Peter, I am generally against privatisation when it comes to large utilities that raise a lot of revenue. It is much less clear to me when it comes to the likes of botanic gardens.

They don’t earn much revenue. But they are a big cost to taxpayers and ratepayers. I think we can reasonably assume that they don’t pay their way, by a long way, in most cases.

I am a professional botanist. In the last three years I have had the opportunity to visit botanic gardens all over the country, from Sydney’s Royal BG and other major ones in Canberra, Perth and all our large cities, to many gardens which barely fall under the definition of a botanic garden in small country towns.

While the Sydney Royal BG is very nicely maintained, many of the smaller ones are in poor condition and are clearly starved of funds and TLC.

It seems to me that privatisation of many small ones could potentially be a good idea. But then, the revenue-raising potential of small gardens in small towns would render them unattractive to potential private concerns.

Privatisation of large gardens is much less clear. I would think that the rate-payer and taxpayer base for Sydney and NSW, along with the enormous significance of these gardens, and the fact that they do generate a fair bit of income (if only from the exorbitant parking fees), would mean that privatisation should not happen. Or at least not unless there are very strict parameters emplaced, which we can have confidence will be upheld far into the future.

Privatisation is fraught with dangers, as you point out. But is certainly not a case of government management always being free of nasties while private management is always full of them.

continued

One potential nasty that I can envisage with government management is that these wonderful gardens in Sydney will become progressively less well funded, as is the case with numerous BGs around the country, as the needs for public expenditure burgeon elsewhere (due primarily to Sydney’s exorbitant population growth and resultant pressure on infrastructure, services and quality of life).

If these gardens are to be privatised, one of the key points should be that it remains public open space and it is only the management that gets privatised.

There also needs to be strict guidelines that will remain binding forever and a day after privatisation.

One of those needs to be that the botanical nature, all the various botanical themes, the diversity of species, etc, gets maintained, and steadily improved where possible.

Significant revenue-raising events (maybe including rock concerts?), should not be a problem, provided that they are properly conducted and that the likelihood of damage to the gardens and to trees in the open space is minimised.

In short, I wouldn’t automatically oppose privatisation of the Royal Botanic Gardens. But it would have to meet a very strict set of parameters before I could approve of it.

Absolutely agree with everything you have written here Peter!
Rhrosty.

As a regular user of the gardens (not a "visitor", since they are within walking distance), the proposed vandalism of Sydney's prime open space is personally saddening. I'm with Paul Keating on this, and will protest, march, lie in front of bulldozers or whatever, to stop it happening.

Regrettably, history tells me that the root-and-branch corruption of our political classes will ensure that it goes ahead, lining the pockets of many "connected" opportunists along the way.

Much as I love the city, if this goes ahead, I'll sell up and go. There is a line that I cannot in all conscience cross, and I suspect this is it.

Wow Pericles, you’re an old greenie!

I am... I am... totally flabbergasted! ( :>|

Well, I dare say that it will go ahead. So are you really going sell up and go?

Erm…. and go where? Somewhere else in Sydney I presume?

You’ve poo-pooed just about everywhere else on the planet, including other Australian cities, which you call (in a derogatory manner) large country towns.

And you wouldn’t be seen dead living in my fantastic part of the world up here in north Queensland!

Don’t you think that if it is organised in exactly the right manner, that there is potential for private management of these gardens to actually be better than government management?

I thought that you basically hated government and applauded private enterprise!

Don’t you concur with me that there is a very real and ominous likelihood that funds will be significantly reduced for these gardens as the critical demand for them rises elsewhere, particularly in relation to population growth pressure?

Oh…. so many questions….

Perhaps the answer is a donation box, where the well heeled can pay a gold coin for the privilege?
As for me, I wouldn't live in a big city if you paid me.
I am surrounded by parks and gardens that are/were free to the visiting public,[ well most of the time,] and only started to become places you paid to enter, or were locked out of, with the advent of city centric incoherent Labor?
However, on this occasion, it seems to be coalition policies, that are the problem.
If only we weren't almost the most over-governed people on the planet?
We could simply divest ourselves of the patently unneeded state governments, state politicians and state bureaucracies and all that reported double handling? We could pocket 70 billions in annual saving?
And simply get rid of this nonsense, and the other hugely regressive instruments like stamp duties, which raise less than the cost to Joe public, of administrations, that only ever seem to siphon money from real projects or the people's needs; and on to their own personal excesses?
Perhaps we should ask the cashed up Sydney water board to pay for the upgrade of our parks and gardens?
I mean, they seem to have plenty of money, hundreds of thousands, to throw at self serving pollies?
Rhrosty.