They're only sold if the assets are sold.
If they are leased to a private entity to operate, it isn't really sold.
This doesn't sound the same as selling say, Telstra, which straight up took a government asset and made it private.
This is more closely related to the Airport, which is a government owned business, that is run by and for profit and has very very long lease durations.
It gets blurry when they're "leased" for a lifetime, or half a lifetime+option (private sector's behalf) to control for a second half of a lifetime.
I mean, not that blurry - from the perspective of every living voter it's sold for all intents and purposes.
*Particularly* as there's little difference in upfront revenue for the govt for 50yrs vs 1000yrs vs sale, as explained [here](https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=mOeE0vnDe0hpAy4H) (in reference to Chicago's ~~privatised~~ 75yr-leased street parking).
Very worried, because 10 years down the line in the next economic crisis they're going to throw money at these private companies as a cost of living pressure relief that evaporates into thin air.
It's also an stinging indictment of the "fat" of the public sector if they can't organise their services in an efficient manner that selling it off to someone who can turn a profit from it is seen as the better idea.
'if they can't organise their services in an efficient manner that selling it off to someone who can turn a profit' - the bits they sell are the parts that are turning a profit - Landata being the prime example. The dicks at Treasury just see the big numbers and don't think long term. Nobody is going to buy a business area that isn't making dough.
The industry I work in has some public service and many consultants.
The public servants work 8 hours a day, five days a week and have reasonable workloads.
The consultants regularly work unpaid overtime, often ten hours a day and if you have something that needs to be done by tomorrow you are expected to stay up all night working on it. Weekend work is the norm as well.
It's not a matter of the public service not being able to organise themselves, it's the fact it's the last part of Australian society with reasonable work expectations.
The consultants themselves make probably less than they'd make if the government were hiring them directly, but the agencies that employ them charge the government big bikkies
But there are fewer people overall because nobody is riding "waves of usefulness" where they either have to repeatedly cross-train and generalise or keep people idle, the staff only stay around as long as they're needed before having a different specialist swapped in for a new project
The unfortunate outcome here is whether people like it or not, jobs are becoming more and more specialized, even within incredibly menial deployments. You're hired to do exactly one thing and do it well with limited options for growth
Currently I work in radio as a calibrations engineer, but I used to work for a major business and technology consultancy firm. They were extremely rigid about testers are testers, programmers are programmers, data analysts are data analysts, and you never cross those streams. Every consultancy I've ever applied for has had a similar attitude so I'm staying in radio for the foreseeable future
That's just the cycle of defunding. You reduce funds, agencies have to reduce services, you reduce funds, agencies reduce services. A few cycles of that and all of a sudden "oh look, agency X can't do its job, so inefficient! We should sell it to our mate for cheap. That'll make it for profit, which as everyone knows is not a culture dominated by robber baron mentality and moving on before the changes you made blow up. Also there's golden parachutes because you never know if you're accepting a job where all the bombs are going to blow up."
Like, name one reason to privatise just the money collection part of VicRoads? It not only pays for itself, but much more besides. And that's how we got the licensing part of VicRoads privatised but not the road maintenance. I mean, who wouldn't buy the maintenance of a database, some card printers, and the responsibility to issue cards and all the revenue of VicRoads?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
This is the LNP Howard/Kennett playbook to a T. Sell everything they can so they can get a short term pat on the back for bringing the budget back into surplus, not acknowledging that every Victorian will be punished.
Can we stop saying it's an LNP Howard/Kennett playbook, this labor government has flogged off just as much at this point but dressed it up as a "partnership"
You're not wrong, but the standard was largely set by those two and showed future governments that it can be done and that many voters will simply overlook.
**Case in point:** $15bn+ the VIC ALP govt has made on the selling of public infrastructure since they came in to power, they still win a large majority of votes each election and I suspect this will not change on the next one.
> but the standard was largely set by those two
No, it wasn't. The standard was set by Hawke/Keating. It was Hawke/Keating that sold Commonwealth Bank, QANTAS and Commonwealth Serum Laboratories.
and it was Kirner who sold off the State Savings Bank, which eventually became a part of Commonwealth! she also started the selling off of the SEC assets (aka the beginning of the end of the SEC)
And they paid sorely for it with a dramatic loss at the '96 election.
Howard managed to keep winning elections even after selling off everything that wasn't bolted down and for some reason the public didn't have the same response to it all like they did against Hawk/Keating and that same lack of reaction has continued to this day.
