Michael Costa (politician)

Costa was born in Newcastle to Greek Cypriot migrants who came to Australia in the 1950s.^[1] In 1979, Costa began work as a rigger at the Garden Island naval dockyard. It was there where he was first involved with the Australian labour movement becoming a Delegate for the Federated Ironworkers' Association (now Australian Workers' Union).^{[citation needed]}

In 1983, Costa joined the NSW Railways and started work as a trainee engineman, but never progressed to a driver, and became active in the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen (AFULE).^{[citation needed]} At the time the AFULE had a militant leadership who began a series of strikes over differences with the Australian Railways Union, whereby brake vans were removed from goods trains, and the guards were given locomotive jobs.^{[citation needed]} In 1989, Costa was elected as an organiser with the Labor Council of New South Wales. In 1998, he was elected as Secretary of the Labor Council.^{[citation needed]} He was the first Secretary to be of a non-English-speaking background.^{[citation needed]}

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Costa stood as the Labor Candidate for Strathfield at the 1991 election but was unsuccessful.^[2] Costa was appointed to the Legislative Council in 2001 following the resignation of Johno Johnson in the Carr Labor Government. Costa served as Police Minister from 21 November 2001 until 2 April 2003.^[3]

Costa served as Transport Services Minister from 2 April 2003 until 21 January 2005. He was also appointed as Minister for the Hunter, Minister Assisting the Minister for Natural Resources and Minister Assisting the Minister for State Development. The Transport portfolio was controversial during this time, mainly due to rail line closures and a train driver dispute. He is credited with the bus reform policies pursued by the Government.^[4] He also ordered the closure of the Murwillumbah line in April 2004^[5] and the near-closure of part of the Newcastle line.^[6]

In 2004, train reliability was affected by a train driver dispute. This mainly stemmed from a "shortage of fit drivers and an unauthorised overtime ban" by drivers.^[7] Journalist Miranda Devine wrote that "health and psychometric checks of drivers, random drug and alcohol testing and "data loggers" on trains, which can be used to monitor a driver's speed, have caused disquiet among workers." NSW Unions said of Costa and the rail executive that "there has been a total breakdown in goodwill between RailCorp and its workforce."^[8]

When the Treasurer Michael Egan resigned unexpectedly in January 2005, the then Premier, Bob Carr, took the opportunity for a major reshuffle. Costa was subsequently shifted sideways to Roads and the minor portfolios of Ports and Economic Reform and replaced in Transport by John Watkins. Costa was Roads Minister between 21 January and 3 August 2005.

Following a cabinet reshuffle brought about by the resignation of Premier Carr in August 2005, Costa became the Minister for Finance and Infrastructure.

Costa was appointed Treasurer on 17 February 2006. His time as Treasurer was marked by his relationship with his Federal counterpart, Peter Costello, at a time when the state's economy had begun to contract, raising the spectre of a recession.^[9]

Costa was the architect of his government's plans to privatise NSW's electricity sector and in the face of union opposition was arguing that the move would create jobs and secure a new power station to meet power demand.^[10] After the NSW ALP conference voted down the privatisation plans, Costa threatened to quit if the policy did not pass the NSW Parliament.^[11]

In September 2008, with Opposition from the Liberal and National Parties, as well as dissident Labor MPs, the privatisation bill was defeated. Soon afterwards, amid mounting leadership speculation, Morris Iemma dumped Costa as Treasurer,^[12][13] but then resigned as Premier after losing the support of the dominant right faction, and was replaced by Nathan Rees. Costa announced that he was quitting politics, and after resigning from his seat was replaced by John Robertson.

A week after his sacking, Costa said the Government was dominated by "spin merchants" and "machine politicians" who were unqualified to govern.^[14]

Costa is seen as pro-economic development. The Sydney Morning Herald described him this way:

There's no holding back from Costa when he advocates coal mining, aluminium smelters and the privatisation of the electricity industry. This is an unabashed supporter of economic considerations above all else, for public service reform and for not believing climate-change doomsayers. As he puts it: "I want to see economic prosperity. I make no apology for that."^[15]

Costa has been described as the "State Government's leading climate change sceptic" mainly because of his views supporting increasing capacity of smelters and power stations.^[16] In June 2007, during question time in the New South Wales Legislative Council, Costa launched into a tirade against the theory of global warming and told caucus it should adopt a proposal that would allow big power users such as aluminium smelters to avoid the costs of meeting the Government's renewable energy targets to "save jobs in Newcastle and Wollongong". He also said he did not support Tim Flannery being made 2007 Australian of the Year.^[17] Part of Costa's statement is as follows:

But the Greens and idiots like Tim Flannery said it will never rain. Well it has started to rain and it seems as though it is going to rain forever. These people do not understand climate cycles. When it comes to the climate they are alarmists and cannot see beyond the end of their noses. They create division, panic and fear so that they can rustle up a few naive people to vote for them at election time. Climates change.^[18]

During the 2015 New South Wales state election, Costa whose own privatisation plan had been rejected by Labor's state conference, supported the privatisation stance of the Liberal government.^[19]