Australia's white elephant

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Initial sale was I think. Same with CBA and some of Telstra from memory.

You could argue CBA made sense, though looking at Australia's world record leading fees for financial services I'd argue we could use a large state bank as an alternative to keep fees lower.

Telstra and Qantas should never have been sold.

Howard was king of the sell offs though. Held a firesale.

Yet when it comes to Telstra, there's threads on this site from back in the day of the younger generation screaming for it to be sold and the older posters being ridiculed for suggesting it be kept.

 

[Gough]

Howard sold our gold reserve off for the sort of return Hawthorn got for Mitchell, and Lewis too.

 

[Power Raid]

What competition did gas, water, electricity and Telecom have?

I never mentioned banks, I was talking about public utilities and their profits and the training they provided.

People should stop and appreciate running a business from the 40s to 70s would have been easy other than the odd change to filing systems.

There is no chance a government can cope running a business and stay at the front of the pack with globalisation, deregulation, IT and the requirement for investment. Not to mention government unions being so large that they'd undermine democracy.

It's much better for govt to take 40% risk free and headache free from every business and then a second bite at the cherry for 25% on wages. That's 50% in total for nothing.

The problem though is wages will reduce and company profits are shifting overseas as the world wealth disparity equalises (just referring to natural business changes rather than evasion). Thus governments need a wealth tax.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Howard sold our gold reserve off for the sort of return Hawthorn got for Mitchell, and Lewis too.

So overs for both then?

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Has won many awards and did not have the gigantic marketing potential of Qantas either.

To think the Australian people could own jetstar and Qantas and Telstra and SEC and....

Selling Qantas was fine, as far as I'm concerned. And Commonwealth Bank and Medibank Private for that matter.

Its natural monopolies that are also essential services that I worry about. Telstra's wholesale arm, for example. And that came back to bite badly, adding (from memory) $8b to the cost of the NBN - whether NBN or NBNlite.

Public transport, electricity and water generation and distribution, are very difficult to get true competition into. Prisons, and other government mandated services such as the job network, where the customer has little to no choice over use (or who to use) are other areas government should run themselves. And why do we outsource security of government complexes to groups like Wilson? Surely Defence and the AFP at a minimum could do their own security without paying a profit margin.

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

Selling Qantas was fine, as far as I'm concerned. And Commonwealth Bank and Medibank Private for that matter.

Its natural monopolies that are also essential services that I worry about. Telstra's wholesale arm, for example. And that came back to bite badly, adding (from memory) $8b to the cost of the NBN - whether NBN or NBNlite.

Public transport, electricity and water generation and distribution, are very difficult to get true competition into. Prisons, and other government mandated services such as the job network, where the customer has little to no choice over use (or who to use) are other areas government should run themselves. And why do we outsource security of government complexes to groups like Wilson? Surely Defence and the AFP at a minimum could do their own security without paying a profit margin.

When I left Canberra, which admittedly was 14 years ago now, every defence building I knew of on Russell Hill and Campbell Park was protected by PSO's who nowadays come under the umbrella of the AFP.

Strangely enough I was living on the Navy base at the time and they all but had an open gate policy until post 9/11, they then had either Chubb or Wilsons on the gate.

 

[Lebbo73]

Howard sold our gold reserve off for the sort of return Hawthorn got for Mitchell, and Lewis too.

Blokes like Mitchell should of never been sold off. Lewis on the other hand is like selling off Medibank Private.

 

[Todman]

Has won many awards and did not have the gigantic marketing potential of Qantas either.

To think the Australian people could own jetstar and Qantas and Telstra and SEC and....

You're too young to remember what the Labor governments did in the eighties. They ripped away all the capital reserves that state owned utilities and spent it on stuff that needed more money spent on it every year. Then they forced the state owned utilities to pay a dividend to the state and that dividend went up annually. The states demanded larger dividends every year because state governments love spending money.

The utilities had to borrow to pay the dividends that went to the state. The rising interest rates and interest bill on the utilities eventually forced the utilities to jack up the prices so the public finally voted the government out of office.

Financially most utilities were bankrupt, they owed more than they owned and couldn't trade themselves back into the black. They required massive capital imput for the government

 

[Pie eyed]

You're too young to remember what the Labor governments did in the eighties. They ripped away all the capital reserves that state owned utilities and spent it on stuff that needed more money spent on it every year. Then they forced the state owned utilities to pay a dividend to the state and that dividend went up annually. The states demanded larger dividends every year because state governments love spending money.

The utilities had to borrow to pay the dividends that went to the state. The rising interest rates and interest bill on the utilities eventually forced the utilities to jack up the prices so the public finally voted the government out of office.

Financially most utilities were bankrupt, they owed more than they owned and couldn't trade themselves back into the black. They required massive capital imput for the government

ROFL.
"Back in my day son a man would bite off an ear for a chop!"

What load of s**t you peddle Tonya.
Whitlam freed this country form the Shackles of the deadbeat Menzies era and his band of merry royalists.
The only thing that dragged this country out of the 50's

 

[Pie eyed]

Yet when it comes to Telstra, there's threads on this site from back in the day of the younger generation screaming for it to be sold and the older posters being ridiculed for suggesting it be kept.

Yeah?

What in 1997?

Link please.

Or are you talking about the second serving in 2004 and the third in 2006 which were both Liberal policy from 1998?

 

[Pessimistic]

Computerising the public service

There have been huge wastes of money, mainly going to consultancies and privaye firms supposedly to computerise which have deliveres a fraction of the cost in value.

To this the usual people say public servants are not able to handle all these things but they did for decades until itbecame fashionable for politicians to gut the ps of expertise and hand the decision process to the same consultancies and private companies which stand to profit.

At the momeny a repeat of th privatisation of it services in the nineties opis being perpetrated under the name cloud. In many cases its far less mature than the internal cloud most organizations maintain.

Ist considerably more expensive too, unless you supress what the cost will be by underestimating what your rescources will be in future. I dont see an end to the repeated public IT project failures, which in fact are a nice little eaner for the private sector

 

[Pessimistic]

Ps when its all paid for, how many white elephant submarines will equal one white elephant NBN

 

[Todman]

ROFL.
"Back in my day son a man would bite off an ear for a chop!"

What load of s**t you peddle Tonya.
Whitlam freed this country form the Shackles of the deadbeat Menzies era and his band of merry royalists.
The only thing that dragged this country out of the 50's

If you don't learn from history you will make the same stupid mistakes!

 

[Pessimistic]

We cant even remember the mistakes of the 80s/90s

 

[Herne Hill Hammer]

We cant even remember the mistakes of the 80s/90s

The problem is, how do we undone what has been done?