Electricity privatisations have been like golden geese, providing A$37 billion to Australian state governments since 1992. But the price for NSW’s privatisation risks being undercut by two key events.
We found that without state-owned electricity revenues, the NSW Coalition government would have struggled to avoid recording deficits in every budget since its election in 2011.
Both sides of the electricity privatisation debate are guilty of cherry-picking so-called “facts” to suit their campaigns, rather than presenting the real story to voters.
Privatising public assets is like a tradesperson selling her or his tools when facing a temporary income shortfall. Much better to borrow at low interest rates and productively invest those funds.
The major political parties seem captive to an ideologically driven obsession to privatise public spaces – including the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and other harbour-front sites.
‘There’s no doubt there’s challenges in Canberra … I would like Canberra to get on with the job of actually looking after the people it’s supposed to be representing.’ – Mike Baird
‘I would be incredibly disappointed, I can’t tell you how disappointed I’d be, if I didn’t have the opportunity to continue beyond March … [these are] some of the most exciting times in politics’.
To the surprise of many speculative investors in the share market who had tipped Eurostar, Inter City Railways, a joint venture between Stagecoach and Virgin, won the franchise to run the East Coast mainline…
The IPO of Medibank Private is set to take place on November 25, and the indicative share price range in the prospectus released today suggests a market capitalisation of between A$4.3 billion and A$5.5…
Queensland’s Campbell Newman-led coalition will seek a mandate to privatise the electricity sector, along with two ports and water pipelines, in next year’s state election, despite it being rejected by…
The announcement that rail fares will increase by up to 5.5% is yet another indictment of the failure of the country’s privatised railway industry. Railway privatisation was sold to the public on the basis…
The Department for Education’s proposal that for-profit companies could provide child protection services and other statutory functions for families caused a major public uproar this spring – and the furore…
The English schools inspectorate Ofsted has announced it will be terminating contracts with its three private inspection services providers from September 2015 and will be employing school inspectors in-house…
Soma, a little mining village in western Turkey, became host to one of the greatest industrial crimes in mining history when an explosion trapped 800 miners 2km underground and 4km from the exit. At the…
The proposed sale of the Royal Australian Mint, expected to be announced in tonight’s Federal Budget, raises significant issues that should be addressed by the Coalition government before they go further…
Several train operators are bidding for a contract to run the main train line between London and Edinburgh, but the only company that has made a success of the line will be excluded. Why? For the past…
Treasurer Joe Hockey has spent much of the year – certainly since the G20 finance ministers’ conference in Sydney – talking up “capital recycling”. The idea sounds promising: new projects can be built…
The planned sale of Medibank Private by IPO continues a trend of privatisation that commenced with the Commonwealth Bank in 1991. While the debate about the merits of privatisation continues, it’s also…
Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey’s announcement that states will receive an incentive payment of 15% of asset sales if they invest the funds in infrastructure is good news for Queensland’s Newman government…
The proposed sale of Medibank Private is not popular, but as I wrote last year, and as Finance Minister Mathias Cormann points out, it’s hard to find public policy grounds to justify ongoing public ownership…