Privatisation, lately rebadged as "asset sales", is electoral poison for political parties and their leaders in Australia. In 2008, after NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma proposed to privatise parts of the state's electricity system, he was rolled at the party's State Conference by a huge margin and resigned as Premier soon after. Queensland's Labor Premier Anna Bligh didn't quite manage to learn the lesson. Soon after her government's re-election in 2009 she announced a privatisation process that included parts of Queensland Rail, various forestry assets, the Abbot Point Coal Terminal and the Port of Brisbane. Anger at this announcement was heightened by the fact that not a word was breathed on the subject during the election. She may have hoped this anger would have faded by the 2012 election but it clearly hadn't and her party was almost wiped out . All this left the incoming LNP government with a problem. The combination of the Global Financ
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