![Essential Energy sale claim 'scaremongering' Essential Energy sale claim 'scaremongering'](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/storypad-38YbjLjtVg4TfuAWfqQmftU/065026d4-5b5d-42ec-8f11-f09996ddd095.jpg/r0_172_3924_2380_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
ESSENTIAL Energy will be up for sale within the next six years, an anti-sell off campaigner predicts, but our state MP has dismissed the comment as scaremongering.
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The regional provider is not included in the electricity network partial privatisation plan which the state government will take to voters at the March election.
Stop the Sell Off campaign director Adam Kerslake believes if the government goes ahead with its plan announced on Tuesday, it is inevitable Essential Energy will be next.
“The people who have been agitating for this are not the ordinary people – it’s the people who want to buy the electricity assets,” he said.
The state government will seek a mandate at the next election to lease 49 per cent of the state’s electricity network or the so-called poles and wires with the exception of Essential Energy.
Essential Energy has almost 900 Port Macquarie-based employees.
Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams said the partial privatisation would deliver historic investment in regional NSW for infrastructure projects, and the Nationals had protected their communities and protected jobs in local communities.
“I don’t know for what reason they [unions] would expect that we wouldn’t continue to do that,” she said.
“It is really disappointing they are going on a scare campaign without getting the facts out there.”
Mrs Williams said she was about putting the facts on the table to let the people make a decision based on the facts, not hypothetical situations or crystal ball gazing.
The sale would provide an estimated $20 billion for new infrastructure investment including $6 billion to be spent in regional NSW.
Mr Kerslake believes the privatisation will lead to higher prices, massive sackings and reduced service.
“They are banking on the fact they have a big majority to get across the line,” he said about the state government.
“We’ve all had an experience of privatisation and we know what it means.”
The government says the jobs of permanent employees in the businesses will be protected and it will ensure the privatised businesses charged one per cent less than forecast regulated prices until 2019.
NSW Treasury engaged Ernst & Young to analyse the long-term trends in the prices and costs of providing electricity network services.
The report shows that network prices for typical residential customers in Victoria and South Australia fell in real terms since privatisation.
“By contrast, network prices in NSW and Queensland have increased in real terms by over 100 per cent in the same period,” the report said.
Opposition leader John Robertson said the independent energy regulator had clearly shown the highest electricity prices in the country were paid in South Australia - a privatised network.
Mr Robertson said he had no doubt the sale of our electricity network would see families pay more on their power bills.
Essential Energy declined to comment on the state government plan.