Night time NSW election eve summary
What did happen today?
- No one is entirely sure. There was some early campaigning by both sides.
- Mike Baird went to the fish markets, while Luke Foley went to Fairfield and Blaxland.
- While Baird has been well ahead in the polls, Luke Foley was not giving up, promising $50m for a new emergency department at Fairfield Hospital.
- No one really knows what will happen on the morrow.
Now I hope you all have your best election clothes ironed and hanging, ready to go. Dressing up (or down) is a must for the democratic process. Just do something distinctive, would be my only advice. Personally I wear pyjamas to post my iVote, although I must say I will miss voting in my local Country Womens Association hall. Possibly the best thing about voting there is lining up past the glass cabinet with the dolls of different ethnic dresses while eating a sausage. (It doubles as the baby health clinic).
With the help of Bridie Jabour and Michael Safi, I will live blog from tomorrow afternoon. I am hoping for lift off around 5pm, all things being equal. Thanks to Bridie and Michael for the help today and for all of you, the readers.
Good night.
James Massola has reporting the NSW state director Tony Nutt is likely to move back to Tony Abbott’s office. Nutt was put into the NSW job ahead of the election to fix the difficult state division after the fallout from the Icac resignations. With Nutt’s return, Abbott would be hoping the former Howard fixer would stabilise his office and head off any leadership tilts at the pass.
But who would go into the thankless state job? The role after the election will be to oversee the internecine war over the Howard reforms; which recommended greater powers for grassroots party members.
The NSW convention is that the NSW parliamentary leader with the nearest election gets the majority say in the state director. Following the state election tomorrow, that leader would be Tony Abbott.
Smile! Kids can sniff fear.
There is another person in the cabinet.
Two NSW Liberal MPs forced to correct disclosures of pecuniary interests
And on that Nick Evershed, Paul Farrell, Guardian reader story I promised you, here t’is.
The Guardian’s analysis of members’ interests has revealed that the fair trading minister, Matthew Mason-Cox, appears to have omitted all references to his directorship and shareholdings in his superannuation trustee company, Mason-Cox Super Holdings Pty Ltd, which he co-owns with his wife.
Company searches show that the minister has been a director of the company since October 2010, and that he ceased his role in May 2014. But on 19 August 2014 he was again appointed as director and secretary of the company.
Mason-Cox told Guardian Australia on Friday: “I am aware that my directorship of Mason-Cox Super Holdings Pty Limited has not been recorded in the Parliamentary Register.
“I am updating my parliamentary register, as required by 31 March 2015.”
The NSW Liberal party whip, Chris Patterson, was also forced to make corrections following the investigation. Although he lists no properties in his disclosure, a title search shows a property at Camden which matches Patterson’s name, and spouse’s name.
Just re the end of that last post, political player Glenn Druery wrote for Fairfax today on the numbers. This is his take on the likely scenario:
While the betting markets are already paying out on a Coalition win, that isn’t quite the end of the story. The outcome on Saturday could be a potential win-win for both Baird and Foley. As I see it, the ALP should pick up at least 10 seats. However, if Foley can carve out more than 14 extra seats, I believe he can then survive the factional wolves within his own party and be within striking distance of winning the 2019 election. If Foley’s ducks line up properly on Saturday, he could potentially become the future NSW Labor premier.
The Liberal Box of All Sorts: Hard or Soft centre?
As Malcolm Fraser is laid to rest, gather around and I will tell you a story of NSW Liberals. I will tell it in broad themes and no doubt some of you may take issue with it so feel free to get involved.
When I started in NSW politics in the early 1990s, the NSW Liberal party was in a struggle between two broad factions. Depending which side the protagonists were on, the factions were referred to as Left-Right or Moderate-Conservative.
The factional fights were, as usual, over power in the party, through preselections. The Liberal party was in opposition at a federal level but a young turk on the right by the name of Tony Abbott was seeking preselection for the federal seat of Warringah. He had worked for former opposition leader John Hewson and then made the leap for the seat. The “moderates” were horrified and fought him bitterly, but he was preselected nonetheless.
Soon after, John Howard, came back to the opposition leader’s role and won government the following year. From that point on, Howard began marginalising the moderates, with the help of former senator Nick Minchin, and the federal party moved to the right. Howard mentored Tony Abbott, he was a handy person to have around the place. So while at a federal level, the conservatives cemented their place, at a state level, the moderates reigned. With the election of Abbott, that tribalism was further entrenched, making the state-federal contrast more marked.
