Thank you for a very informative article. It is not just our local, state and federal government organisations that affect us with this "outsourcing" of responsibility.

Our foreign relations are also affected. See this item, by R from Le Monde, written by Rémy Ourdan, translated and made available at
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8717/

TRANSLATION: Mercenaries are heading for Afghanistan (Le Monde)
Written by Mark Jensen
Friday, 12 June 2009

The preface notes that:
"Rémy Ourdan focused on a May 5 incident that revealed how Blackwater has not only changed its name (to "Xe") but is using subcontracting and front companies in an attempt to overcome its execrable reputation. -- The privatization of war almost guarantees that the NATO mission in Afghanistan will fail: "'There's no going back,' one American officer thinks. 'Unless you increase the defense budget considerably, the Obama administration will not be able to renationalize war. Yet these guys cause us nothing but problems. Not only do they earn ten times the pay of our soldiers, but they're subject to none of our rules. They have no chain of command and no sanctions. We try to get the population behind us, but they couldn't care less. They come to make money and they leave.'"

And where does this leave Australians?

I found this little booklet to be a very useful explanation of the dangers of public private partnerships:
http://vanguard.net.au/2008/pdf%20files/PPPbooklet.pdf

A timely article, particularly in light of the shocking case of Mr Ward, who died last year because of the gross negligence of a private security firm contracted by the WA government to transport prisoners on its behalf. Apparently this is by no means the only example of such callous negligence by firms that undertake such roles for governments in Australia.

P.S. Note to the editor: this appears to be a classic case of an article that has only been proof-read by a spellchecker, e.g. "populus" instead of "populace", "stationary" instead of "stationery", "to" instead of "too", "fell fowl" instead of "fell foul", etc. Perhaps I'm too pedantic, but it's not a good look for a serious journal.

CJ Morgan "I'm too pedantic", yes we know.

Thank you for the feed back,

C.J Morgam,

I'll take responsibility for the spelling mistakes. In future I won't try to edit my work at three in the morning.

Rowan Kernebone

I didn't do a good job did I? Anyway all fixed plus a few more things as well! :)
Susan Prior - ed