ybgirp - what wondrous prose - unfortunately, like the flowers in Grey's Elegy, they're doomed to 'waste their sweetness on the desert air.

Thank you kind sir, I aim to please, well some of the time anyway :) :) :)

You are of course correct in stating that private enterprise frequently make a profit where gubmunt muppets lose heaps, however there is a bit more to the iceberg than what is visible. For example, when Teflon Pete corporatized Ergon & Energex, he neglected to tell the sheeple that he'd opened a tap that spewed megadollars directly into consolidated revenue. His protege' GoAnna the Blight & incumbent General Disaster likewise 'forgot' to notify Queenslanders of the itty-bitty billions of dollars they have siphoned off from a hitherto 'essential service', establishment of which was paid for by the sheeple. Mind you there were quite a few 'gubmunt' assets flogged off that were actually the property of the sheeple (stealing as a servant, misrepresentation, false pretences. uttering false documents ??) The private companies which 'acquired' the retail electricity business in Queensland may be more 'efficient' in some ways however it comes at a cost, like around four billion dollars per annum over and above what the admittedly inefficient Energex & ergon muppets had been costing us. (average ten million pa for each of the fatcat CEOs, plus shareholder dividends, operating profits etc etc). Note that even with the inefficiency of public entities, Queenslanders are five billion pa worse off with corporatization and privatization. All this information is in the public domain despite not being considered newsworthy by News Limited or even Fairfax for that matter.

to be continued

continued

An even more iniquitous happening recently was the supposedly 'Independent Commission of Inquiry'. I love the word 'independent', there should be a new dictionary meaning for when its used by bloodsucking parasites. Seems old mate Costello didn't consider it germane to advise the sheeple he was director of a lobbying organization that represented certain 'interesting' parties. The dying duck twigged to the fact that something that smelled extremely fishy but didn't appear to be seafood was going on, and a complaint was lodged with the CMC. Around that time, the General & Friends suggested to the CMC that if the organization didn't keep its snout our of certain areas (I believe the exact wording was 'sensitive gubmunt business'), then it just might encounter a bit of difficulty with funding. Anyway, a few days later the CMC announced that the Costello matter was 'outside its terms of reference'. Hmmmmmm, but then I always was inclined to have a nasty suspicious mind.

ybgirp it's called unions.

Any entity that can very quickly loose millions, or elections is more subject to union pressure. Thus governments, the wharfs, shipping companies railways building & a few others are a soft touch.

A prime example of this was Telecom. The over manning was typical when it was a government department or corporation.

Since privatisation the network is 40% bigger, 90% more customers, & many more services, but the manning is down to 37% of the government level, & still reducing.

That is why unions scream & kick to try to stop privatisation. They loose much membership, once government management is gone.

The other thing is management attitude. Government management is all about said manager not making a mistake. Doing absolutely nothing is safest for job security. Business wants everything done & finished today, if not yesterday. Procrastination, & playing it safe is not good for job security.

In government the more underlings you accumulate is good for your grade & pay rate. In industry getting the job done with less is much better for your promotion prospects & pay packet.

That is why it is so nice to see a politician like Newman start to clear out some make work bureaucrats. Pity he lost his bottle when the job was less than half done.

Hasbeen - Pity he lost his bottle when the job was less than half done.

Its worse than that, the clown mostly got rid of the lower level ones who did 90% of what precious little the public service ever achieved. Whats left is largely complete dumbclucks who exemplify the 'Peter Principle', is galahs who have to be promoted beyond their particular level of incompetence. A few particular departments / quangos like Health, Ergon & Energex have actually had more high level bureaucrazies appointed as that makes them easier to flog to a big company which will run them under MIS-management.

Its worse than that, the clown mostly got rid of the lower level ones who did 90% of what precious little the public service ever achieved.
praxidice,
sadly, I can confirm that, I just hope like crap he wakes up before too long. Where I live they recently presented awards to staunch Labor cronies who jumped ship & now pretend to be staunch Coalition supporters. You know the kind of maggots that no self-respecting maggot would pi$$ on. Bureaucrats of the worst kind from education to emergency services via health & local govt. Why is that pollies can see all the wrong before an election but totally lose sight of it afterwards.

individual

As Bill Shakespeare once said, 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. We've seen no end of inexplicable insanity from General Disaster to the point where one has to seriously doubt if he still has all his marbles. Take the latest attempt to demonize PV system owners this week, only a few months after the second of two similar battles had been fought (and won by the sheeple) with Energy Minister McArdle. What part of 'legally binding contract' backed up by a 400,000 plus plaintiff class-action lawsuit don't these idiots understand ??