping millions in "dividends" from the Utilities.

It is also true that after the Billions or whatever price they get is leased away, probably never to return, those "dividends" will drop or cease, permanently, or our bills will go up.

[Neferti]

Good grief. That Antony Green is a limp wristed leftard isn't he? Flicked the ABC on and they are all carrying on about how "we" might win. I am hoping that Baird's Government skins the lot of them.

[skippy]

The coalition easily returned. Baird is a good Premier I'm not surprised. The best news of the night are four GREENS members of the lower house including two here on the Far North Coast.

[Neferti]

The coalition easily returned. Baird is a good Premier I'm not surprised. The best news of the night are four GREENS members of the lower house including two here on the Far North Coast.

Newtown (Sydney)
Balmain (Sydney)
Ballina (FNC)
Lismore (FNC)

[Black Orchid]

Balmain was a bit of a surprise to me.

[mantra]

Balmain was no surprise to me. I lived in Balmain prior to moving to the Coast and that's where I learnt about the Greens. I'm surprised the Greens hadn't got a seat there sooner, but better late than never.