Kellie, what a great article. I watched I think it was called Liquid Gold, about how Private enterprise was able to control water and turn it into a bonanza from CEO's and share holders.

I think many of the decisions made by governments in regards to deals with private enterprise, have the very strong smell of corruption.

Funny that. Isn't it?

Wasn't that the premise of the latest James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace"? Private company takes over small South American country's water supply and in turn pay large amounts of cash to the incumbent (at least as long as the largess continues) dictator/premier.

Water like power are integral parts of 21st century infrastructure and critical to the public. It therefore is beyond belief that governments of all colours can sell off these essential components. I don't remember voting to give the key to the hen house to international interests; particularly in this era of GFC tainted corps.

Kelly, Peter
What makes you think the people running the state won't run it for their own interests? Are they not human beings? Are they angels, perfect beings, are they?

What makes you think they won't use the government's monopoly of ultimate decision-making, and of force, to make decisions that provoke conflicts and then resolve those conflicts in their own favour? You yourself have pointed it out. Yet you want *more* political decision-making as a solution? Huh?

There is no reason or evidence to support your assumption that, absent the signals of profit and loss, governments will be both more productive, and more fair.

Food is essential too - should that be run by a government monopoly, perhaps on collective farms? Sex, friendship and shoes are also important goods. Should they also be the subject of a government monopoly and vast bureaucracies whose operations are determined by deal-making between private political parties trading votes of vocal minorities in marginal seats once every three years, without the need to perform any of their promises, and safe from any action for fraud or breach of promise?

At least profit is a direct result of the behaviour of the mass of the people in preferring the provision of a particular good for which the masses scramble.

Kelly talks about "our" water, but that must be false whichever way you look at it. You urge for the state to have control over water. Well guess what? "We" don't have any ownership interest in it... the state does. But if you argue that the state represents society, that the state is society, then you have no ground to complain

Those who live by the sword, perish by the sword. You have plumped for the disposition of a certain resource to be in the hands of a compulsory monopoly of force, and then are disappointed when their decisions are unproductive and unfair. Well surprise surprise. What other result did you expect?

But suppose the result had satisfied you, but left other people with the same dissatisfaction that you now feel? Still how can you justify proceeding this way?

There can be no more wasteful, corrupt or stupid way of arranging the provision of a scarce resource than to put it in the hands of a party who pays no cost for getting it wrong.

There is not the slightest reason to think the political control of the water supply will produce a service that is more productive or fairer than open competition from private providers who are personally exposed to the risk of loss and the opportunity of profit.

Governmental ownership and control of water should be abolished.

Governments are not perfect but there are some resources better managed by 'the people' for 'the people' than by large corporates who are only (by law) beholden to shareholders.

Governments are at least accountable to the point of the next election when we can toss them out for mismanagement but how do the disempowered rally against a private corporation. Market competition is out as it is a limited resource. Corporations are about cost cutting to maximise profits. How will they be audited? Will there be mandatory health checks and testing of water contamination?

This is happening in a number of regional areas where councils with state government support are indeed handing over the keys to essential services to foreign owned companies.

It is disconcerting that it is also the Labor governments that are getting in on the privatisation act - prisons, energy, water, waste treatment etc.

What has happened to our Labor governments? I can see a future where the Greens will forge ahead to be real force in Australian politics if Labor does not improve their game. If Kernot had never left the Australian Democrats I would have predicted a much larger share of the vote to their candidates particularly at the Federal level.

The fact is governments aren't listening but maybe we will be lucky enough to get some more Nick Xenophons into the mix.

Wing, you over simplify in this case.
Some products are not best served by market competition, because there can be no true competition in water. You cannot have 2 or three separate entities and allow customers to switch providers based on value/efficiency. Such natural monopolies are best served by government control. Sure, private companies bid for the work and actually end up doing most of the work on the ground, but no private company can collude and profit at the expense of nature and the nation.
Add to the fact that governments can borrow money at the cheapest rate because it is virtually risk free (compared to any private entity), and this makes the case overwhelming for government run water/sewage/power distribution. Ever heard of the "tragedy of the commons"? Watching the Murray/Darling basin die due to cotton farming and blind "market forces" is inexcusable! Especially if the profits are going overseas.
Private companies *only* tend to efficiency when there is competition to the extent that profits are minimised. Unconstrained companies are wasteful and very bad for the economy and society. (look at unconstrained financial sector that needs massive public spending to keep it afloat)
Leaving a critical resource in the hands of overseas, highly leveraged profit entity that can then establish a monopoly is obscene stupidity. Actually one word describes this situation: Corruption. OK I'll add another: Incompetence.

The reality is that public infrastructure projects cost the public a fraction of their private counterparts. Private road projects typically cost the public about seven times identical publicly funded projects. As for efficiency, Brisconnection's Airport Link is costing more per kilometre than the Chunnel. Why would anyone think water different? And where were the vultures when water in Australia was cheap and plentiful? Lobbying for a bigger population is my guess.

How can paying several times over for infrastructure be economically advantageous for Australia? It is time for trolls to be returned to the realm of ancient mythology from whence they came.

Great article, Kellie Tranter.

