Labor has accused the state government of breaking its promise to keep Hydro Tasmania in public hands, after including its engineering arm Entura in a privatisation review.
Opposition leader Dean Winter said the move was an attempt to “gut our Hydro” and warned it could harm Tasmania’s reputation in renewable energy.
“Entura is really, really important because it actually exports Tasmania’s renewable energy expertise, engineering and technical people right across the world,” he said.
“It means that if you’re dealing with renewable energy anywhere in the world, you can lean on Tasmania’s 100 years of renewable energy expertise.”
“The last thing we should be doing is selling this asset.”
Hydro executives have previously confirmed Entura is “part of the Hydro organisation” and “not a separate corporate entity”.
Entura operates as a department within Hydro, under the same Hydro-Electric Corporation ABN, with its revenue, income and profits consolidated into Hydro Tasmania’s financial statements.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff, while announcing power bill relief on Tuesday, said “Entura is an entity of Hydro” and insisted that “Hydro will remain in Tasmanians’ hands”.
“We’re considering all options around our government businesses, but we’ve ruled out Hydro very clearly,” the Premier said.
“I don’t take much notice of what Labor says. They say one thing one day and something else the next.”
Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union State Secretary Jacob Batt warned that selling Entura and losing its highly specialised workforce would hurt Tasmania in the long run.
He said the broader privatisation agenda, which could include other government-owned businesses like Metro Tasmania, was driven by an “ideological agenda” and should be scrapped.
“It actually puts a financial risk to the taxpayer. Because to try and find those specialised skills that would no longer be in Tasmania, that’s actually an increase,” he said.
“It would actually be costing more money to ensure that hydro is properly maintained and that assets are looked after.”
No timeline has been set for when the government will make a decision on potential asset sales.
