Energy Batman byelection: Greens pressure Labor to reverse electricity privatisation Party urges $2.8bn commonwealth acquisition of privately owned interconnectors Batman byelection candidate Alex Bhathal and Greens leader Richard Di Natale. The Greens policy hits a hot-button political issue, with polling showing voters are worried about rising power prices and would favour more government regulation. The Greens’ policy is in line with calls from the Electrical Trades Union to reverse electricity privatisations, and the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, recently argued the Liberals should never have privatised electricity assets in the state. The Greens’ climate change spokesman, Adam Bandt, said his party’s new policy favoured starting an electricity privatisation rollback with privately held interconnectors. The federal seat of Batman is in the same geographical area as the Victorian state seat of Northcote, which the Greens snatched from the Victorian Labor government in late November in a byelection.

Source: The Guardian February 01, 2018 20:48 UTC