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CRAIG COMMENTS |
FINAL Privatisation
Wednesday 8 November 2006
Privatisation is again in the news, with both sides of politics supporting the buyback of the 45 year lease of country rail lines from Pacific National that were built with taxpayers money over the past 100 years.
Whilst I support the buyback of country rail lines, I must say that it’s disappointing that we have to fork out $134 million for something that the taxpayers had already owned and should never have been sold in the first place. It’s a bit galling that the Liberals and Nationals seem to think that we should forget the treachery of the initial sale.
My regular surveys of the electorate have shown that there is almost total community opposition to the privatisation of essential public infrastructure and services, and that the majority do not believe that privatisation of assets has led to better services.
One only has to look at the recent report on the quality of the power supply in the East Gippsland area to see that privatisation has not provided better services in electricity for rural communities. The sale of the electricity network led to the removal of the cross power subsidies and higher power prices for rural consumers. We have also seen a decline in maintenance standards, line clearing and the centralisation of service crews, all of which means that remote connections are less reliable.
At some stage in the future, I am sure the private power company would love for the taxpayer to come in and buyback under performing and low return power lines, just like they have with the rail networks.
Government has tipped in over $3 million to subsidise gas in Bairnsdale and Paynesville. Quite ironic when you think they will never own the infrastructure.
Privatisation is one of those issues that often has bipartisan support, like the privatisation of Snowy Hydro that was halted earlier this year, with only independents and some minor parties standing up for the majority community position of “no sale”. In a letter to the Victorian Premier at the start of the Snowy debacle, I outlined what I considered were the great “success” stories in Victoria of privatisation i.e. passenger rail, banks, state insurance, hospitals, gas, electricity, freight rail, Telstra. I outlined how this has resulted in increased costs and reduced services, and many of these services requiring government bailouts.
The National Party has tried to say that I initially supported the sale of Snowy Hydro. They believe that they can convince East Gippslanders that I will sell out on two of the issues that I have been opposing constantly during the past two terms -- privatisation and the Snowy River. These are two of the issues that the Nationals have almost no credibility on, as their members have consistently opposed Snowy River environmental flows and river improvements, and who could forget the Nationals appalling record on privatisation when in government. I will add that my opposition to the Snowy Hydro sale came before the Nationals realised this was even an issue, and even then they were in a bind because they knew that their party colleagues would faithfully follow along behind their masters on the sale -- as they had in all previous coalition governments -- to defend the white cars and trappings of office that they exist for.
The latest push by government towards public private partnerships (PPPs) is best described as privatisation by stealth. PPPs are when government engages private industry to build and operate infrastructure and services and the government either pays a fee or allows the company to collect government guaranteed returns. Everything from schools, hospitals, roads, rail and water infrastructure has been flogged off under PPPs. At long last, these instruments are coming under scrutiny and the outcome clearly shows that the taxpayer is again being ripped off.