When Baird came to power he managed to skate above the factions, as did his predecessor Barry O’Farrell. Baird showed a softer face on refugees - speaking up for asylum seekers - in line with his father Bruce Baird’s position. The state government had already set its case firmly for Labor’s Gonski reforms under O’Farrell, notwithstanding severe TAFE cuts which have brought about teacher cuts, course reductions and higher fees. The NSW government presents as a softer creature than the Abbott government.
As we contemplate Baird’s likely win according to polls, it is worth considering the implications both for the state government and the federal. Given Baird came into the leadership in difficult circumstances involving a bottle of Grange, he did not want to spook the horses with major changes. For Baird, a personal win tomorrow with the difficult privatisation issue on the table could see him change his cabinet more markedly.
And it will provide a contrast with the Abbott government and its tribalism. From a journalist’s perspective, the NSW government has been much more willing to argue its policy case, rather than hide or provide selective briefings. Ministers are more confident and open and in comparison to Abbott as manager, Baird appears to give ministers a lot more latitude to run their own shows. No approval necessary.
Ultimately though, federal implications really depend on the results. Liberals vary on the magic number for a ripple to head to Canberra. Today, some say 10 lost seats. Others say 15. Some say a hung parliament. But if Baird gets a good showing, you would think federal Liberals would be asking if a less combative centre right federal leader would provide a little more long term stability for the federal coalition.
Updated
NSW pecuniary interests available as never before
Thanks to you, dear readers, the database of pecuniary interests of NSW politicians is now available. With your help, Nick Evershed and Todd Moore have developed a cracker of a database, which can quickly and easily show you information which has never been available as a whole, online before in NSW politics.
As a result, Paul Farrell has also been beavering away on this project and he will have a news story coming up shortly regarding disclosures.
Stay tuned.
An honourable mention to readers who took part in the project: Paul Williamson, Gwenda Casey, ben, Lee Wilmott, Steve King, Dylan Hewson, Tristan Blattman, alex papasavvas, James P, Kate Finch, Pat Armstrong, Tom, Casey Briggs, maxious, Tracy Burgess, Luke Bacon, Anna Jones, Michael Mazengarb.
Foley: I have a policy of trying to keep the band together
Michael Safi reports from Fairfield:
Already the nostalgia was setting in at Luke Foley’s final press conference before polls open tomorrow morning. On the last day of the campaign you get back to basics - and Foley led the media scrum through a highlights reel of “core messages” from the past four weeks on the trail.
Electricity privatisation, bad. Health spending in Western Sydney, good. Coal seam gas on the north coast was finished. And in the rest of the state, a complete moratorium.
The noddies were there as usual: blue-shirted nurses’ union members periodically cheering or clucking and muttering, “Shame”.
With the same wry smile he repeated the same jokes - “I’m the only leader who can make the claim that my bus has remained graffiti-free” - to the same snickers.
The same type of dropkicks drove past honking and screaming obscenities from the windows.
Again, Foley sought to connect the meteorically popular Baird to the substantially less-loved prime minister, Tony Abbott. “I don’t mind Mr Baird being a good friend of Tony’s,” he intoned gravely. “I just wish he would use that mateship to get a fair deal for the people of NSW.”
Voters on Saturday had a chance to oust more than one leader, he said. “If the people of NSW unseat Mr Baird tomorrow, Mr Abbott will be gone next week.”
He worked in his new material, a riff on the departure of Zayn Malik from One Direction, asking a young girl how she was holding up. She shrugged glumly. “I have a policy of trying to keep the band together,” he said. “It’s Mr Baird who wants to break them apart.”
Newsagents would keep their lottery monopoly. Pharmacies would deliver vaccines. Racetrack taxes would be reduced in line with Victoria. The combination of the three, he said, would save country towns from extinction.
Faced with another dire poll showing a comfortable Liberal victory, he offered the same hopeful bromide: “No one thought Annastacia could win.”
And if he didn’t, would he stick around? “I look forward to many years leading the Labor party,” he said.
Anthony Albanese is a mate of Luke Foley. They are both creatures of the left, in the NSW Labor party.
Albo, as he is known, has been doing a bit of last minute campaigning for Foley.
