What lot of rubbish Alan, the true facts are that it is only you and the elitists that beleive deregulation and privatisation are benefitial to the people of this country.

Just look around and see where this has led, higher prices, huge money hungry sleazy monopolies, lower services and lower full time employment within those industries, if they still exist. The only ones to benefit are the rich and the Beaurucratic elite. Our country is about to collapse whilst people like you spruik nonsense about things inmroving because we deregulated. Look at our primary industries, our manufacturing industries since deregulation, collapsed. You elitists rave about low unemployment, but you don't say what is the truth, you speak in riddles and hide the truth.

In the last 10 years, we have lost huge amounts of full time jobs and only got back part time jobs that only benefit the elite rich. MOst of these jobs provide less than 20 hours a week, yet you say that these people are employed. I bet your hours haven't dropped, nor your take home pay, I bet you have had large increases as well as huge tax cuts and the ability to claim just about everything as a tax deduction.

Ordinary people don't have those perks, you beleive that they are there solely to provide for people like you, whilst the average person struggles to survive.

Get real, remove the blinkers that form your life and stop trying to feed us with such ridiculous fallacies, you and you ilk are as bad as the relgious, just a bit more sinister. Provide one example of benefit to the people of Australia that they have recieved from deregulation and privatisation

Deregulation and privatisation only shrinks competition, not enhances it, the facts are there. But I forget, the elite only see themselves as being capable of thinking, but the facts say it is the other way round. The elite of the world have always been slaves to stupidity, thats why infrastructure is collapsing throughout our country.

Part of the problem stems from 'corporatisation' whereby the government is a shareholder rather than running the utility as part of a service. Maybe that does create a conflict of interest. So, it's better for government to assume total responsibility for the service on behalf of those who elect them than have an unelected elite use utilities as a slush fund.

Notice I used the word 'service'. Telstra, for example, should be a service provided to the Australian electorate. Not a trough for rich mates of Howard and Co to get their greedy snouts into. But of course if Telstra or Energy Australia was totally privatised then shareholders funds would be siphoned off to pay millions for CEOs. In addition, more workers would be made redundant and as a result services would be reduced. But hey, the CEO would get a fabulous multi-million dollar payout on retirement.

The IPA are so transparent. It'd be interesting to see where Alan Moran is forwarding his CV. Does he know anything about electricity?

The privatised Victorian electricity industry appears, from this piece, to have simultaneously been stripped of profitability and to have outperformed its rivals. So what on earth constitutes underperformance?

The "Alchemist" has a well chosen name as someone who would substitute magic and fantasy for logic. Surely nobody thinks the economy has not prospered mightily over the past decade and few would deny a role for privatisation and deregulation in this process.

I don't have the luxury of claiming vast tax deductions but am flattered to be called a member of the elite.

Solving the problem of corporatisation by leaving the integrated monopolies in place, as suggested by "DavidJS" would, of course, leave us with the same inefficient and moribund government owned entities that we started the 1990s with.

For the benefit of "anomie", underperformance would be characterised by higher prices and lower performance or a mix of the two. As evidenced by the Victorian Essential Services Commission and by factual industry data on price and performance this has not been the outcome of the energy reforms.

Alan Moran

Moribund and inefficient?! Medicare, a government run health insurance fund is way more efficient than other funds in terms of serving consumers. Medicare and the HIC have far less overheads than private health insurance companies who have to pay CEOs excessive salaries and other administrative costs. If you look at the comparison between the US with its predominantly private health insurance system and Australia with its mainly public run system, you'll see that the former system costs the US economy far more compared with the Australian system. In fact, the US system leaves over 40 million without health insurance. Great private system, eh Alan?! And In NSW, STA bus services have always delivered a better service, especially to low-income earners, than private bus companies.

But what are we talking about in terms of "efficiency"? An electricity company that only serves those who can afford excessive charges? I am reminded of the "efficient" Fawlty Towers system of hotel management - okay so long as there are no customers.

Um, Alan, doesn't being stripped of profitability indicate reduced performance? If not, what constitutes perfomance for a public company?