So many Labor leaders have nailed themselves to the cross of privatisation — Keating; Costa; Iemma; Roozendaal; Keneally; Bligh; Andrew Fraser — that one is tempted to ask if some component of their decision is a lurid passion for self-harm; self-slaughter; suicide.
For no sold-off railway, ferry, ambulance service, hospital, road tunnel or bank has ever gained Labor one vote, and in Queensland alone four days ago it lost them half a million votes. Why did they do it? Why did they do it?
They apparently think Lachlan or James or James or Jodie or Alan or Ziggy or Gina are better at running things than Nugget Coombs or David Hill or Michael Knight; and these dim greedy philistines deserve the billions they get in pocket money for trashing OneTel and Telecom and Medibank and making planes fall out of the sky. Why privatise anything? Why do it?
They need the money, they allege. They need the money more than they need public office. They’ll balance a budget even if, by God, it means thirty years out of power.
Mike Rann ran a ‘No More Privatisations’ campaign in 2002 and his party is still in power. Jim Bacon ran a ‘Don’t Sell The Hydro’ campaign in 1998 and his party is still in power albeit in coalition. Clare Martin gained power in 2001 and never privatised anything and her party is still in power albeit in coalition. Keneally and Bligh, against party policy, privatised things and lost astonished party faithful in aggrieved and shrieking avalanches.
Why privatise anything? Need the money, do you? Two percent on the GST will pick up, oh, twenty billion a year. A ‘temporary levy’ you could call it, as Lincoln did when he invented income tax to pay for his war, a measure that continues. And nobody would ever notice. Put a dollar tax on cinema tickets. That’s a billion for a start. On every tank of petrol. That’s a hundred million. On every parking station ticket. That’s twenty million.
But … well … oh dear … it’s too late, isn’t it? We’ve sold off the farm, and the family silver, and the old horse Josh, and we’ve shot the red dog Meggsy and strangled every goose. And nobody likes us any more. So what do we do?
A few suggestions.
Enact emergency measures to bring down rents by a third. This will be favoured by about 92 percent of the voters. Unfloat the dollar and bring it down to 82 cents. This will preserve our few surviving industries and resurrect a few more. And bring back tariffs to where they were in 1987, under Hawke and Keating, a roaring success.
It’s a Labor version of Hewson’s Fightback! No-one but fourteen thousand vulture capitalists and jackal share traders would oppose it. And a ratings agency or two.
Fuck the rating agencies. They had Lehman’s on a triple-A the day before the crash.
And, oh yes, put Beattie, Bracks, Rann, Gallop and Martin in the Senate. They won from opposition and know what works in government, and would be wonderful tactical policy wonks on the necessary Senate committees.
And do what I said about old people’s teeth, and Qantas, below.
You think you’d lose votes by doing this? Do you? Do you?
You make me so tired.
Prove that I lie.
Name:
Yes; and it’s not a tax. Why not name them for what they are?
“Children’s Benefit”, with choctop, to the pics. Who could resent that, or repeal it?
Ah no, that becomes ‘welfare’. But not a ‘tax’. A creative, new word is needed….
Dividend?
Impost? Entertainment charge? Fire insurance premium?
I agree, anything but tax.
I’m a bit stuck on “dividend”. It takes the economic rationalists head on, reframes that argument, forces a government to explain it, throws the discussion onto policy, exacts of its own a need to account, all of this gives the people power especially once they own it, and by claiming it Labor enforces an old but new branding. It’s bold, too – bring that on.
Children’s Hospital Dividend. Right there on the bottom of the ticket.
Senior’s Dental Dividend.
After all, it is their own money….
Peter Beattie is an oaf.
He says things like ‘Julia Gillard needs to buy a house in Brisbane’.
Madness.
How would those who live in Norwood, Elizabeth, Glenelg, Parramatta, West Ryde, Balmain, Fitzroy, Bundoora and Port Melbourne feel about this?
Keep him away from the Senate, and the House of Representavies lest his buffoonery inspire others to follow his example.
Couldn’t agree more on privatisation. It’s been the death of Labor. The rental issue too – you’re absolutely right in nailing this as a key policy issue.
