1 April depaNews

NSW announces privatisation of Building Professionals Board

Premier Mike Baird today announced that the Government would adopt recommendations from the review of the BPB by the respected ex Treasury official and finance professional Michael Lambert.

Mr Lambert’s long career included a review for the Government of the possibilities of selling parts of the electricity industry. His report recommended the sale of the poles and wires infrastructure, now a firm but misunderstood commitment of the returned NSW Government.

The Premier said, “while our commitment to sell parts of the electricity industry superstructure is really selling a resource that will decline in value over the years, the BPB would be an absolute goldmine for private speculators. It has a solid income stream from local government and that will increase exponentially.”

“It was a brilliant decision of the Labor Government to expand accreditation beyond private certifiers. Yes, we know that the Board was hopeless in managing the way private certifiers went about their business looking after the interests of those who paid them a fee, but who would have thought it would be any different?  But it was a masterstroke to accredit local government employees. In the three years they have been accredited they have never been investigated, prosecuted nor disciplined by the Board. This is a perfect arrangement.”

“A complete waste of time if it were a role for the public sector, because it would be unnecessary regulation and red tape and damned by IPART, but it’s up there with owning a casino if you want guaranteed income. The mugs just keep paying”, he said.

“This is an ideal income stream - the money flows in from local government and the Board doesn’t need to do anything other than not lose accreditation records.”

The Premier announced that he believed Chinese interests, UBS and other investment banks and the Development and Environmental Professionals’ Association would be interested buyers.

depa was smart enough to see through the folly of private certifiers and that the Government’s plans to accredit local government employees was based on lies and designed to be nothing more than an income stream guaranteed into the future.

NSW voters obviously like Mike Baird. He seems a pleasant bloke (although we do wonder about some of his friends) and he has managed to distance himself from the ten Liberal/National politicians forced to resign or moved to the backbench over the last couple of years. Yes 10, you can count them on his fingers.

Barry O’Farrell may have been an affable kind of bloke too but we don’t really know. We do know that he could bring a decent bottle of wine if you invited him for dinner - as long as he remembered that he had it at home to bring in the first place.

The only glitch in the Liberal/National re-election campaign was the revelation that someone in the Government had asked UBS to remove the words ”bad for the budget” from their review of the Government’s electricity privatisation plans, compromising their advice and misleading the public. Currently being investigated by the corporate regulator ASIC and others, no one really knows yet who made the call to the investment bank to remove the words that would have been politically damaging prior to the election.

Today Premier Mike Baird announced that this sort of examination of what should never have been exposed wouldn’t happen again. “We will make it an offence to use the words “bad for the budget”, in any way”, the Premier said.

“Many will argue that this is bad for freedom of expression, bad for democracy but it won’t be bad for the Government. The sooner we forget about those unacceptable words the better.”

Forewarned that this was a risk, media organisations and civil libertarians had lobbied the government about this bad move but were unable to budget.

Deputy Premier Troy Grant this morning clarified that the sale of poles and wires did not mean all Australian citizens with Polish blood will be sold into slavery. “Gee whiz, after the resounding election mandate from NSW voters, it’s hard to say no to getting rid of all those unpronounceable names. They might be too hard for us simple country folk and many immigrants refuse to Anglicise their name as well, but slavery is out. Until we get Work Choices back, of course.”

“Even though it’s a lifestyle choice to insist on keeping unpronounceable and unspellable names and out here in the bush we have better things to do, it’s still not on”, the Deputy Premier added.

“Kosciuszko is too hard. Really Big Mountain is better and we shouldn’t have to worry about the funny little thing that should go over the first s either.”

The Government’s plans to sell Wires have been enthusiastically embraced by some who thought it meant the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service. “While we agree it should be funded by tree huggers and those more interested in wildlife than proper useful animals like cattle”, the Deputy Premier said, “we don’t own it, so we can’t sell it.”

“Most of you city people have never seen the damage a kangaroo can do to a fence when you’re chasing it in the ute,” so maybe something for our third term.”

The International Cricket Council this morning moved on South Africa for flouting the NSW Government’s ban on unacceptable, misleading and obscene names. This policy initiative was announced a year ago as a result of a commitment from Premier Barry O’Farrell to Christian Democrat MLC Fred Nile that the Government would clean up language and unacceptable gestures.

The ICC announced that South Africa had breached the Government commitment by playing Quinton De Kock. This cultural insensitivity was “regrettable”, a representative of the South African Cricket Association said. “We also apologise for playing Vernon Philander, as his name could easily be confused as philanderer. We apologise to Mr Nile and the Government.”

The Hon Mr Nile, emboldened and encouraged by looking like he will shortly hold the balance of power in the Legislative Council, welcomed the Government’s pressure on South Africa.

Mr Baird is doing the right thing and for a Government committed to high standards, clearing out those ten questionable people and not having a Deputy Premier named Stoner is a real improvement.

The death of Malcolm Fraser and the memorial service in Melbourne last week allowed Australians to celebrate an ex-Prime Minister who became more popular and likeable over the decades. As an old-fashioned Liberal, economically dry but socially progressive, Fraser had encouraged the acceptance and settlement of Vietnamese refugees during his period of Prime Minister and government.

While Fraser subsequently and compellingly argued he was no more likeable, he was surrounded by people who became more difficult to like as his political party became increasingly conservative. “It was all relative really”, he observed as he blasted his former political party for its hostility to refugees and multiculturalism.

Former Prime Minister John Howard, who remains precisely the sort of person he was when he was thrown out by his own electorate at the same time as his government was ejected, has embraced the possibility that he can now become the only living Liberal ex-Prime Minister the people grow to like.

“Certainly, I’m no more likeable than I was. I fought multiculturalism, compulsory superannuation, industry superannuation funds, I liked the idea of claiming babies have been thrown into the water by refugees trying to get into Australia, I followed the US and Britain into Iraq based on weapons of mass destruction that never existed and I never apologised for anything and I would never apologise to our own stolen generations.”

“But now, my time has come.”

Polling conducted by Fairfax Media and published this morning found 78% thought this unlikely. A further 17% thought this very unlikely.