This is a companion video to the previous one on entrenchment and the amendment of Australian State Constitutions. It compares three cases from New Zealand, Victoria and New South Wales concerning a political desire on the part of Labor Governments to prevent future Governments from privatising water and electricity utilities.
In New Zealand, an amendment was initially made to the 'Three Waters' legislation to entrench a requirement that water utilities not be privatised. It imposed a special majority requirement of 60% support of Members of Parliament for its future amendment or repeal. After a fuss was made, the Ardern Government removed the entrenchment, accepting that it was constitutionally wrong to engage in such partisan opportunism by entrenching a politically contestable policy issue.
The Australian State of Victoria, in contrast, has constitutionally entrenched laws to prevent the privatisation of water utilities and prevent fracking, and is currently seeking to pass a law to entrench government ownership of the SEC and to control its climate change obligations.
In contrast, while the NSW Government has a policy of seeking to protect water utilities from privatisation, it considered constitutional entrenchment to be inappropriate and instead provided that privatisation could only occur by the passage of legislation, passed in the ordinary way.
This video explores the constitutional and political issues involved in the use of entrenchment for partisan purposes, explaining why no government should engage in it and why the people should be more active in objecting to it.
