SOCIALISE THE COSTS, privatise the profits — the new political paradigm.
This week in the news we see that John Howard intends to sell Australia’s Snowy River Hydro system saying that he accepts that most Australians oppose the sale, but he still believes it is the right decision (i.e. he knows best).
Transferring public assets to the private sector is nothing new, Jeff Kennett sold Melbourne’s public transport system and now Melburnians struggle with an underfunded and overcrowded system. The list is long.
OK, perhaps the private sector could do a better job of managing public enterprises than government, but where’s our money? Why are taxpayers not getting a financial benefit? Our taxes/rates/excise/duties/charges keep increasing while our assets are being sold off which forces us to pay extra our of our pockets for the privatised services.
Except for the very wealthy and overseas corporations, government is taking an ever greater percentage of our income (witness the $14 billion ‘surplus’ posted before the budget); previously public funded services are now ‘extra’ expenses for taxpayers (e.g. education) so our costs are increasing; our ‘new’ IR regime is forcing down many people’s real wages (e.g. pay cuts ‘good for economy’ says Howard) while we open up to global competition from countries that don’t have the $86 billion per year compliance burden suffered by Australian companies which drives jobs offshore (ABS stats show 34,762 manufacturing jobs were lost in Victoria alone between May 1996 to February this year).
Howard’s first great achievement has been to convince Australians that debt funded growth is acceptable. Under Howard’s ‘responsible economic management’ Australia has shifted from a debt of $16 billion in 1996 to over $500 billion currently. Many Australian icon companies are now overseas owned (e.g Arnotts), so that even a Vegemite purchase adds to our trade deficit. Howard likes to tell us that the debt is private but where’s the merit in that? Australians have to borrow because most of their income is going to our 3 levels of government!
Howard’s second great achievement was to guarantee the States windfall GST income with no strings attached thus disconnecting them from any performance requirements. The States can pretty much relax between elections, and bring out big surpluses to buy votes at the right time so we see public transport, health system, policing and other collapses that are then used to further justify the sale of more public assets.
It’s sad that our media doesn’t put all this together and start reporting the important stories about how our governments are impoverishing us while increasing their own benefits. And ‘pay cuts good for economy’ … how is it in anyone’s interests to lower Australian’s standard of living? And how is a lower standard of living a ‘good economy’?
We must start connecting the dots and seeing more clearly how many of our news items are related and we need to start taking coherent action to protect the living standards of all Australians, not just the political and business classes.
