Powers That Be

"Don't get yerself in a state," my mother used to harp at me.

Well. I have got myself in a state, and that state, which will remain un-named, and which geographically lies roughly between Queensland and Victoria, is, itself, really in a state.

One of our leaders, Miss Tar Dilemma, puts the case that the disposal of the government owned energy resources is in our best interest. When I say government owned, I actually mean people owned, and that business that we own is a profitable one. It brings dividends into the governmental purse. Those dividends can be used for propping up the remnants of our hospital and educational systems and other things. They could also be used towards the cost of their own replacement with renewable energy sources that we, the people, would also own.

Dilemma's whiz-kid offsider with a wonderful grip on figures and finances, Costa Countent, screams in a falsetto that screams for a good throat gargle, that we have to get rid of our energy assets before it is too late, before they are worthless. He thinks it would be a great attraction to private enterprise to jump in and buy the whole lot so that they could then rip profits out of us because they would then own what we presently own. He implies that private enterprise would not wake up to the fact that we would be selling our asset "before it is too late." So, on the crooked face of it, he wants to secure our energy future with a mob that is too daft to recognise this ruse. Does he think that we are all dafter than the private enterprise wing of the energy industry? Well, he does treat us as being that daft, but he knows full well that the champing-at-the-bit energy industry people are not daft at all.

Will the same fate await our other public sectors? Will our schools be run by Skools-R-Us Pty Ltd, and our hospitals by Pay When Maimed Incorporated?

"How can I get myself out of a state," I would ask my mother if she were still around to ask.

Battler