Thinking About Privatisation: evaluating the privatised state to inform our future

By Graeme A. Hodge

Hodge outlines the privatisation phenomenon and summarises the extent of privatisation policies in Australia against our historical context and today's international scene.

Secondly, it evaluates this phenomenon from an independent stance and interprets what it has meant to citizens in terms of outcomes so that policy lessons may be learned. Lastly it looks at what ought to be on the policy agenda so that we can now move forward with a heightened sense of both social conscience and political responsibility for policy actions in the privatisation arena.

Hodge outlines the Australian experience of government enterprise sales, contracting out public sector services and public-private partnerships. He evaluates the outcomes and presents a few case studies of the impact on governance, revenues and on business. To move forward from here we need to re-evaluate the role of government, to better articulate our version of capitalism and the need to control markets. From here it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of regulatory agencies. Hodge also argues that we need a policy evaluation office that is well resourced, cross-disciplinary and capable of bringing to the table both a preparedness to assess policy effectiveness and an equal social and democratic emphasis to the current dominant financial and economic dimensions.

As government seem more and more prepared to sign on for more public-private partnerships, the public accountability should be strengthened and expanded to protect the long term public interest. From this the term "public interest" needs to be reintroduced to the vocabulary of the public service. This means a redefinition of what should be on the Public Record, to avoid the way governments have used the "commercial in confidence" claim when denying access and scrutiny of contracts.

This is the seventh of the Blue Book series published by Arena Publications and the Australian Fabian Society. Previous Blue Books have examined and suggested ways forward in the areas of mutualism and policies for Labor, Medicare, substance abuse, universities, refugees and globalisation

Australian Fabian Society pamphlet no 62)

(Arena magazine; no 71 June-July 2004)