The first victim of the Iemma Government’s push for power privatisation appears to be Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre.

He has earned the full fury of NSW’s environment movement, sections of the Labor Party and the unions by backing the plan by former premier Barrie Unsworth to sell the state’s electricity retailers and lease the power generators.

Angel, veteran official spokesman for the NSW environment movement, was a member of the Unsworth committee which presented a majority and a minority report to Premier Morris Iemma on Monday. Angel landed in the ranks of the pro-privatisation majority, a club of government hand-raisers which included Robyn Kruk, the director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, David Richmond, the Co-ordinator General of NSW, and two Labor MPs, Steve Whan and Michael Daley.

“While it’s not surprising that the Premier’s hand-selected supporters signed off on the privatisation, it quite shocking that Jeff Angel ignored the arguments of the overwhelming majority of the environment movement,” Greens upper house MP John Kaye told Crikey today.