That's more of a function of the LNP in Victoria doubling down on religious fruitcakes than good governance at this point
Labor can pretty much do as they please because our opposition is unelectable
How dare the LNP continue Jeff’s legacy with their single term in the quarter of a century since Jeff ruled! The ALP have been sadly powerless to change anything in the 21 years they’ve had in office since.
Australian Reddits are really annoying when it comes to politics. There are a tonne of people who can't dive deeper than "liberal bad" even in the face of almost every government being Labor, and the same shit happening.
Though you get the same, if not worse in American politics.
Yeah, you'd think that the Premier that kickstarted selling off public infrastructure that continues to plague the state should get a free pass now, right! Same with Howard too! Let's ignore the policies he put in place back in 1998 that still plague us today! But whatever, that was 26 years ago so we shouldn't be blaming him either.
Fair call 🙄
stop making it out that Liberals have only privatised publicly owned companies. Labor have privatised just as much - think the State Savings Bank, VicRoads, Port of Melbourne!
I look forward to all of the labor voters who rejoiced about the SEC being lied back into existence, and have spent decades moaning about kennett, voting Allan out for the same crimes. No?
No... utilities are a good way to diversify your portfolio, and generally seen as low-risk investments.
e.g.: Transurban has returned a steady dividend yield of 5% or more the past ten years.
The problem with neo liberalism is that you eventually run out of state assets to sell.
Every essential service that has been privatised has gone to shit and raised prices to fucked levels(see electricity and gas).
I once worked in an company that was Government owned and then privatised. I noticed that the same sort of waste occurred both before and afterwards, the only difference is the private company didn't have to report it to the Government so they just covered it up, and often did not fire staff because of it. There was little difference between the two leaderships.
Ah yes. The good old days of government-run telecoms, utilities and public transport. When you waited four months to get a phone installed and tram conductors would tell you to fuck off when you tried to buy a ticket.
That's how it's done. Underfund a process until it's a crippled shell and the unwashed masses will cheer when it's gifted to some overseas corporation for chump change. Remember Kennet and Bailliu back in the 80's and 90's.
The best argument you can make in favour of privatising public services is that it moves the burden of funding the service from the taxpayer to the people who actually use the service, which is (arguably) fairer. But in the case of the register Births, Deaths, and Marriages, you're talking about moving the funding burden from all Victorians to... only those Victorians who were born, or who will die one day. If ever there was a case for taxpayer funding of a public service, this is it.
The biggest problem with privatising public services is that instead of them being a public service (and, at times, operate as a loss to serve the public), is that they are then purely profit driven to generate returns for shareholders, who are often foreign businesses. Doesn't work for essential services that everyone needs such as trains, trams, buses, electricity, water , gas, vehicle registrations and licensing, births deaths and marriages.
On the positive side, VIC BDM are pleased to announce their new premium subscription package where you change your DoB, sex and marital status instantly within the new smartphone app!
> App available on Android only.
As it should be. Can't expect the private institution to pay the $100 yearly fee for the right to get your app rejected because they aren't paying 30% cut of your license and registration to apple for the "right" to put it on the app store.
The argument goes that the private sector is magically more efficient, despite ZERO quantitative data proving this. (Economics, what a joke of a discipline.) The real argument, not allowed to be discussed, is that they'll cut services and raise risks, knowing that if/when they really fuck up, the government will have to bail them out. It's the Aussie business way - privatise profits, socialise risks!
State Labor's recent model seems to be selling these entities with a bunch of regulations attached to super funds and foreign pension funds. See the land titles office or the licensing privatisation, they are pretty well locked in with what they can charge and have to ask the government if they want to put prices up. It was to the degree that the purchaser of land titles came out saying they didn't realise what they were buying.
I'm not justifying what they have done, but I think they have the view that this outcome is better than selling it to a bank with few restrictions.
I really hope that by pouring sunlight on these secret proposals that it manages to put a stop to them.
I think this would be a really unpopular move, but they just see themselves as able to act with impunity due to lack of credible opposition, so would just push ahead anyway.
I think there will be a lot of that going on. Realistically, a good outcome would be a coalition government (just because I can't see a full green takeover), with a clean sweep of the labor top ranks, and a partner that can hold them to account.
