Unions have held stop work meetings at two electricity generation plants in the Hunter Valley in response to letters from the owner of the plants, Macquarie Generation, about its management plans following the privatisation. The Greens, the Liberal Party and the Unions all oppose the privatisation of the electricity industry for a variety of reasons. Common to all criticisms is concerns that private enterprise invests in opportunities to maximise profit, not in the long term infrastructure required to keep the electricity system running. Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union official Lorraine Usher said, “There has been no investment in base-load generation since Victoria privatised its electricity industry 12 years ago.” Investors generally build plants that can provide the highly profitable peak load power when prices are highest.
