The Snowy Mountain Scheme is an iconic example of postwar nation-building infrastructure. By the decade after its completion, the sell-offs were in full swing.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Long-term privatisation contracts, most of them closed to scrutiny, lock urban infrastructure into 20th-century formats unsuited for a climate-threatened planet.
The housing affordability crisis isn’t limited to the big cities – the Tweed Heads area, for instance, is rated worse than Melbourne in the latest survey.
AAP
The affordability crisis in regional Australia has a long history. In some places the problem is even worse for residents than in the capital cities.
When public housing like the properties in Sydney’s Millers Point is privatised, it profoundly changes the social mix of the inner city to something much more homogenous.
AAP/Newzulu/Peter Boyle
The NSW government agenda would deny the ‘right to the city’, that network of diverse communities, practices and places which give rise to the convivial and inclusive potential of cities.
The sale of the port of Fremantle, the last capital city port to be privatised, is now in limbo.
AAP/Kim Christian
The Barnett government’s plans to sell ports, including the last capital city port slated for privatisation, appear to have been torpedoed by the WA Nationals’ change of heart.
If a state-owned port is sold at a higher price with competition restrictions, consumers will pay higher prices in the future because of these restrictions.
AAP/Martin Philbey
State governments are now seeking to maximise the price of privatised assets by adding sale terms that restrict competition for the future private owners. That amounts to a hidden tax on consumers.