I don’t think I can prove you wrong here!
What do you think of this solution Bob.
Simply let people choose were to “sacrifice” the extra 3% super.
Choose whether you would pay this into a super fund or your mortgage(still an investment)protected so it cannot be withdrawn except to a super fund. You have just won votes from everyone with a mortgage. No means testing no one feeling picked on.
Give those on lower salaries the option to elect to take it as salary but then it must go by direct deposit into your rent. You have just won votes from those renting!
This reduces cost of living, helps with housing affordability and EMPOWERS the punter and has no effect on the budget bottom line.
C’mon poke holes in this I dare you.
Have one nationalised bank operating alongside the current ones. Have it as an extension of the Reserve Bank so there is no need for new letterhead. Operate the mining industry on a CDEP, or whatever it was called before Rudd abolished it, style arrangement where they have to prove they are exploring and digging to certain efficiency standards. Like an arts grant. Profits can be derived but end ownership would be national. Buy back Qantas. Share schemes for employees of publicly listed companies.
The Coles/Woolworths problem is diabolical.
Pass a law saying no food-selling business entity can have any more than four outlets in any conurbation of a million people.
Or three.
The reason why both sides privatise is for the huge windfall of consultancy fees etc that go to party related lobbyists and consultancy firms run by party elders.
Strangely enough, a number of privatisations were done on the basis that
“The other mob plan to privatise it, so let’s get in first”!
The electorate are generally unforgiving of post-election reverses of policy; even the revelation ploy, that
“things are worse than we thought and the last mob left hidden debts”
has worn thin on a disgruntled and grumpy electorate.
Old, tired governments such as NSW and Qld Labor tried the privatisation ploy to get more money in the coffers and to prop up the AAA rating; it was never going to work. C’est la vie.
Brilliant ideas all round. May I add one? The ABC should own and print a newspaper in every State.
Wonderful idea.
They already have the copy, from the news, Fran Kelly, the Science Show, Life Matters, LNL …
Privatisation is a great idea when there is a market with competition.
On that basis, things like roads, water, power and possibly airports (although not airlines) should never be privatised as the consumer has no real choice no matter how many service providers are in the market.
Allow private enterprise to provide those services if they think they can make a profit, sure, but keep it entirely separate from the government system so that a minimum standard of public good is maintained.
So we could privatise internet/telecommunications service providers, but keep the infrastructure under government control. Selling Telstra would have been fine if they’d only sold the service element and not the physical infrastructure.
Nobody (I hope!) argues for the privatisation of the police, the army, or the courts, so why sell the power grid?
But why do Labor voters who have been alienated by privatisation vote instead for parties that ideologically favour selling of state assets and never campaign for renationalisation?
Strange isn’t it?
I think the answer lies in the battle for the middle ground, especially near election time. Both parties strive to capture the mythical swinging voter.
This alienates many of the more dedicated voters, on each side : Labor voters vote Green or Independent in disgust; Coalition voters vote Katter, Independent or One Nation in disgust.
Recent primary vote figures seem absurd to me, but I suppose many Labor voters feel able to register disgust without actually changing anything, rather like a run of the mill by-election.
Queeensland has much seductive beauty. I recall visiting granny and puttering in a tinnie through the mangroves at Burnett Heads, lobstering. And later, staying at Bedarra, $11 a day, all meals incl. Oddly, altho’ we are so much richer these days than back then, I can no longer afford Bedarra, which sometimes goes for up to $4000 a night.
Another oddity re Queensland is its education system. “By 1980 enrolments (in State secondary schools)..had increased to 105237. In the same period, Queensland population increased …to an estimated 2, 213000.”
http://education.qld.gov.au/library/edhistory/state/brief/secondary-1957.html
Unfortunately, Queensland tends to come 6th in the Naplan results. But I’m sure that this natter is all quite irrelevant to the election.
These are such good ideas for Labor. Why do almost all those people who become politicians, lose their nerve, and/or their ability (if they ever had it) to think creatively? Why are almost all voters so darn afraid of anything that is out of the ordinary? It’s so hard to be hopeful.