The man who delivered a protest letter to Capital Hill urging the federal government to abandon its support for the sale of Snowy Hydro says the fight isn't over.
Doug Nicholas presented a letter of protest to federal parliament demanding the planned sale be put on hold.
The letter, signed by 56 Australian luminaries including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, was also presented to the NSW and Victorian parliaments.
Prime Minister John Howard reversed his government's support for the sale, saying the level of community anger over the push had convinced him to change his mind.
The NSW and Victorian governments quickly followed suit, with NSW Premier Morris Iemma arguing privatisation of the historic energy scheme would be impractical without federal support.
While Mr Nicholas was pleased the proposal had been mothballed, he urged the federal government to introduce legislation to prevent any future moves aimed at selling it.
"It's a very good first step and a great warning to Australians about allowing any government to have absolute power," he said.
"(But) I won't really be happy until (Snowy Hydro) is consolidated into a single entity, without the scattered owners that currently squabble about who owns what and so on. The people should own it.
"What we need is a bill through parliament that consolidates it as a single entity, to protect it and keep it safe for our children and our grandchildren."
Mr Nicholas appears to have in principle support from independent federal MP Peter Andren.
Mr Andren agreed that legislation was required to ensure the massive scheme was protected from the "short-term electoral avarice of state and federal governments".
"It's been clearly demonstrated that there is no way that a crucial piece of environmental power generation and water infrastructure should ever be in private hands," he said.
"It needs to be ensured that the sort of exercise that the state and federal governments have tried to pull off can't happen in the future."
Mr Andren foreshadowed introducing legislation into parliament to move ownership of the Snowy into a public trust.
"In the absence of any move to consolidate and ensure that this doesn't happen again I'll certainly be considering - on good advice - the sort of legislation we need to put the Snowy in a public trust so it can't be raided or tampered with."
NSW Senator Bill Heffernan, a confidant of Prime Minister John Howard, played a key role in convincing him to reverse the decision, which he called a victory of people power.
NSW is the majority owner of Snowy Hydro with 58 per cent of the scheme's shares, while Victoria holds 29 per cent.
Senator Heffernan said the prime minister had recognised the strong public opinion against the privatisation.
"The Commonwealth was always reluctant. The matron of the ball was the NSW government - we didn't have much choice once they decided to sell," he said.
"We worked up a case and the prime minister listened.
"It's an amazing bit of people power that it's fallen through the floorboards.
"I think it's a great day for Australia's self esteem because it just shows that every individual can make a difference."
Senator Heffernan said keeping Snowy Hydro in public hands was a matter of national pride.
"There's great national pride in Australia having one of the world's engineering wonders," he said.
"It's a piece of Australia's heritage, it's Australia's greatest engineering vision."
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