The points made about the total lack of any popular mandate by the Rees Government shows how shallow the practice of democracy in this country truly is. Until fairly recently, only corrupt Third World dictatorships were able to get away with treating their own population with such total contempt.

Nowadays this behaviour is treated as perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable by nearly all the newsmedia (http://candobetter.org/node/765), including even the ABC (http://candobetter.org/node/665).

A minor quibble I have is your statement, "I don’t have a problem with the involvement of the private sector in water recycling, ..."

I still think we would be better off without the involvement of the private sector except, possibly as specialised contractors to provide limited specific services to wholly government owned and controlled water utilities.

In fact, I did try to raise precisely the issue of water as a human right, when I stood as an independent candidate in the Queensland state elections (see http://candobetter.org/QldElections/survey#q10) however the issue was completely ignored by the rabidly pro-privatisation Queensland media.

Another very good web site on the issue of water is the South Australian based http://www.fairwateruse.com.au

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Wing Ah Ling ranted, "There is not the slightest reason to think the political control of the water supply will produce a service that is more productive or fairer than open competition from private providers who are personally exposed to the risk of loss and the opportunity of profit."

Actually, Wing Ah Ling, it is widely recognised that water privatisation has been a total fiasco for consumers, wherever it has been imposed.

In Thatcher's Britain the selfish pigs given control of the privatised UK water utility straight away voted themselves massive pay increases and then through the ensuing years cut expenditure on maintenance and investment on new infrastructure.

The past experience of water privatisation is the reason why Evo Morales, socialist president of Bolivia was voted into power and retains overwhelming popular support.

The text link Kellie Tranter gives in the highlighted words 'interests of the public' at the end of the sixth paragraph on page 2 of the article takes the viewer to an outline of a piece of legislation titled the '[NSW] Water Industry Competition Act 2006'. See: http://portsea.austlii.edu.au/cgi-pit/maketoc.py?skel=/home/www/pit/xml/nsw/act/nswA2006-104_skel.xml&date=

Clicking on the blue highlighted numeral '5' in that outline delivers the viewer to this page: http://portsea.austlii.edu.au/cgi-pit/renderFrag.py?frag=/home/www/pit/xml/nsw/act/48e1ce6f1287ba7c.xml&date=20090513 , which contains the text of what is presumably Section 5 of the Act, headed:

"Prohibition of unlicenced network operation and water supply"

Given the express recognition given in Section 100 of the Constitution to the rights "of the residents of States", as distinct from those of a State itself, "to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation", is not the exercise of a purported power of a State to licence water supply networks (and as a corollary prohibit unlicenced network operation) one that is unconstitutional?

Should another State, or a private water utility operating within that other State, see some advantage in constructing a network for the supply of water within the first-mentioned State, would not the provisions of Section 92 of the Constitution, when taken together with those of Section 100 expressly recognising the rights of residents within States to reasonable use of water, operate so as to make the anti-competitive provisions of the 'Water Industry Competition Act 2006' unconstitutional?

All of which leads me to ask: What would happen if a future government in NSW simply repealed Section 5 of the Water Industry Competition Act 2006, or if the High Court ruled that purported exercise of a power by a State to licence water supply was unconstitutional?

I can't see compensation being due any private water utility just because it would then be exposed to competition.

I get a horrible, sick feeling in my stomach when I learn of yet another instance of one or other of our big political parties (whoever is in power at the time) ignoring the will of the people and flogging off precious public resources to some mean-spirited corporation.

The trouble is that they usually get away with it and, if not, their punishment, in the form of voter rejection at the next election, comes too late to regain what is lost to the people. Even then whilst the public's loss is permanent, the punishment lasts only as long as it takes voters to realize that those who replace them have no greater concern for the public will... and so it goes on.

Voters, if they want to stop the rot have to take the lesser risk of voting for a reliable alternative be it the Greens or an independent such as Nick Xenophon. As daggett has testified though, it is very, very difficult for an independent (or for that matter the Greens) to get the public's attention. The media simply will not give them the exposure they require.

kulu,

I think you will heartily with these words from Winter Patriot:

http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/05/first-principles-or-why-i-cannot.html
"Let us begin with the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney were never legitimately elected to the Oval Office: not in 2000, and not in 2004.

"In the American system, the authority of our government is based on the consent of the governed. This consent was not earned in either 'election'.

"Therefore, the Bush-Cheney administrations of 2001-2009 were illegitimate, and the policies implemented by these illegitimate administrations are themselves illegitimate. Period.

"If somebody steals your credit card and you report the theft, you are not responsible for purchases made on that card after it was stolen. We reported the theft in 2000; we screamed about the theft in 2004; but it did us no good at all. ..."

Possibly the election of the Iemma Labor Government in 2007 was marginally more legitimate than the election of Bush in 2000 and 2004, but I think the general principle applies: they have no mandate whatsoever from the 2007 election to flog off NSW's water assets. What they are attempting to do amounts to theft.

Now the Bligh Government is trying to use the recent floods in South East Queensland as an excuse to flog off even more publicly owned assets. See "Floods, storms spark State Government fire sale" at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25528805-3102,00.html