His message is that if you really want a new prime minister (and he names Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop), the best thing you can do is vote against Mike Baird. So never mind state policies, just do it for the good of the country, says Albo.
I think tomorrow for example when people in NSW vote, if they actually want to remove Tony Abbott - if Luke Foley is elected premier tomorrow then Tony Abbott will be gone next week.
Bridie Jabour has just filed this snap, since the premier’s press conference:
Mike Baird held his last press conference (as far as we know) on election eve at the construction site for Cherrybrook train station which is part of the government’s north west rail link project. The tunnels at Cherrybrook have reached their deepest point in digging - 58m below Sydney.
The press conference had an air of inevitable victory about it, with a lot of the questions seeming what you would ask the premier the day after the election, not the day before.
Transport minister Gladys Berejiklian shared a hug with Baird at the opening of one of the tunnels and described him as “awesome”. When asked if she would be angling for the job of Treasurer post-election she did not say yes. Nor did she say no.
“I love my job and can I say we still have the biggest fight of our lives tomorrow and the premier and I and the team are working hard in every single seat to make sure we get elected and we hope the people of New South Wales will appreciate that it’s only through the premiership of Mike Baird that we can continue to build things, get things done and give people a great future in our great state.”
After Berejiklian praise, and in light of the latest Galaxy poll which has the Liberal party 10 percentage points ahead of Labor on a two party preferred basis, Baird was asked: are you feeling the love?
“I think we’ll only feel the love if we’re given the tick on Saturday night, this is a proud moment, it’s true, these projects don’t happen by accident...we’re proud of everything we’ve achieved for the state but obviously we’re still in the fight of our lives. We’re not going to take any vote for granted.”
Speaking of taking votes for granted, the swings in Sydney seats are looking fairly minimal, however the country polls are telling an entirely different story with the government set to lose seats to their Labor rivals, independents and potentially even Greens.
Baird skated around the potential looming backlash in the regions and the reasons for it, though he did acknowledge (kind of) voters outside of the cities are not too happy.
“I think it’s a reminder you can never take any electorate for granted, you have to at all times listen to what the community is saying. And you’ve seen it, you’ve seen results in Queensland, incredible swings against the government, so there’s never an election you can say it’s going to happen one way or the other, you have to listen on the ground. The electorate is rightly sceptical of promises which is why we are so determined to deliver on our promises which is what we’ve done.”
And finally, Flemington markets yesterday morning, fish markets this morning, what’s with the markets?
“The fish markets are a great example of businesses that are thriving, all those people who come out early they are connected to businesses across the city and across the state, whether they be restaurants, whether they be catering, whether they be co-ops themselves, they are good examples of businesses that are thriving and the simple message to every business across the state is if you want less taxes, well, vote for us.”
Baird didn’t mention the advantage of good pictures for morning television.
Who is your local candidate? Mike Baird.
The Liberals have campaigned hard to make this a very presidential campaign around Mike Baird’s personal popularity. The photo above is a screenshot from the NSW Liberal Party site. The message clearly is that Mike Baird is everyone’s local candidate. Which would be a pretty hard thing for him to do.
I have spent a bit of time in the past three weeks with the leaders. And the one thing they have in common - in my opinion - is they both have a very genteel streak, a marked contrast from the federal sphere, which is my home.
Luke Foley has the obvious disadvantage of lack of recognition, having been in the job less than three months. But he has a very self-deprecating sense of humour and a slightly shambolic, everyman quality that does put people at ease. He does not have the squeaky-clean, short-back-and-sides quality of a Mike Baird, who, given a Malvern star, could easily be mistaken on a door-knocking campaign for missionary. You won’t find Foley jogging around the block in between campaign functions. He would be more comfortable with a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of red, cracking jokes about how he has almost survived the election without a major stuff up. It is true he is the accidental leader. He is liked by both sides of politics, which is why he is there. I heard about him years ago from a state Liberal member, who described Foley as a genuine bloke who should be leader. “Everyman” should not be mistaken as dull. He is smart and savvy but it will not get him there this time. The climb is too high.
On the other hand, Liberals tell me their polling shows Mike Baird has actually increased his personal popularity in the campaign. This will not come as any surprise to those who have watched him. Like Foley, people warm to him, but for different reasons. The Baird attraction has a similar chemistry to the popular kids you knew at school. Some of this is his easy going nature, some of this is the calm aura of success. This is the basis of Liberal volunteers spreading out across the city with I Like Mike T-shirts. It is why you never see any Liberal campaign literature with pictures of anyone but the premier.
