I read in the Courier mail this week that SEQ water made a profit of $70million last year and the CEO was on $1800 PER DAY.

Now I thought that the plan for 'essential services' was for them to be provided on a 'cost recovery' basis.

If so, why the profit and where does this profit go?

Also, does anyone know how much we queenslanders were paid for all the assets we paid for over the years like, dams, pumping stations, treatment plants, etc. In fact, were we paid for these at all?

If you ask me, privatisation sucks, as it is driven by profits, not by governments that have the interest of the people at heart.

good to see we are finally on the same page

to try to answer your questions

where did the money go?
it went to intrest payments on the 65 billion qld govt debt..
that barnaby got canned for trying to tell us about..

see how the scam goes
is bankers or investers go to govt
and say we will buy your sew-rage system,
and leasse it back to you..to free up your money for other things

[like peter beaty giving away half a billion to his mate for a magnesium plant..[in gladstone]..that never gets built

or building stadiums for footy or tennis
and other sport-ing events
[like expo 88][gold coast grand prickx etc]

anyhow the scam works like this
they get the money..to pay the intrest on the 65 billion
but somehow

govt default on repaying the money
lent them for the sewer..[road nat park or state forrest etc]
and penalty clauses kick in...[they are in the fine print]

anyhow the fine print usually says
a default [failure to repay..adds in extra intrest rates
or a demand for repayment in full..

or other defaults..like putting in a port or a pipeline for santos

lawyers are so good at finding these default clauses
..[until they enter govt]..anyhow they collude treason
regardless of which party is in season

anyhow i have been posting much of the detail previously
this is only a brief summery
of but a few of the tricks govt plays for its party supporters

there are so many others like special zoning deals
or tradefree zones or drug laws or mining leases
but heck

we trust govt at our own risk
we got the govt we deserve

the one good thing is summed up in the words
odious debt..[these debts arnt binding on us...

they bind only those who signed up to treason
but no lawyer will tell you this..or that

rehctub,

Ahh....you're noticing that there are some utilities that should remain part of public responsibility and infrastructure - water is one of them.

Governments in Australia are just following the corporate model.
There is a push by the World Bank and IMF to privatise water supplies around the world - they have the greatest leverage in third world countries where the locals can least afford it.

The corporates will stop at nothing in the name of profit - next it could be the air you breathe.

...**Private enterprise the entire east coast of Australia:**

...Beware it’s underway!

...The method is the initial creation of marine sanctuary zones and marine parks, for eventual flogging off to private enterprise for their maintenance. Bingo, user pay!

Rehctub“If you ask me, privatisation sucks, as it is driven by profits, not by governments that have the interest of the people at heart.”

The governments here over generations sold off the care of children to private companies. Surely if children can be handed to a profit driven industry then a CEO’s salary from water management should hardly raise an Australian eyebrow.

Poirot:”Ahh....you're noticing that there are some utilities that should remain part of public responsibility and infrastructure - water is one of them.”

Yes.

Poirot:>> The corporates will stop at nothing in the name of profit - next it could be the air you breathe.<<

Poirot the Carbon tax is exactly that.

Alas rehctub another public asset lost.

Some of this stuff is almost the stuff of satire, similar to the privatising of toll roads with government guarantees of profits. If no profit WE the hapless taxpayer compensate the corporations with money that could have funded the new road in the first place.

Bad planning, bad management and an obsession with economic rationalism hence the corporate model as per Poirot's post.

Soon there will be nothing to sell and much of Australia's public assets will be foreign owned. How will the governments manage? They will have to do what they should have done before the Great Sell Offs and that is better management and a commitment to public services not bolstering opportunities for corporations to the detriment of people.

Hasn't anyone noticed there is no privatization of water in all this.

Those water companies belong to the state government, & local councils. The only difference is that we have found a way of giving a large number of bureaucrats a nice fat salary to do what council minions have done for years.

Councils have been making a killing on water supply for years. Not too much wrong with that, as it helps keep the general rate down.

