The good old IPA never gives up. It caused substantial damage to Victoria in the 1992-99 period, giving the subsequent Labor government a huge job in rebuilding the state over the following eleven years. For an analysis of how the IPA chooses its figures, go to:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/11/02/newspoll-57-43-to-labor-in-victoria-2/comment-page-1/#comments.

If you want to look more specifically at the damage it caused to education in that 1992-99 period and the way in which Labor rebuilt it, go to;
http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/462500.aspx.

I have a very simple chain of logic that I humbly put forward in an effort to resolve the public vs private debate which typically pits the 'left' side of politics against the 'right'.

1. Private is usually more efficient than public, because private has competition.

2. On the other hand, the prime goal of private services is to turn a profit, not to serve the public.

3. This means that if the service is necessary, but real competition is unlikely (for example, the prospect of two hospitals in a small town, or if there is only one set of infrastructure) then it's better to keep it in public hands, because the situation will inevitably result in a monopoly. It will probably be less efficient, but will at least serve the public in a half-assed manner.

4. Public-Private partnerships are the worst possible choice - the inefficiency of the public sector combined with the profit motives of the private, create an unholy alliance of waste and corruption.

There. Was that really so hard?

Yabby
"Pelican, the public service set the terms and conditions. All
that you are implying is that they could not even get that right"

Umm... yes.

Government incompetence does not completely absolve the private sector of rorting, but it is entirely government failure to oversight and to rectify. I thought my post was pretty clear on that.

Saltpetre said it best, there is a place for private and public functions and working out what works in our best interests is the tricky bit. Some of the outsourcing failures are glaring.

TRTL
Well put and there is much in what you summarise

For evidence, attend any major tertiary hospital admissions at the time patients are advised to attend.

Like arriving early for an airline flight, patients are advised to arrive a couple of hours early to enable admission and processing, prior to being prepped and ready for surgery.

A senior doctor will be patrolling the operating suite and will want to know of any theatre why they were not cutting at 8.00am sharp. (pun culturally compulsory)

The patients will typically still be in admissions, which had only skeleton staff until eight, and that grudging number unable to cope with the load, which dutifully turned up early.

Meanwhile upstairs, our hospitals most expensive and skillful people languish.

It's a hospital. As far as I am concerned, hospital admin staff should be available in proper proportion and sufficiently ahead of the full clinical staff, who can and do turn up. If admin want a nine-to-five or eight-to-four, they should go to a branch of the public service that only does those hours.

Don't believe me, go and survey for yourself. The angry senior surgeon might be Dr North, *trying* to fix the problem.

Other staff are underutilised in the absence of surgeons (at say holiday times) because of merely administrative rules limiting the number of holidaying nurses to "three" rather than "in proportion" or "at coordinator's discretion" or even "subject to operational needs". This results in some theatres having 4 or 5 nurses when they would otherwise operate with three and often two if they have to. These same underutilised staff are all accumulating holidays they cannot take because of the rule I mentioned. The recent wardies' strike involved a lot of this.

Go figure. Queensland health must have too much money, just not for health.

Rusty

Well it seems to me that some of these Depts need what any good
business would occasionally do. Examine things from another
perspective.

Like old businesses, where people have been there for years, very
often those near the top just want to preserve the status quo,
as long as their wages are secure, not much else matters.

So bring in a specialist team which looks at waste and how things
are done. They would talk to everyone, from the janitor upwards. Ask
their opinions and how things could be changed for the better.

The job of the team would be to clear out the dead wood and to
suggest management changes to reduce waste.

I betcha they would achieve heaps.