[Nettime-bold] Public Electricity Production and Supply

["ben moretti" <bmoretti@chariot.net.au>]

The recent discussion of electicity production reminded me of an element of South
Australia's past. In the up to the 40's South Australia's electricity was produced
by a private company, which bought the attendant problems of undersupply, cost
and unwillingness to engage in infrastructure development. This forced Premier
of the time Tom Playford to effectivly nationalise the company in the formation
of the Electricity Trust of South Australia. You can read more about this below.
The salient points to remember from this, are that Playford was a conservative
who was not afraid to use public money in development and infrastructure, and
that his conservatice descendents have sold off the very same public electricity
generation he created. Fools.

Ben


http://www.atlas.sa.gov.au/Atlas1986/1SETTLEMENT/18FORGING_INDUSTRIAL_STATE.html


Presiding over the transformation of a rural economy into a predominantly industrial
economy was genial and financially shrewd Thomas Playford, Premier from 1938
until 1965. A persistent and persuasive bargainer with Commonwealth prime ministers
and industrialists, Playford put into practice the policy of industrial development
which had been conceived in broad outline by J.W. Wainwright, E.W. Holden and
others in the 1930s. Growing world-wide prosperity in the 1950s meant that Australian
politicians simply had to ride the wave of inflowing capital and population.
Playford's success was in capturing, for a period, a disproportionate share
of Australia's industrial growth and overseas immigration. He could point to
the advantages in South Australia of lower wage levels, cheaper land and housing
prices, and some lower State taxes than in New South Wales and Victoria, and
also, the State's record of good industrial relations.

Playford used three public utilities - the Housing Trust, the Electricity Trust,
and the Engineering and Water Supply Department - as the key development agencies
of the State to provide support, at modest cost, for industrial growth. Social
services, such as schools, hospitals and cultural facilities, took second place
in government spending until the economic bases for wealth creation were firmly
in place.

In 1950-51, of the 6800 new houses completed in the State the Housing Trust
built 3000, a record for the Trust since it was formed in 1937. In an effort
to cope with the inflow of people to South Australia, construction methods were
adopted which were then considered unorthodox. Such as the use of brick veneer
and prefabricated timber construction. By 1951, some 3800 prefabricated houses
had been ordered from Britain and Germany for erection mainly by migrant tradesmen.


The development aims of the Playford Government required its control over the
generation and distribution of electric power. The Electricity Trust was formed
in 1946 to take over the assets of the Adelaide Electric Supply Company, and
in 1948 it was assigned control of the Leigh Creek coalfield. The Trust undertook
a vigorous programme of transmission line construction in rural areas, replacing
many small schemes based on diesel plants in country towns. By the late 1950s,
South Australian consumers were enjoying the lowest priced electricity in the
Commonwealth.

-- 
ben moretti 
mailto:bmoretti@chariot.net.au
http://www.chariot.net.au/~bmoretti

news and events in adelaide: 
http://www.active.org.au/adelaide

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