I also believe that the benefits of privatisation are a myth.

The point you make Foxy about the current front bench of the opposition was also true of the former Howard Govt.

Driven by it's own dogma, it's free enterprise ideology allowed it to set the dogs on workers, remove instruments such as pricing surveillance and wage indexation.These instruments curtailed inflation very effectively, basically kept business honest and helped to maintain a consensus between workers and their bosses.

"Selling the farm" was another part of this doctrine resulting in today's private monopolies of essential services and utilities. Prices rise without constraint while wages remain static.

I heard a current opposition member jibe across the floor in parliament that "we wont be able to do that again (meaning sell the farm) to get us out of debt". He was damn right there is nothing left to sell.

State Labor Govts equally guilty. But Kennett was the classic with this, and when we say selling assets we do so euphemistically.

When businesses are offered failure clauses, guaranteed by the taxpayer (if their ventures fail), that is not selling. It was "the Golden Goose". How would you like a business proposition that guaranteed a profit regardless?. Only the privileged few get access to such propositions.

You put things so well Foxy and totally agree Belly.

I think capitalism may be workable with sufficient regulatory instruments in place protecting the citizens and the environment from the natural tendency of business to act out of it's own self interest.

Dear Jardine,

Look back in history before privatisation
started to evolve and determine for yourself
whether public utilities and services were
more efficient or less. Why is it now that
everyone complains so much?

*Why is it now that
everyone complains so much?*

Foxy, because people have short and flawed memories. When the
Govt owned Telecom, they were charging me 9$ an hour in 1995,
for internet access. That is like 20$ an hour today! Those lazy
pricks sat in their offices and did not care, for they had a
monopoly.

When the Govt last owned the Commonwealth Bank, their spread
(difference between what they paid and charged for loans) was
around 4% plus. Today banks work on half that.

But I do concede, privatisation can be done well, or it can be
done crappily. It depends on the rules that go with it.
Our politicians are clearly not able to do it well, so I prefer
to trust the competition within private enterprise. Its flawed,
but not the debacle we see in many Govt enterprises.

There are good reasons why NSW want to flog off their power stations.
Whoever buys them will have to literally invest many billions of
new capital to bring them up to scratch. Somebody will have to
pay for that, ie the consumers of energy. This way the Govt can
blame private enterprise, rather then wear the political flack of
large power increases

I to think privatization is wrong.

The governements don't own the assetts, the people, the tax payers own them, as it is their taxes that have provided the funding to obtain or create the assett in the first place.

Now I have no real problems in 'leasing' the assetts to private operators who will at least get a fair days work for their fair days pay.

Now I am generalising here, but Let's face it, who recons council or railway workers, on the hole, work hard?

Privatization has become the governments way of offsetting their failures and to repay debt.

By all means sell the eggs,(leasing) but not the chicken.

We could all be debt free if we chose to sell off our assetts. But then what?

It sucks and hopefully it will cost Anna Lie her job.

Every view has Merritt including the truth in yabbys post.
I however can talk from insiders view, government management is the failure, those who should be in control are passengers.
From CEO to local area management failure is expected.
They say out door staff is the problem, sabotage their efforts require failure, and think they an survive managing nice contractors.
CONTRACTORS lead to corruption.
I have been out of bed for hours, could not sleep,yesterday I revisited a government works depot.
3 weeks ago an operator said these words
* I fear for my life every time I put that machine on the ramp, it has no mirrors I Have asked for them for two years*.
top management? said we will look into it?
yesterday no mirrors!
it is tagged out of service, if that worker had died in those weeks?
WHY are government endeavors loaded down with managers of this quality.
yabby if I got you, or me, the job of making it run better we could do it, why cannot they?
Planed required failure conversion to firms sometimes owned by former employees politicians, bribe payers.
No rubbish about unions or workers please time and again both have commited to change to secure jobs but been betrayed.

Jardine- pretty simple actually- there can be no question that it is most definitely NOT excessive as far as infrastructure is concerned.

Yabby- do you think it's because Telstra might have dropped most of its maintenance workers in favor of low-pay advertisers to harass people- hence why its services are so woefully poor, that it's so slow and reluctant to continue building and repairing infrastucture (which rural people are still waiting for), and yet it seems to rigorously call us every month with an offer that is substantially more expensive and lower-performance than even our rip-off Optus offer is (I'm convincing the rest of my household to change).

That's the thing with privatization- the person in charge *might* be a better manager than the person running it before (who is NOT a member of government but employed by them to manage it)- but then again:
-He might not
-He and his business partners and shareholders intend to make a profit above the simple costs of maintaining the system and paying wages.
-Maintenance and service costs can also be reduced by simply cutting down on maintenance and services
-The people in charge tend not to be accountable
-'Competition' often doesn't apply because the company owns the infrastructure (Telstra owns most landline networks, other groups may own roads, power infrastructure or plumbing).

And of course, the company you sell it to might be Macquarie Bank.