He is the antithesis of his friend and Manly electorate neighbour, Tony Abbott.
Voters put aside their dislike of policies like privatisation because of Mike Baird. Whereas voters increase their dislike of federal policies because Tony Abbott has proposed them.
As tween hearts break across the country at the news of Zayn splitting from One Direction, Luke Foley has been talked into singing on radio. Note it is four seconds. Which gets him out of that tricky copyright issue that plagued the premier’s clip reading mean tweets.
Foley full tilt.
Serious business, the campaign trail @gabriellechan https://t.co/ws9HCFcbU4
— michael safi (@safimichael) March 26, 2015
From Michael Safi.
First stop on the Foley express is a childcare centre at the border of Londonderry and Penrith, two traditional Labor seats snatched by the Liberals in 2010-11.
The opposition leader is here to promote his policy of building childcare centres at every new school, which Foley is billing as a smart way to ease congestion and help working parents with the morning drop-off.
Two-year-old Max has been enlisted for the morning. He’s the son of Prue Car, Labor’s candidate for Londonderry, and he spent 20 minutes in the car waiting for Foley to arrive and the media to assemble. “Want to meet mummy’s boss?”, Car cooed. Max was more impressed by the bus.
Luke Foley pulls out big guns for last day of #nswvotes @gabriellechan https://t.co/wgNnlL8tus
— michael safi (@safimichael) March 26, 2015
Promises, promises...what's in it for us?
Herewith, a smattering of policies from the majors...
LIBERAL/NATIONAL
Privatisation:
The Liberal party will sell 49% of the network on a 99-year lease and raise an estimated $20bn. The Nationals party have negotiated for none of the poles and wires in regional areas (Essential Energy) to be part of the lease, they will remain publicly run, and $3bn raised will be put into infrastructure in regional New South Wales.
Roads and public transport:
Keep going on construction of WestConnex, with state and federal funding. $300m will be spent upgrading the 32 worst road corridors in NSW. Another $300m upgrading bottleneck areas around the Sydney Airport, CBD and Port Botany. $100m will go to delivering new ferries and wharf upgrades along the Parramatta River and 10 more express trains will be added per week between Western Sydney and the CBD.
Environment:
Voluntary buybacks of petroleum exploration licences will continue, with moratorium on CSG in the Sydney Water Catchment. Press ahead with Shenhua Watermark open cut coalmine on the edge of the Liverpool Plains. Introduce container deposit scheme in 2017 and maintain target to source 20% of NSW electricity from renewables. Repeal the native vegetation and threatened species acts and create a larger biodiversity act with only some of the repealed powers.
Replace XPT:
$35m will fast track the delivery of a new XPT regional fleet which operates in regional and rural areas.
Jobs
$678m will be spent on incentives for local businesses to grow and for other businesses to relocate to NSW as part of a plan to generate 150,000 jobs in four years.
Local councils
$258m to help councils with “voluntary” amalgamations, though forced mergers have not been ruled out.
Education:
Government continues to commit to Gonski funding plan over the forward estimates, even though federal funding is not guaranteed in years five and six.
LABOR
Privatisation:
Oppose the privatisation of the state’s electricity network. Labor claims it can fund infrastructure for a growing population without selling or leasing state electricity assets but by making up savings from deferring business tax cuts and other savings.
Environment:
Moratorium on on coal seam gas across the state, ban coal seam gas altogether in the northern rivers, create more national parks including the Great Koala Park in the north of the state, create a Sydney marine park and ban fishing again in marine parks. The CSG ban includes stopping the Santos CSG project in the Pilliga. Remains committed to Shenhua Watermark coal mine.
Health:
$1.7bn for health infrastructure which will include $1.2bn for resources in western Sydney that will include upgrades of hospitals and expansion of other health services. The Tweed Hospital will be upgraded and $270m will go to a new Goulburn Hospital. Labor will introduce nurse ratios, which will essentially mean one nurse for every three patients and employ 840 extra nurses across the state.
Education:
$1.3bn to upgrade and build new school across the state. $100m to reverse increases in fees from past three years and cap amount of public funds that can be contestable by private operators at 30% which it says will help reverse what it calls “privatisation” of Tafe.
