I heard this on the radio on the way home today.  Kevin Rudd who's supporting Alan Carpenter in the upcoming state election praised Carpenter for the way he handled the gas crisis - specifically on the way he took on the 'big boys' to ensure that the state continued to function.

I nearly gagged.  There were memos sent out in some large businesses asking people to conserve energy - not because the premier asked them to, but because if they didn't, they'd face the prospect of closing up shop due to lack of power.

So if Carpenter had just said NOTHING, big business would have just gone and done it anyway.  So perhaps he took on the 'big boys' by doing some of the following:

• Forcing businesses to turn off their lights at night (Earth hour was darker in Perth that during the gas crisis)
• Forcing businesses to stop laying off staff due to the gas shortage - the main affected ones were in building who have .. erm .. made a fair whack of money in the last few years.

Instead he took on the big boys by:

• Increasing DOMESTIC gas prices
• Asking us to take shorter showers and not to turn on the heaters.

Way to go taking on the 'big boys' Carpenter .. :-P