| Water safety ignored: Sydney in crisis |
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Water safety ignored: Full steam ahead for privatisation by Rohan Gowland Last week, on the anniversary of Sydney's drinking water contamination crisis, Sydney Water announced it was going to shed its most experienced staff in order to save costs. The move demonstrates that the Government and the private sector have learnt nothing from the water crisis and are pushing full steam ahead with their privatisation agenda. The water crisis was a warning: if you allow basic infrastructure to be run by private companies on a "for profit" basis where "cheaper" comes before "safer", it is a recipe for disaster. This warning has been ignored, privatisation in every area is being pursued as vigorously as ever. Sydney Water, the corporatised former Water Board, says it aims to slash its operating costs by almost one quarter (23 per cent) by offering "voluntary" redundancy packages to all of its 4,500 staff and is considering a sell-off of assets. Sydney Water has not indicated how many staff it plans to retain, but it has said that staff who have already been targeted for "redeployment" will face a pay cut if they do not accept "voluntary" redundancy. It also said that the job cuts will be aimed at employees with more than 20 years' service — its most experienced staff. So soon after a major public health crisis, to put cost-cutting above the need for experienced staff demonstrates Sydney Water's continued adherence to private sector philosophies: rationalisation, efficiency gains, saving money and profits first (philosophies which lead to cutting corners and compromising safety). Sydney Water says, "our operating costs have to be reduced to a level which gives value to customers and compares favourably with other water service corporations". So there you have it. Competition policy at work The aim of the cuts is to put Sydney Water on a highly profitable footing and in a position to compete with other companies, just as Telstra has to compete with Optus and the various electricity companies are in competition with each other. "Value to customers" (quality of service) will be set at the minimum level to be as competitive as possible. Sydney's water crisis hit in the middle of the privatisation process. Water services have been broken up and many are already being run by different private companies. Last year's crisis was traced to a privately run filtration plant at Prospect. AWS' single filtration system was $25 million cheaper than the duel filtration system proposed by other tenderers for the Prospect plant. AWS won the contract, built a single filtration system and for the very first time Sydney residents had to boil their water because it was unsafe to drink. The company running the plant, Australian Water Services (AWS), is owned by one of the world's biggest water services companies, the French-based Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux and Australian finance/property company Lend Lease. Questions have been asked about how AWS won its contract because it has been revealed that another subsidiary of Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux was found guilty of bribing French Authorities to win a water contract. Corruption goes hand in hand with privatisation, where contracts are handed out and transparency and public accountability are replaced by "commercial in confidence". One positive outcome One good step has been taken since the crisis: responsibility for catchment management has been taken over by an independent body, the Sydney Catchment Authority. This was a recommendation that was rejected prior to the crisis in favour of self-regulation. It was rejected then because it would hamper the privatisation of water services; now it is being implemented because it will allow privatisation to continue, with the public reassured that they are safe under the watchful eye of the Sydney Catchment Authority. Meanwhile, the real parasite in Sydney's water, privatisation, continues to spread and it is only a matter of time before this creature causes another crisis. Postscript: One of the reasons Sydney Water gave for its cost-cutting was "an ambitious capital investment program" which includes the $430 million-plus sewerage tunnel on Sydney's North Shore. Local councils say the sewage tunnel plan is an ineffective "quick fix" that was opted for because it could be completed before the Olympics. It will only stop 80-90 per cent of raw sewage pollution going into the Harbour, whereas a onger-term solution proposed by councils could have stopped all raw sewage pollution. This quick fix turned into an "expensive fix" when its budget blew out by more than $100 million to the present $430m-plus. The State Government will foot the bill for the extra $100m. So the private sector philosophy of "take the cheaper option" means here that the public pays and the problem is not solved. Now, Sydney Water is saying that the project will also cost its employees their jobs. One recipe for disaster: one spoon self-regulation, a sprinkle of profit - incentives and lashings of privatisation. Just add water. SOURCE: http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve1/965wat.htm |
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