Police and crime:
Labor will increase NSW policy force by 480 officers in the first term though have not said where they be based. Invest $100m in a police technology fund and another $50m for upgrading and improving security at police stations.
Roads and transport:
$2bn for regional and urban roads though the second Harbour crossing will be delayed. $1bn for rail passenger rail upgrades.
Local councils:
No forced amalgamations and set up a premier’s council with mayor representation for strategic planning.
GREENS
Privatisation:
Oppose privatisation but raise taxes to cover $20bn package for public transport, extend Gonski education money, hospitals, and housing. This would include increasing taxes on poker machines, restoring the 2.25% vendor duty and deferring cuts to business taxes.
Environment:
Ban all coal seam gas, new coal mines and end coal exports by 2020, maintain the native vegetation laws, cease clearing the Leard State Forest and the expansion of the Maules Creek coalmine, stop logging in native forests, ban shooting in national parks.
Roads and public transport:
Scrap WestConnex and NorthConnex, build the Epping-Parramatta rail link though full funding has not been allocated. $250m for cycling projects. Buy the Airport Rail Link to publicly fund the fares to match the rest of the rail network.
Education:
$3.5bn for public schools over 10 years, 1.3bn for children with special needs and abolish all fees and charges for public education.
Health:
The Greens would introduce a legal nurse to patient ratio and place more money and emphasis on preventative health, including investment in oncology and dialysis sercices in rural communities.
Updated
Bridie is in zinger mode today.
Are Mike Baird and Gladys Berejiklian seeing light at the end of the tunnel? #nswvotes @gabriellechan pic.twitter.com/t82fhXfTmi
— Bridie Jabour (@bkjabour) March 26, 2015
Meanwhile we have a press conference coming up with Luke Foley. It is around a health announcement at Fairfield hospital.
A technical note: we are having issues with embedding tweets with photos, so you will need to click on the link to see the image. Apologies.
Mike Baird has done a press conference. He is spruiking the second harbour tunnel crossing. The Liberals have been frustrated during this campaign that voters do not connect the sell off of electricity assets with the boost to infrastructure.
At least that is what Liberals were saying yesterday. Lo and behold, a double page spread in the Daily Tele today on “Baird’s key to unlock city gridlock” with lots of maps.
In a hard hat, Baird makes this point in his doorstop about the second harbour tunnel:
Why is that so important? Well because it would give capacity across the rail network of more than 60%, a greater capacity of 60...which means less crowded trains, 100,000 commuters an hour, that would continue to provide a better quality of life for people across this city.
Tony Abbott has been out this morning, reminding everyone that he is a good friend of Mike Baird, which may or may not please the premier on the eve of the election.
It’s a very important election not just for the state but for the country. If you want to keep Mike Baird as Premier, if you want to keep our economy safe there’s only one thing to do and that is to vote number 1 for your Liberal or National candidate. The last thing we need is to elect an L-plate Labor leader through a protest vote.
In spite of the Liberals suggesting at the start of this campaign that Tony Abbott would make regular appearances, he has only made two appearances to my knowledge. He spent most of his time on his marginal campaign listening tour, which kept him as far away from NSW as possible.
While I am working on the promises, promises list, Bridie reports:
We are now at the Cherrybrook train station construction site awaiting the premier who will be arriving with transport minister Gladys Berejiklian. There has been a lot of waiting around today. Arrived at the construction site at 9am, presser isn’t due until 10am and in the meantime we have been ordered to suit up, meaning high vis vests, hard hats and steel cap boots.The train station is part of the North west rail link upgrade.
The handbag is the only thing saving this outfit pic.twitter.com/Ij7elCWbKM
— Bridie Jabour (@bkjabour) March 26, 2015
Updated
Over at the Oz, former Queensland Labor senator John Black predicts a Baird win with swings in rural and regional NSW. He runs a demographic analysis company and suggests looking at unemployment figures for an answer on why country seats will swing.
Black makes the point that the regions contain 18 Coalition state seats and up to 10 of them could change hands on Saturday. Seven of the 18 seats are held by the Nationals.
Five NSW regions — Richmond Tweed, Central West, Hunter Valley, Central Coast and Baulkham Hills/Hawkesbury — are the worst performing labour markets in NSW and Australia, and they lost an estimated 55,000 jobs in the past year, which is one in 10 members of their workforce....