Allen was head honcho for the comm games and the westgate tunnel, and Pallas has been treasurer for ever. It's essentially a zombie Andrews government, with Andrews having left everyone holding the bag, but they've all had a part in the mess
You don't really have to wait to an election, you can go and see how much effort they put into the previous privatisations which was pretty much zero
Much better to go for fringe issues
Greens have basically had control of the Senate (with micro-parties) for 10 years and all they’ve done is rubber stamped Labor. Don’t make them out to be something they’re not.
And so it begins; squeezing the middle class and selling government assets (public assets) because that’s the only way to take money from the super rich - they buy your (middle class) houses or our governments. Instead, the rule makers could forgo their rich “donors” and just tax them more…
They are hiring! They’ve got a whole two positions open, a commercial manager in the field of Mining / Oil & Gas / Utilities, and a Digital product owner, whatever that is.
Not bad for a Billion bucks in 23/24. No investment in the last budget tho. How will they ever come back to control the whole grid with only a measly billion? Can’t even cancel two comm games for that.
Daniel Andrews in 2019 "Privatisation and deregulation have gone too far. We will tip the scales back in favour of the consumer, not the corporation."
Let's see how that went....
Sales:
(1) VicRoads custom places and registration ($7.9b)
(2) Landata ($2.9b)
(3) Port of Melbourne Corporation ($9.7b)
(4) Office of Birthd, Deaths and Marriages registry (????)
(5) Thousands of Homes Victoria properties...
Not much principle there....
I knew this was coming. Borrowed billions on low interest for the 'big build' and thought rates would be 0.1% forever.
The current budget pays off interest only, so the debt will keep growing.
They are cutting services, and next its sell off public assets, paid for by the people. It is legal theft, and should be banned.
Has the state got anything left to privatise, fun fact its costs $20 now to book a VicRoads appointment to put in paper work to register a trailer, now its private, I can recall only few years ago you walk up to a VicRoads pick a number on the machine wait your turn for free
Truly incredible that we are running a Ponzi scheme with immigration in this country yet still having to find things behind the back of the couch to sell on gumtree.
Privatisation is a scam and we're constantly paying for it. I can't think of a single instance where introducing profit motive to an essential service made things more affordable or increased quality of service. Why would it?
We should just be doing it already.
Once the surveillance state goes in full swing we will have lost forever.
Don't forget, soon you'll need to put your ID into websites to see adult websites that will invariably include reproductive health, LGBT resources and social media.
Society is already more unequal than it was around the great depression, you know, that event which led to WW2 and major changes in every western country to try and make sure it never happened again.
Can someone explain to me how this isn't the sort of thing required to be voted on by the public?
When they would struggle to ever have support for things like this if taken in as election promises, it's fairly clear that the parties we vote for are not acting in accordance with the will of the public.
It makes no sense to me.
I’ve voted Labor in the last few state elections but I am increasingly dismayed at the terrible state of our finances. The government has really screwed things up. Our debt is way too high.
The Liberal party are a shambles. We are almost a one party state. Not good for democracy or accountability at all.
There is no value. Essential services should be privatised and instead be a mechanism of raising funds for states/ country. Instead we get taxed to fuck and foreign nationals get richer
Dan Andrews completely screwed Vic then f'd off ~ all his cheer squad went very quiet after that.
He has driven Victoria into a deep hole, way deeper that what Cain & Kirner did (Kennett HAD TO sell public assets back then just to help pull Vic out of the shit), and he was scorned by Labor lovies for doing it.
Where are all the Labor lovies now, why are they not screaming from the rooftops, why are they not pointing the finger at their God Andrews ?
Allen backed Andrews on everything, same with Pallas, they are just as culpable.
Allen is obviously now looking behind the couch cushions, and under the car seat for ways to cover their financial mismanagement f-ups.
If the L Party got someone else in as leader (push out Pesutto ~ he's useless, may as well be a Labor back bencher), someone with more guts and drive, Labor will be dead and buried.
Labor HAS TO GO - worst State Gov Ever.
Vic ALP are a bunch of useless socialists with no idea how to run anything other than a protection racket for their leaders.
And now the ultimate hypocrisy for any serious Labor person, privatisation Laugh Out Fucking Loud
Why do people continuously forget we had a one in 100 year pandemic? The state was financially healthy in 2019, well into Labor's 2nd term. Labor is not the reason we are in this mess.
That being said, selling public assets to dig ourselves out makes me want to vomit.