The problem is the couple of extra layers of bureaucrats eating up too much of that money, with the new system forced on us by Beattie & Bligh.

there are governments which can manage and they don't sell off public assests. then there are governments which can't manage and they sell off public assets. After the sale they then pay exorbitant fees for the use of the assets they sold. The coalition is guilty of this as is Labor. the fringe parties are party to it.
we are all guilty of letting this happen. the most guilty of ruining the economy are the investors. it is of of course all denied but a couple more earthquakes and floods will bring all this out into the open and gradually pull up this dreadful bandwagon.

A public-private partnership is where risk and overruns go to the public sector, profit to the private sector and political donations to the party in government.

'we are all guilty of letting this happen.'

Yes we are. The last tax increase has passed. The electorate will never again allow any governmnet to raise taxes. So this is how government's survive. Be thankful, when there is nothing left around the house to flog off on ebay, then they will really have to cut services!

Before 'User Pays', people accepted their tax would pay for services they don't always use. They still pay of course, you cant even park at the beach without paying these days. I bet if people added up all the little unseen taxes and tolls they'd find they're no better off than when they allowed tax increases. And they wouldn't have to deal with 'commercial in confidence.

Public assets are being sold off to service debt.Bring back Govt owned banks like the Commonwealth which can create in their computers new money to equal increases in our GDP as a tax credit instead of debt to private banksters.

On Privatisation it is amazing how we all agree.

"Soon there will be nothing to sell and much of Australia's public assets will be foreign owned".

How true Pelican, and how disgraceful is that ?, when our ancestors built and provided the basis of public infrastructure for our future, that we allowed political ideologues to sell it to their mates cheap, in comparison to the outcomes/benefits/lack of power the consumer has to accept for selling the asset, and then renting the same asset off the people they sold it too.

Just doesn't make any sense at all does it.

its good to se the literatie is trying to talk about these things
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11765&page=0

i wont write the cure there
but will apply its details here
the key is adverse debt..isnt collactable

see the debt was created by fraud and collusion
thus is legally adverse debt

wtf am i talking about?
quote

""nor will much be said about speculation which has become so rife over recent decades and produced so many billionaires on the one hand and so many that the rich too often see as bums on the other.

Keynes warned of the grave dangers of speculation going beyond a small margin of the free-market economy; but speculation has been and still is at the heart of the financial system.

It is indulged in by respectable "investors" many of whom have actively and greedily helped to devise a wealth of clever devices to feed their addiction.

Derivatives, hedge funds and tricky insurance "swaps" attracted massive funds that should have been deployed more productively in the real economy.

Their disposal is still largely undetermined.""

but those specualting on fictions
have landed govt with the fictions
and got their foolish speculations PAID in full
by tax payers..[ie the bail outs]
NOW NEEDING AUSTORITY MEASURES ON THE POOR

while the billionairs have gone from 1000 to 12oo
IN THIS LAST YEAR ALONE

criminal gain
colluded

anyhow watch this space
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11765&page=0

tax the rich
before we begin eating them

they are speculating the price of food/services etc etc
they dont make it..just just buy it [all]
so we cant afford to buy any of it

the issue was discussed on
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/15/Wer2V_33gqk
http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/12/PRREY3nOncU

cant save the destination
its called
'Peasants 0 - Monarchs 100,
go get some scalps!'

Strong leadership is needed to get public service back to it's original purpose without the pork barrelling and sycophantic preoccupation with middle class welfare and bailing out the big end of town. The current status quo of privatising profit and socialising loss is not irreversible. The Howard Government started the big trend towards MC welfare and bailing out business and the ALP followed suit.

The public is not blameless. The public not only allowed it happen in many cases but encouraged it. Imagine how many assets might still remain in public hands if the public stopped voting with wallets opened. The high levels of personal debt and issues around housing affordability certainly foster that mindset. One has to wonder if governments manipulate the conditions to their own end. But that would be too cyncial...wouldn't it?

I've been in the public service too long and seen a growing trend to spiralling top heavy bureacracies coupled with an entrenched culture of careerism over old fashioned values of public 'service'. The idea of a collective tax to provide a safety net for essential needs has blown out to the ridiculous.

Chauncy Gardener made more sense.