The worst performing region in Australia is Richmond Tweed and it contains the three marginal seats of Ballina, Tweed and Lismore, seats that also are affected by the coal-seam gas issue and associated strong local Green campaigns.
Black suggests there will be a range of swings back to Labor after the 2011 high vote, but also indentifies a demographic shift in the older vote back to the Greens and Labor. Remember many of those boomers, he says, cast their first votes for Gough.
Black’s research from 2011 showed the Nationals losing 4% of their “heartland group” of agricultural industry workers to the ALP.
Nationals seat gains in 2011 came from disaffected Labor voters in the bigger towns, while in the same seats it wasn’t hard to find smaller country booths where the Nationals vote went backwards in absolute terms....At the time, your humble scribe wrote: “If the Nationals seriously want to win back their federal rural seats from independents, and head off a potential resurgence of Pauline Hanson, they would be well advised to ask themselves what they now stand for, as far as lower income country voters are concerned.”
Hanson went within 0.2% of winning the Nats stronghold of Lockyer in the Queensland election.
Still, the Nationals have doggedly resisted this analysis and tomorrow’s NSW election will give an indication of whether there is any truth in it.
As I said there is a lot of commentary around this morning, most of it predicting a Baird government win.
Sydney Morning Herald economics columnist Ross Gittins has given both sides a whack, calling the union movement’s campaign against privatisation an “almighty scare campaign”.
It’s the most successful scare-job since all the dishonest things Tony Abbott said about how the carbon tax would destroy the economy.
But Gittins also calls Mike Baird’s description of leasing 49% of the electricity network a crock. My words, not his.
This is highly misleading, an attempt to fool us into believing he isn’t really privatising the network. There is little practical difference between a 99-year lease and an outright sale. And that figure of 49% - making it seem the government would retain majority ownership of the network - is highly contrived.
Gittins makes the point, made here before, that the Baird plan sells off 100% of Transgrid, the statewide transmission business. He will also sell just over 50% of two power distributers which cover most of the state as well. But because the Nationals negotiated keeping Essential Energy, which delivers power to bush outliers like me, the wonks have been able to calculate an overall sale figure of 49%.
Which sounds much safer.
Don't go the raw prawn with me: NSW election morning news
It started with a prawn. Then moved on to a crab. But there was no onion.
BREAKING: NSW premier Mike Baird distanced himself from Tony Abbott by rejecting onions on the final day of the campaign.
Premier starts his day eating a fresh prawn for Brekky at the fish markets... pic.twitter.com/mtyzbkedwe
— Sarah Gerathy (@sarahgerathy) March 26, 2015
I will be serious now, though you can see the campaign is getting to all of us.
A sweep of the papers tells you most people think Mike Baird will win tomorrow’s election. I’ll bring you a range of the commentary shortly.
This morning, Baird has been to the fish markets while Luke Foley is taking a drive through Granville, Blaxland and Prairieville Bridie Jabour is investigating the Liberal leader’s love of early morning markets. Personally, I think it is to get his “doe-eyes” (as Foley would say) on morning television. Most people I know not involved in the crazy world of politics get their news from that source.
Foley will not be going out until mid-morning, thus we have no photos or news from him yet for the blog, but rest assured Michael Safi is on to it.
Here is Bridie’s report on the Baird’s gumbo market tour:
Premier Mike Baird started his morning at the Pyrmont fish markets - after the release of this morning’s polls you could say the whiting is on the wall for tomorrow’s election.
(ZINGER!!)
He had a pretty cheerful reception from the workers who apparently were on their best behaviour, according to one worker it’s usually a lot more rowdy on the floor.
The premier continued his theme of eating odd things at odd times of the morning, nervously consuming a prawn at 6.30am. Asked by your correspondent if the fish market visit was a plot to win the Catholic vote during the second last Friday of Lent, Baird just looked confused a replied “uh, no”.
Baird also handled a mud crab and grinned for some selfies before doing a quick Sunrise interview. It seemed he was only asked two questions, though hard to tell from our end because we can only hear the premier. He recited the lines it was a “once in a generation” election and electricity bills would not rise under privatisation.
Next stop: Cherrybrook
As before, continue the conversation under this blog or engage with us on Twitter @gabriellechan @bkjabour and @safimichael. Lots more to come.