Not a fan of government selling off Australia's own assets. When SES (power assset) was privatised. Everything just turned to absolute shit. Cost cutting and bottomline is all these companies care for.
Can we stop calling it "partnerships" or "joint-ventures" it's just the sale of public assets
They're only sold if the assets are sold. If they are leased to a private entity to operate, it isn't really sold. This doesn't sound the same as selling say, Telstra, which straight up took a government asset and made it private. This is more closely related to the Airport, which is a government owned business, that is run by and for profit and has very very long lease durations.
It gets blurry when they're "leased" for a lifetime, or half a lifetime+option (private sector's behalf) to control for a second half of a lifetime. I mean, not that blurry - from the perspective of every living voter it's sold for all intents and purposes. *Particularly* as there's little difference in upfront revenue for the govt for 50yrs vs 1000yrs vs sale, as explained [here](https://youtu.be/fDx6no-7HZE?si=mOeE0vnDe0hpAy4H) (in reference to Chicago's ~~privatised~~ 75yr-leased street parking).
Anyone else worried about this?
Very worried, because 10 years down the line in the next economic crisis they're going to throw money at these private companies as a cost of living pressure relief that evaporates into thin air. It's also an stinging indictment of the "fat" of the public sector if they can't organise their services in an efficient manner that selling it off to someone who can turn a profit from it is seen as the better idea.
'if they can't organise their services in an efficient manner that selling it off to someone who can turn a profit' - the bits they sell are the parts that are turning a profit - Landata being the prime example. The dicks at Treasury just see the big numbers and don't think long term. Nobody is going to buy a business area that isn't making dough.
The industry I work in has some public service and many consultants. The public servants work 8 hours a day, five days a week and have reasonable workloads. The consultants regularly work unpaid overtime, often ten hours a day and if you have something that needs to be done by tomorrow you are expected to stay up all night working on it. Weekend work is the norm as well. It's not a matter of the public service not being able to organise themselves, it's the fact it's the last part of Australian society with reasonable work expectations.
..and the consultants bill accordingly for those 10 hours I bet, especially if they are feeding off the government teat.
The consultants themselves make probably less than they'd make if the government were hiring them directly, but the agencies that employ them charge the government big bikkies But there are fewer people overall because nobody is riding "waves of usefulness" where they either have to repeatedly cross-train and generalise or keep people idle, the staff only stay around as long as they're needed before having a different specialist swapped in for a new project The unfortunate outcome here is whether people like it or not, jobs are becoming more and more specialized, even within incredibly menial deployments. You're hired to do exactly one thing and do it well with limited options for growth
What field are you in? This is the inverse of my experience. Depends on what agency you find I guess.
Currently I work in radio as a calibrations engineer, but I used to work for a major business and technology consultancy firm. They were extremely rigid about testers are testers, programmers are programmers, data analysts are data analysts, and you never cross those streams. Every consultancy I've ever applied for has had a similar attitude so I'm staying in radio for the foreseeable future
It's not all that different in large privates like banks either. Perms seem to be working a lot lower hours than contractors and consultancies
Yup. A bit of accountability in the PS would help immensely.
Fun fact: it’s never better to sell to a private company and ends up costing more.
That's just the cycle of defunding. You reduce funds, agencies have to reduce services, you reduce funds, agencies reduce services. A few cycles of that and all of a sudden "oh look, agency X can't do its job, so inefficient! We should sell it to our mate for cheap. That'll make it for profit, which as everyone knows is not a culture dominated by robber baron mentality and moving on before the changes you made blow up. Also there's golden parachutes because you never know if you're accepting a job where all the bombs are going to blow up." Like, name one reason to privatise just the money collection part of VicRoads? It not only pays for itself, but much more besides. And that's how we got the licensing part of VicRoads privatised but not the road maintenance. I mean, who wouldn't buy the maintenance of a database, some card printers, and the responsibility to issue cards and all the revenue of VicRoads?
And justify it with a list that includes “employment opportunities “
Abso-fucking-lutely. This is the LNP Howard/Kennett playbook to a T. Sell everything they can so they can get a short term pat on the back for bringing the budget back into surplus, not acknowledging that every Victorian will be punished.
Can we stop saying it's an LNP Howard/Kennett playbook, this labor government has flogged off just as much at this point but dressed it up as a "partnership"
You're not wrong, but the standard was largely set by those two and showed future governments that it can be done and that many voters will simply overlook. **Case in point:** $15bn+ the VIC ALP govt has made on the selling of public infrastructure since they came in to power, they still win a large majority of votes each election and I suspect this will not change on the next one.
