Privatisation: 20 years of bipartisan failure to make a convincing public case

Privatisation: we still hate it

David Hayward surveys attitudes to the great sell-out.

The public good & public services

By David Hayward

In his analysis of the 1984-85 National Social Science Survey, John Braithwaite found that, while Australians supported private ownership of industry, most wanted governments to continue to own industries as diverse as airlines and banking through to utilities, telecommunications and postal services. They also wanted governments to regulate the labour market and industry conduct more generally, and most wanted increased spending on health and education. He concluded that:

Australians are overwhelmingly attached to the economic status quo. Australians like their mixed economy: Greater government ownership of industry is unpopular but so is privatisation of industries presently owned by the government.

Braithwaite commented that the opinion poll findings presented the then Hawke Labor government with a significant political challenge, as Labor had been moving progressively closer to the neoliberal position supporting deregulation, privatisation and budget austerity, an agenda taken from the conservative side of politics. Braithwaite asked:

How long can it be that a community, fed the rhetoric of deregulation from both sides of politics, will hold out in its strong support for arbitration, occupational health and safety, consumer protection, affirmative action and so many of the indisputably regulatory activities which are at the core of Labor policy and philosophy? The irony may be that community attitudes ... are being slowly undermined by the government's own efforts.

Fourteen years later, it seems appropriate to revisit Braithwaite's question. Over the last twenty years, governments around the country and of both political complexions have sold around $150 billion of assets, from airlines, banks and half of Telstra, through to electricity and gas utilities, ports, grain boards, even metropolitan public transport, placing Australia at the top of the pro-privatisation rankings. Deregulation, liberalisation and their complement, competition policy, have also been high on the agenda.

Relatedly and more recently, governments have embraced the privatisation of public services, using the model of the purchaser/provider split in conjunction with a rigorous promotion of contracting out to outsource core public service functions to the private or non-government sector.

Are the days of the mixed economy gone? Has the very idea slipped away, not just in reality but from people's minds as well? And what of the public services? Are people comfortable with the concept of public services for profits? These are the questions I want to explore using the results of a survey we have just completed at the Institute for Social Research.

Our poll was prompted by a similar survey conducted recently by the Guardian newspaper in Britain, which formed part of a special series probing the condition of the public services after twenty years of being roughed up and downsized.

We tried to keep our questions as similar to the Guardian's as possible to enable comparisons to be drawn, and I shall consider this towards the end of my article.

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