Great article Kellie; and very timely! When we privatized prisons the cost of keeping a prisoner rose from around $40,000.00 per to $70,000.00 per, and all on the taxpayer thanks to this brainless drive to privatize everything, and just leave government as a very expensive debating club, arguing endlessly how to reduce the freedoms of ordinary folks.

And the results seem to be far worse where we've privatized electricity.

Perhaps we could put this stupidity to bed if pollies pensions to just two or three multiples of the average pension?

The only reason money is tight is because we already have too many parasites sucking the guts out of the tax we collect.

I've read where the ATO claims the cost of collecting tax costs 40% of out tax budget? And that the total tax take is just 4% of the GNP.

And given the GNP, is just a measure of our entire expenditure from all sources, then it follows that a 5% expenditure tax would raise more revenue.

And if it were collected via the banking fraternity, via their main frames and transferred electronically overnight in a fee free paradigm, as part of the price of a banking licence, (virtual licence to print money) the current cost of collecting tax could be removed, leaving an additional 40% to fund government operations.

And look, if 4% of the GNP equates to around 400 billion, then a 5% expenditure tax on all the same expenditure without exclusion, [as the only tax we'd need to collect,] would raise 500 billions?

The only reason we face this prospect is because they point blank refuse to think outside the box; or are accepting the worst possible advice as virtual gospel

Sort of reminds one of a film that came out of Czechoslovakia some years ago called the Asylum, and where the inmates had taken over and were running the show!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty

Where do you get your data from? Here in WA, the cost of keeping a prisoner in Acacia prison, our oldest private prison, is about $132/day, compared to $320 across the state as a whole. The usual rule of thumb is that private prisons are about 20-30% cheaper than government ones.

http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/publications/tabledpapers.nsf/displaypaper/3911810a73493bdf832a978b48257d32002902e8/$file/1810.pdf

I’m all for privatising economic assets like banks and power stations, but I must admit to some reservations about social services, especially coercive ones. There are some powers maybe only governments should have, and they shouldn’t delegate. Police and prisons could be in that category.

Objectively, though, the data I’ve seen suggest that private prisons are cheaper and better for prisoners in terms of treatment and rehabilitation outcomes than government ones

Dear Miss Kellie

I always like commenting on your articles cos you're special.

I fear that mean old Morrison is intending things that Labor would have done in his shoes anyway. Eg. Mr Rudd and his Mrs who is/was? a major owner of employment companies in the UK.

Not Turnbull but Morrison constitutes the major potential future successful Liberal PM. A PM who may scare the daylights out of your (and my) Labor-Green inclinations for a decade or more. So I can see why you penned your pre-conditional denunciation of Morrison.

Could be worse. There is Happy Joe and the Poodle but I do not want nightmares so I'll write no more of it.

Your Umble Servant as Ever

Pete

Rhian

To quote from the report you linked to:

‘It is obvious that costs will vary widely across facilities, reflecting location, size, age and complexity of functions. For example, the cost per prisoner per day at Acacia [which was opened in 2001 and is located 50k east of Perth] should be significantly less than at small regional prisons.

As part of this inspection we explored the issue of Acacia’s total costs with the Department ... Unfortunately we are not able to confidently state an overall figure that takes all costs into account. What we do know, and what is on the public record, is what is paid to Serco [the private contractor]. In 2012–2013, Serco received around $48 million under the Prison Services Agreement, or $132 per prisoner per day. What is far from clear is the amount that it costs the Department to provide its services.’

The report goes on to say that the ‘cost’ does appear to be unusually low. This further illustrates what Kellie is saying. Once a public service is privatised, both transparency and accountability suffer.

Rhian

I forgot to include that Acacia is a medium security prison with considerable prisoner mobility. This would cost a lot less to run than a maximum security prison.

‘morning Kellie,

There is something fundamentally disturbing about the way progressive activists treat topics and subject matter. The substitution of fact with fiction, accuracy with emotion, reality with hypocrisy and the utter distain shown for any semblance of intelligence that your audience might have. Particularly since you base your entire article upon false premise.

That is a bold statement of course and needs to be substantiated in your case.

If I am right in my reading your article, you make the case, with the assistance of emotive and scary words, that both “privatization” and Morrison’s “$1.0 billion” in public funding for the replacement of the Centrelink IT systems is an OMG moment. You then draw attention to a number of overseas “privatization” examples as reason for alarm.

Firstly you might have done better if you had bothered to examine some examples in Australia rather than looking for emotive examples internationally. Was that just lazy or did you want to avoid scrutiny?

So here is the one you should have pointed us to. The Beatie/Bligh Labor government spent $1.25 billion on just one government department for the sparsely populated State of Queensland! The Health Department.

Yet you seek to question and criticize Morrison for a proposal of $1.0 billion for a nationwide system like Centrelink? What Hypocrisy?

Now lets look at that other scary word, “privatization”.

It is a common trait of activism to bundle a whole raft of management methods under the emotive banner of “privatization”, mostly because it has political traction and emotive value.

For the last forty years it has been common practice by both private industry and governments to outsource, lease, de-duplicate or consolidate a range services to external private agents. The main benefits for this are rarely addressed.

What you failed to mention was that lower costs are a mandatory part of the outsourced contract under the Services Level Agreement and penalties apply. So the primary focus by activists that it will cost the more are salacious and uninformed rubbish.

Cont’d