PPPs: It's time to get beyond the rhetoric

The trouble with PPPs

Evatt Breakfast seminar

PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships)

The next great privatisation debate

Event location: Macquarie Room, Southern Cross Hotel, Cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets Sydney, opposite the Goulburn Street Parking Station, and a short stroll from both Central and Museum railway stations.
Event time: 7.30 am, Monday 26 August
Event cost: $12
RSVP: 9385 2966

It's time to stop, to get beyond the rhetoric, and to critically consider so-called 'partnerships' with private firms for the provision of public social infrastructure in Australia.

Like ducks in a shooting gallery, our State Labor governments have all lined up behind PPPs, and business lobby groups are baying for action.

But is private investment in public schools and hospitals in the public interest? Why are PPPs so deeply unpopular in the UK, where they are part and parcel of Blair's Third Way? Are PPPs just a disguised form of business welfare, designed to prop up Labor support at the big end of town? Are the State Labor governments just lining up for more versions of 'WA Inc' type financial scandals?

The Evatt Foundation is helping to get the information out. With the assistance of our website, where information is readily available on the subject, and this breakfast seminar, the Evatt Foundation is playing a crucial role in this debate.

Speakers

We are fortunate to have two prominent speakers on this topic:

• Maree O'Halloran, President, NSW Teachers' Federation
• Dr Christopher Sheil, School of History, University of NSW, and the author of the widely acclaimed Water's Fall: Running the Risks with Economic Rationalism (Pluto Press: 2000)

The seminar will be chaired by David Carey, Federal Secretary, State Public Sector Federation (SPSF).

Timing

Bookings

Please RSVP to the Evatt Foundation by:

• Mail: Evatt Foundation
  University of NSW
  Sydney, NSW, 2052
• Telephone: 9385 2966
• Fax: 9385 2967
• Email:evatt@unsw.edu.au

Read articles about PPPs on the Evatt site:

• There are other ways: PPPs & public policy, by Sharan Burrow
• News of the world: PPPs are a disaster, by Kenneth Davidson
• Public fraud initiative, by George Monbiot
• PPPs: A policy in search of a rationale? Private finance and 'value for money' in Britain's public hospitals, by Allyson M Pollock, Jean Shaoul & Neil Vickers
• PPPs: Beneath the rhetoric, by John Quiggin & Christopher Sheil

Read Letters in response:

• The next great privatisation debate, writes Geoff Lazarus
• A misleading and coercive reform, writes Athena Vongalis

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Last Modified:Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 18:29:36 EST

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