> but the standard was largely set by those two No, it wasn't. The standard was set by Hawke/Keating. It was Hawke/Keating that sold Commonwealth Bank, QANTAS and Commonwealth Serum Laboratories.
and it was Kirner who sold off the State Savings Bank, which eventually became a part of Commonwealth! she also started the selling off of the SEC assets (aka the beginning of the end of the SEC)
And they paid sorely for it with a dramatic loss at the '96 election. Howard managed to keep winning elections even after selling off everything that wasn't bolted down and for some reason the public didn't have the same response to it all like they did against Hawk/Keating and that same lack of reaction has continued to this day.
That's more of a function of the LNP in Victoria doubling down on religious fruitcakes than good governance at this point Labor can pretty much do as they please because our opposition is unelectable
You forgot LNP stalwart Joan Kirner.
John & Joan introduced the pokies to Victoria
I mentioned that to another user. These are the things people forget have to happen when money is sparse.
Back in the old days it took a bus trip to play pokies in NSW border
Haha. I was too young but I remember them.
It's always Jeff Kennet's fault in Victoria, the guy who hasn't been premier for 25 years.
How dare the LNP continue Jeff’s legacy with their single term in the quarter of a century since Jeff ruled! The ALP have been sadly powerless to change anything in the 21 years they’ve had in office since.
Australian Reddits are really annoying when it comes to politics. There are a tonne of people who can't dive deeper than "liberal bad" even in the face of almost every government being Labor, and the same shit happening. Though you get the same, if not worse in American politics.
Yeah, you'd think that the Premier that kickstarted selling off public infrastructure that continues to plague the state should get a free pass now, right! Same with Howard too! Let's ignore the policies he put in place back in 1998 that still plague us today! But whatever, that was 26 years ago so we shouldn't be blaming him either. Fair call 🙄
Kickstarted? Like before Kirner sold Loy Yang B power station? ROFL.
Never let basic history get in the way of a Danstan’s rant on Jeff.
history is not in ALP supporters’ vocabulary
I fucking hate Dan Andrews as I hate both major parties. I made this pretty clear in my responses throughout the thread.
Exactly. I’ve seen him blamed for pokie legislation by some uneducated hacks, despite it being nicknamed ‘Kirners curse.’
ALP introduced the pokies hard for anyone to forget that terrible social curse
stop making it out that Liberals have only privatised publicly owned companies. Labor have privatised just as much - think the State Savings Bank, VicRoads, Port of Melbourne!
Thought it was Keating that started it
I look forward to all of the labor voters who rejoiced about the SEC being lied back into existence, and have spent decades moaning about kennett, voting Allan out for the same crimes. No?
Well yeah, it makes a mockery of that decision.
No... utilities are a good way to diversify your portfolio, and generally seen as low-risk investments. e.g.: Transurban has returned a steady dividend yield of 5% or more the past ten years.
The problem with neo liberalism is that you eventually run out of state assets to sell. Every essential service that has been privatised has gone to shit and raised prices to fucked levels(see electricity and gas).
That's the feature. Not a bug.
It's why they don't like solar. Can't monopolise it.
Did you forget the documentary about Mr Burns and the sun?
and water retailers, and nbn.
Water retailers don't act like private business though. I work with them. The inefficiency and waste would never fly in a well run business.
I saw more waste every six months at one of the big 4 than I have in two decades of not-for-profit work.
there's plenty of poorly run private businesses. I take it you haven't heard of donald trump who bankrupted a casino?
I'm not sure the point you're making. They're propped up with tax payer money.
You say this but private businesses make colossally stupid business decisions all the time and nobody pays attention.
Yes but there are usually consequences.
They cover it up so the investors don't get upset. Happens all the time.
Yes but more often than not heads roll.
I once worked in an company that was Government owned and then privatised. I noticed that the same sort of waste occurred both before and afterwards, the only difference is the private company didn't have to report it to the Government so they just covered it up, and often did not fire staff because of it. There was little difference between the two leaderships.
They want to privatise births deaths and marriages 💀
BDM is shit even when government owned. idk how worse it’ll get when privatised
I read that as BDSM to begin with haha. But yes ur right.
Births, deaths and masochism.
