Update August 21

PeoplePower Blue Mountains - Update August 21

In this update:

- Upcoming events

- Draft Community Charter on Electricity

- Port Macquarie By-Election

- Dealing With Power Companies

- Penrith Show

- PeoplePower Blog!

- What you can do

Upcoming Events

August

Saturday/Sunday August 30/31 - We have booked a stall at the Penrith Show on Saturday and Sunday the 30th and 31st of August. Rex Drummond is the contact person for this event and his number is 0439 581 413.

September

Tuesday 2 - People Power meeting, 7:30pm, upstairs, Blackburn's Family Hotel. Come along and get involved as we develop our community charter for the future of electricity!

Saturday 13 - Local council elections

Draft Community Charter on Electricity

At our forum on August 10 we committed ourselves to developing a Community Charter For The Future Of Electricity in the Blue Mountains. A draft of the Charter is below.

Draft

Community Charter For The Future Of Electricity In The Blue Mountains

The Ten Point Plan

The people of the Blue Mountains want reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity. We recognise that the current use of coal fired base load power stations is unsustainable, increasingly unreliable and ultimately unaffordable. We are committed to addressing the impact of climate change on future generations by reducing the use of carbon based electricity generation. To achieve this all levels of government must work within the following policy objectives.

1. The future of electricity needs to address the issue of climate change by moving to renewable energy supplies.

2. Managing the change from carbon-based electricity to renewable electricity requires all electricity generation to remain in public hands.

3. The cost of this change must not be imposed on low-income earners.

4. The cost of this change should be supported by the issuing of high yield 'Energy Bonds'.

5. Electricity efficiency must be increased in all households and businesses to decrease demand for electricity. Changes to household and business infrastructure to increase the efficiency of electricity usage will be subsidised by electricity generators.

6. To achieve objective 5 an education campaign amongst households and businesses will be implemented. This information for households and businesses will not only cover information on how to reduce electricity demand, but also on monitoring their demand through information on how to read your electricity meter.

7. The Blue Mountains must move to renewable electricity supplies as a matter of urgency through the creation of community owned and based generators powered by wind and solar.

8. As an interim measure the Blue Mountains may use gas powered "peaking plants" during the transition process.

9. The Blue Mountains recognises that there is no need for a new base load generator if objectives 2, 5, 7, and 8 are achieved.

10. All levels of government need to increase investment in renewable energy research, development and infrastructure rollout as a policy priority.

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This is just a draft. Of particular interest would be putting dates and targets on some of the desired outcomes. Your input will be greatly appreciated. We will also be discussing this draft charter at our next meeting.

Once this Charter is adopted we can lobby our elected representatives to adopt it as the basis for policy surrounding our electricity needs.

Port Macquarie By-Election

At our last meeting it was raised that there was an anti-electricity privatisation candidate running in the state by-election in Port Macquarie. We as a group decided to support this candidate financially. To make a donation to the anti-power privatisation candidate contact peoplepowerbm@gmail.com

Dealing With Power Companies

Another issue that arose at our last meeting was the difficulty in dealing with power retailers, especially private retailers. To deal with this PeoplePower Blue Mountains will be producing a leaflet on 'how to read your meter', which will also contain information on managing your power demand. This leaflet will be distributed into the community. If you would like to help out with this project contact peoplepowerbm@gmail.com

Penrith Show

We have booked a stall at the Penrith Show on Saturday and Sunday the 30th and 31st of August. Rex Drummond is the contact person for this event and his number is 0439 581 413.

PeoplePower Tours!

At our last meeting the possibility was floated of a visit to the wind farm at Hampton. Enquiries are continuing on this.

Another suggestion was a PeoplePower visit to the Power Expo at Mount Piper.

If you are interested in visiting either the Hampton Wind Farm or the Mt Piper Power Expo as part of an organised group tour please email peoplepowerbm@gmail.com to register your interest.

People Power Blog!

We now have our very own Blog, which is full of all the latest news on power privatisation. Check it out at http://peoplepowerbm.blogspot.com/

We are struggling with finding a capable computer to upload Video of our Forum to our YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/PeoplePowerBlueMtns but this is expected to be resolved shortly.

What you can do

Get involved now! Take action! Make a difference! The person that stands between Costa and Iemma and Power Privatisation is YOU.

Things that you can do include:

Tell Phil Koperberg you support his opposition to power privatisation

Contact Phil Koperberg:

Phone (02) 4751 3298

Fax (02) 4751 1245

bluemountains@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Write to the Gazette

It only takes a few minutes and has a BIG impact. You can email your letters to: editorial.bmgazette@ruralpress.com

Or post them to:

Letters to the Editor

Blue Mountains Gazette

274 Macquarie Road

Springwood 2777