In Auckland's case, power was not fully restored for two months. Then on July 28, the 3.5 million residents of Sydney, Australia's largest city, awoke to find that their water was unfit for human consumption. In this case, the drive for higher profit margins has decimated the maintenance workforce. And according to one union official, the situation has become even more dangerous on the Esso-BHP natural gas platforms in the Bass Strait. Eight years ago, each platform used to have one electrician and one instrumentation person.
Today there are only two of each for seven platforms-a reduction of a third.
When the now-ageing facilities first came on line in 1969, the then state Liberal government of Sir Henry Bolte gave BHP, Australia's biggest company, and its American partner, Esso, a fabulously lucrative monopoly over the supply of natural gas throughout the state. BHP alone has made billions of dollars as a result. In recent years, the drive for cost-cutting has intensified as the prospect of competition loomed from newer gas fields in central and northern Australia. At the same time, each major project has remained in private hands, so that no national pipeline system exists to overcome the Victorian supply crisis. The WSWS invites your comments.