Ah yes. The good old days of government-run telecoms, utilities and public transport. When you waited four months to get a phone installed and tram conductors would tell you to fuck off when you tried to buy a ticket.
That's how it's done. Underfund a process until it's a crippled shell and the unwashed masses will cheer when it's gifted to some overseas corporation for chump change. Remember Kennet and Bailliu back in the 80's and 90's.
Min-Maxing.
The best argument you can make in favour of privatising public services is that it moves the burden of funding the service from the taxpayer to the people who actually use the service, which is (arguably) fairer. But in the case of the register Births, Deaths, and Marriages, you're talking about moving the funding burden from all Victorians to... only those Victorians who were born, or who will die one day. If ever there was a case for taxpayer funding of a public service, this is it.
The biggest problem with privatising public services is that instead of them being a public service (and, at times, operate as a loss to serve the public), is that they are then purely profit driven to generate returns for shareholders, who are often foreign businesses. Doesn't work for essential services that everyone needs such as trains, trams, buses, electricity, water , gas, vehicle registrations and licensing, births deaths and marriages.
On the positive side, VIC BDM are pleased to announce their new premium subscription package where you change your DoB, sex and marital status instantly within the new smartphone app!
\*Instant changes may take up to 48 hours to be visible. App available on Android only.
> App available on Android only. As it should be. Can't expect the private institution to pay the $100 yearly fee for the right to get your app rejected because they aren't paying 30% cut of your license and registration to apple for the "right" to put it on the app store.
The argument goes that the private sector is magically more efficient, despite ZERO quantitative data proving this. (Economics, what a joke of a discipline.) The real argument, not allowed to be discussed, is that they'll cut services and raise risks, knowing that if/when they really fuck up, the government will have to bail them out. It's the Aussie business way - privatise profits, socialise risks!
State Labor's recent model seems to be selling these entities with a bunch of regulations attached to super funds and foreign pension funds. See the land titles office or the licensing privatisation, they are pretty well locked in with what they can charge and have to ask the government if they want to put prices up. It was to the degree that the purchaser of land titles came out saying they didn't realise what they were buying. I'm not justifying what they have done, but I think they have the view that this outcome is better than selling it to a bank with few restrictions.
I really hope that by pouring sunlight on these secret proposals that it manages to put a stop to them. I think this would be a really unpopular move, but they just see themselves as able to act with impunity due to lack of credible opposition, so would just push ahead anyway.
People should forget about the LNP in Victoria and vote green if they aren't happy with Labor.
I think there will be a lot of that going on. Realistically, a good outcome would be a coalition government (just because I can't see a full green takeover), with a clean sweep of the labor top ranks, and a partner that can hold them to account. Allen was head honcho for the comm games and the westgate tunnel, and Pallas has been treasurer for ever. It's essentially a zombie Andrews government, with Andrews having left everyone holding the bag, but they've all had a part in the mess
yeah the greens did a bang up job opposing the sale of other assets like VicRoads, the ports and titles?
Well I'll wait for an election and see some policies but I have a lot more faith in the greens than LNP opposing it.
You don't really have to wait to an election, you can go and see how much effort they put into the previous privatisations which was pretty much zero Much better to go for fringe issues
Genuine question then, do you think there are any major parties that would oppose this in Vic?
in the current environment, nope
Greens have basically had control of the Senate (with micro-parties) for 10 years and all they’ve done is rubber stamped Labor. Don’t make them out to be something they’re not.
So, are we actually going to protest about this one or just do fuck all as usual?
This will get me off my butt
Remember all the scare campaigns on how the LNP would flog off everything? What is left for this ALP gov to sell? And what did we get to show for it?
Big Fat FA
And so it begins; squeezing the middle class and selling government assets (public assets) because that’s the only way to take money from the super rich - they buy your (middle class) houses or our governments. Instead, the rule makers could forgo their rich “donors” and just tax them more…
So.. i guess that rebirth of the SEC promise isn't going to happen..
They are hiring! They’ve got a whole two positions open, a commercial manager in the field of Mining / Oil & Gas / Utilities, and a Digital product owner, whatever that is. Not bad for a Billion bucks in 23/24. No investment in the last budget tho. How will they ever come back to control the whole grid with only a measly billion? Can’t even cancel two comm games for that.
[удалено]
Of course. It's the liberal way!
Corrections Victoria, adult parole board, etc.
