Originally Posted by
CurtainTwitcher
How about the possibility it was all an ideological shell game, dressed up under the cover of "academic rigour" to fleece the public by privatising monopolies?
Another way of viewing privatisation is the "privatisation of taxation", look no further than the M5 and other toll roads in Sydney or Melbourne. The residents of these cities are fleeced daily by a select few.
You might want to check out [haven't read it myself] "
Game of Mates" by Cameron Murray released in the past couple of weeks.
SMH book review.
He also recently appeared at the Queensland Crime & Corruption Commission (CCC) giving evidence [
Submission evidence transcript] about property rezoning & political bribes, I mean donations. Follow the money, he does and you will have your answer why we don't put Australia first.
On top of what you are saying, in many cases these organisations were 'floated' and sold to the public, but the public already owned them.
In the case of the roads, particularly the Tullamarine Freeway, which is gridlocked more than it ever was under public ownership, the people had already paid for it once and now they are paying for it again to line someone's pockets. That whole stretch of road from Essendon Airport to the South Eastern freeway is privately owned and charges high tolls and it is gridlock every morning.
At least it's cheaper parking that the CBD. This and the tunnel still leaks because it wasn't built round which is the number one engineering rule for things going under water. We got a billion dollar tunnel which people pay for every day that didn't even follow the first engineering rule.
We had private operators take over the railways and buy hundreds of trains the wrong voltage (I guess we should be glad they got the gauge correct) that sat in sidings for 10 years awaiting modification.
But of course, government is so much less efficient than the private sector.