August 7, 2017
The Electrical Trades Union has resurrected its successful “Not4Sale” campaign from the last State Election … another sign the next election could be imminent.
The union has warned voters “to be wary of weasel words employed by proponents of privatisation”.
A union spokesman said on Monday that a report in The Australian newspaper said voters had been polled on the option of “asset recycling” to raise funds for infrastructure.
The ETU said this was just a softer term to sell privatisation and echoed the efforts of former Newman Government Treasurer Tim Nicholls to rebrand asset sales as “asset leasing”.
ETU Electricity Supply Industry Coordinator Stuart Traill said “asset recycling” was just another weasel word which wouldn’t wash with Queenslanders who had consistently rejected privatisation.
“We saw at the last election that no matter how the LNP sell privatisation to Queenslanders the voters reject asset sales,” he said.
“This issue was poison for the Bligh Government and it was poison for the Newman Government, and it will be poison for any political party who wants to push asset sales.
“No matter if the LNP package privatisation (as) ‘asset sales’ or ‘asset leasing’, ordinary Queenslanders will vote to keep their public properties in Queensland hands.
“You’d have to be an out of touch ideologue who has been in a coma for ten years to imagine otherwise.”
The union said that despite The Australian report claiming support was “growing” for asset sales, the poll showed less than one-fifth of respondents favoured asset recycling as an option to raise funds for infrastructure funding.