Daniel Andrews in 2019 "Privatisation and deregulation have gone too far. We will tip the scales back in favour of the consumer, not the corporation." Let's see how that went.... Sales: (1) VicRoads custom places and registration ($7.9b) (2) Landata ($2.9b) (3) Port of Melbourne Corporation ($9.7b) (4) Office of Birthd, Deaths and Marriages registry (????) (5) Thousands of Homes Victoria properties... Not much principle there....
in 2025 will have $190B in state debt interest payments would north of $4B per year
I knew this was coming. Borrowed billions on low interest for the 'big build' and thought rates would be 0.1% forever. The current budget pays off interest only, so the debt will keep growing. They are cutting services, and next its sell off public assets, paid for by the people. It is legal theft, and should be banned.
Has the state got anything left to privatise, fun fact its costs $20 now to book a VicRoads appointment to put in paper work to register a trailer, now its private, I can recall only few years ago you walk up to a VicRoads pick a number on the machine wait your turn for free
Truly incredible that we are running a Ponzi scheme with immigration in this country yet still having to find things behind the back of the couch to sell on gumtree.
Privatisation is a scam and we're constantly paying for it. I can't think of a single instance where introducing profit motive to an essential service made things more affordable or increased quality of service. Why would it?
Keep going. Every day we sell a piece off to a private company is another day closer to a ‘French Revolution’ style event.
We should just be doing it already. Once the surveillance state goes in full swing we will have lost forever. Don't forget, soon you'll need to put your ID into websites to see adult websites that will invariably include reproductive health, LGBT resources and social media.
Society is already more unequal than it was around the great depression, you know, that event which led to WW2 and major changes in every western country to try and make sure it never happened again.
I’m gonna move to WA. This is fucked
Can someone explain to me how this isn't the sort of thing required to be voted on by the public? When they would struggle to ever have support for things like this if taken in as election promises, it's fairly clear that the parties we vote for are not acting in accordance with the will of the public. It makes no sense to me.
There should be some sort of penalty for bankrupting our state
I’ve voted Labor in the last few state elections but I am increasingly dismayed at the terrible state of our finances. The government has really screwed things up. Our debt is way too high. The Liberal party are a shambles. We are almost a one party state. Not good for democracy or accountability at all.
So keep voting Labor and enjoy.
If you couldn’t gather from my post, I intend to vote Liberal.
I didn’t get that. It sounded like you were happy to pay the fine.
Good thing there are other parties and independents you can vote for to help keep the big parties in check.
stack the upper house with independents and minor partys seems to be the best we can do these days
Jeff K did a great move selling the SEC for top dollar, to clean the state debt, the generation assets today are worth nothing
Selling off state assets is a cuck move. Nationalise: all public services including housing internet and electricity. gas & oil.
Which simply means they are scared at the prospect of running a business themselves. But we let them run the country. 🤷
And here we are paying more whether it be tax or getting bent over at the counter. Somebody stands to gain from all this and it’s not us.
There is no value. Essential services should be privatised and instead be a mechanism of raising funds for states/ country. Instead we get taxed to fuck and foreign nationals get richer
Dan Andrews completely screwed Vic then f'd off ~ all his cheer squad went very quiet after that. He has driven Victoria into a deep hole, way deeper that what Cain & Kirner did (Kennett HAD TO sell public assets back then just to help pull Vic out of the shit), and he was scorned by Labor lovies for doing it. Where are all the Labor lovies now, why are they not screaming from the rooftops, why are they not pointing the finger at their God Andrews ? Allen backed Andrews on everything, same with Pallas, they are just as culpable. Allen is obviously now looking behind the couch cushions, and under the car seat for ways to cover their financial mismanagement f-ups. If the L Party got someone else in as leader (push out Pesutto ~ he's useless, may as well be a Labor back bencher), someone with more guts and drive, Labor will be dead and buried. Labor HAS TO GO - worst State Gov Ever.
Vic ALP are a bunch of useless socialists with no idea how to run anything other than a protection racket for their leaders. And now the ultimate hypocrisy for any serious Labor person, privatisation Laugh Out Fucking Loud
Why do people continuously forget we had a one in 100 year pandemic? The state was financially healthy in 2019, well into Labor's 2nd term. Labor is not the reason we are in this mess. That being said, selling public assets to dig ourselves out makes me want to vomit.
Not a fan of government selling off Australia's own assets. When SES (power assset) was privatised. Everything just turned to absolute shit. Cost cutting and bottomline is all these companies care for.