29 January 2015 Att: Political and General reporters 1/2 Regional Queenslanders set to become second class citizens LNP’s Privatisation blackmail - Thousands of electricity jobs in peril and UTP at risk …ETU While many serious issues for regional and remote Queensland remain unresolved, the LNP are running around the state, promising everything to everyone, but only if they vote for their local pork barrelling MP and the biggest sell off of public assets in Queensland’s history. “The absolutely disgusting display of the lame duck member for Ashgrove, Campbell Newman blackmailing communities from the Cape to Coolangatta, stating they can only have vital community infrastructure if they sell off their essential power networks. Regional and remote communities face the very real prospect of losing their essential services and jobs and essentially becoming second class citizens in this state” “We have been seeking answers from the government about job security and the impact of privatisation on more than 40 regional depots and communities for more than two years after the so called Independent Review Panel recommended closing Ergon depots with between 8 and 15 workers back in December 2012. As of the 29th January we have received no valid written responses and no commitments from the LNP” What we do know is Premier Newman believes people understand job losses are just part of privatisation a statement he trotted out after Aurizon formerly QR National laid off 450 workers last year, we can take the silence on electricity jobs as a signal that the same fate awaits if the LNP wins and privatisation is implemented” The secrecy behind the leasing arrangements has also angered the union, which described the hypocrisy on behalf of the LNP as breathtakingly arrogant. “They expect people to just blindly take them at their word that they will do the right thing by the state. Their silence leads us to believe the worst, which is the companies that lease the assets will over time own them outright and at the end of the leases our grandkids will have to buy them back and meanwhile we have lost billions of dollars in revenue, thousands of jobs and we know from history services will suffer as well. Despite the government’s supposed guarantee to keep the UTP, there appears to be no money allocated after privatisation to keep it, it’s just smoke and mirrors” “How could anyone in their right mind trust this mob after its litany of broken promises and lies? Like the promise which we note Newman has pulled out again that public servants have nothing to fear, tell that to the 20,000 public servants and community workers who lost their jobs or the 1750 public electricity workers, the doers who found themselves without jobs after Newman promised they would be safe. And who could forget the promise not to touch poles and wires electricity assets in the first or second terms of a Newman government, a promise broken within the first year” “After all its broken promises they expect Queenslanders to give them another three years, we have been will be campaigning long and hard to make sure this abject failure of a government can no longer inflict its toxic pain on Queenslanders, on 31 January we urge Queenslanders to make the strongest choice and number every square and put the LNP last” For further comment Stuart Traill 0488 225 625 or Andrew Irvine 0448 633 858 - Go to the next page of this release for a full list of Ergon Depots in the firing line …more 2/2 Ergon Depots with between 8 and 15 staff earmarked for closure by the Independent Review Panel enquiry into electricity pricing, accepted in principle by the State Government with implementation plans left in the hands of the soon to be privatised Ergon Energy Board. Gayndah Murgon Yarraman Kilkivan Childers Gin Gin Mundubbera Biggenden Mount Isa Hughenden Charters towers Bowen Mossman Longreach Thursday Island Moranbah Winton Monto Miriam Vale Biloela Barcaldine Pinnacle Proserpine Sarina Stanthorpe Charleville St George Moura Blackwater Middlemount Springsure Other Ergon depots with less than eight employees that are also under threat of closure. Millmerran Tara Wandoan Quilpie Camooweal Boulia Julia Creek Collinsville Boulia Cloncurry Richmond Cooktown Ravenshoe Georgetown Bamaga Normanton Theodore Clermont Winton