Uneducated economist here, but why do the Libs (I'm looking at the NSW LNP ATM) like selling public assets to build more infrastructure instead of going into further debt? Govt debt is a lot different to personal debt so the same rules don't apply.
I understand their S&P ratings may go down which means their interest rate may go up but I see govt debt as justified if it means increased infrastructure spending whilst still owning all of the public infrastructure.
The Coalition Government under Howard sold the RG Casey building in the Parliamentary Triangle in 1998 for $217m. The building was rented back to the Government who has since paid $310m in rent up to 2017.
https://www.smh.com.au/public-service/selling-treasury-build…
Privatisation is madness.
That sounds like an interest-only loan, but with more steps and loss of an asset.
I know a manager that granted a $20m+ consultancy contract to a firm. Got made redundant 6 month later. 12 months after that resurfaced as a partner in same firm.
It is probably a buy in fee for a cushy job.
The idea is you get a huge amount of money now, and present yourself to voters as balancing the budget and being fiscally responsible. The catch however, is you can only sell the assets once. And you still need them. Obviously you will spend more in the long term on renting those assets than just owning them outright, but hey, you won't be in power then, so who cares?
A bonus factor is the private owner realizes they often have a monopoly on the asset, so are now free to raise its rent as they see fit, citing the ever present 'market forces' as being to blame.
Perfect summary. Sucks to be a consumer / victim.
The liberals and nats are incompetent these days, just look at the inland rail and snowy 2 project cost. Snowy 2 started at 2 billion + now could go up to 8 billion+
inland rail was around 4 billion + now could runout at around 14 billion. They seem to just thro in low figures to get these projects started the run away when real costs come out. This is not saying labour doesn't do the same thing. Look at vic rail system.
There’s shit everywhere JV. If you think the LNP are infallible I suggest you move to Sydney for a while.
If you think the LNP are infallible
I didn't say they were…
But Dan is beyond anything else.
It’s a thread about the libs.
I read it as a thread about selling public assets…
That is Dan's ultimate goal, so can't leave him out of the discussion.
@Ghost47: Exactly. It’s like the liberals are saints in this country. For crying out loud. Stop reading Murdock or nine. The libs aren’t perfect.
It’s like the liberals are saints in this country.
LOL… I think you are referring to the far right.
Keating and Hawke started privatisation in this country…
@jv: Speaking of the libs, remind us who signed the contract for the billion dollar road that got cancelled, immediately before the lib state gov went into caretaker mode?
Imagine sending vulnerable people debt notices for debts that didn’t occur which resulted in people killing themselves. Imagine telling those people we will hunt you down and jail you. Imagine the party leaking stories with personal information to friendly right wing media to cover their own backside. Was it 1.8 billion in compensation paid? Was it 2000 plus people that died?
When the same party overpaid job keeper by 40 billion dollars. What did they say? Nothing to see here.
Imagine sending vulnerable people debt notices for debts that didn’t occur which resulted in people killing themselves.
Terrible.
What is worse now though is that the suicide rate over this last year has increased and is now at a historical high?
But I guess you don't care about that…
@jv: Robodebt ended in 2019. What’s the current suicide rate got to do with it? Trying to distract from liberal party failures isn’t going to work.
Very sorry to anyone who has lost someone to suicide for any reason.
I won’t be replying to your nonsense anymore.
which resulted in people killing themselve
Not this garbage again.
Was it 2000 plus people that died?
Citation required.
@barghunt1: Imagine actually believing that.
Please educate yourself and use a bit of common sense before believing random garbage.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13056008/redir
Follow that, I have listed suicide deaths per year. Spoiler alert - There is no change in suicide deaths.
@brendanm: hi brendanm, trying to understand your point of view here. you're disagreeing that people have killed themselves as a result of the robodebt scheme. but do you agree though that the robodebt scheme was wrong and used faulty methods to recoup debts that sometimes didn't exist?
@[Deactivated]: I don't think it's that difficult to decipher? I didn't say anything at all about the robodebt scheme itself, I have commented only on the suicides that were reported falsely , and then vomited up by people ad nauseum, even though it would nearly double our national suicide death count, and be absolutely blindingly obvious if there was any semblance of truth to it whatsoever.
@brendanm: i mean, it was a yes or no question. you already gave you opinion on the suicides, but what of the scheme itself?
@brendanm: You need to educate yourself.
People did kill themself due to robodebt.
2000 plus people died from robodebt. No one including myself has said all those were suicides. It has been reported that people developed other health issues for example due to extreme stress caused by robodebt which caused them to die.
Anyone who wants to sit there and deny the harm and deaths caused by robodebt to make excuses for the liberal party isn’t worth replying to.
I remember the endless reporting when a few people died during the home insulation scheme which was sad. The silence from the media is defeaning when thousands dead or alive were harmed by robodebt.
@barghunt1: No one died from being told they owe a grand. There are no stats which show anyone died. It is a load of crap. Just for the record, I am not a liberal party fan.
@brendanm: Some people were told they owed a lot more than a grand.
You're really playing it down, it caused a wealth of undue stress. 1.8+ Billion in compensation is not a small sum.
Also, even just 1 suicide over that is more than what should have been.
Good for you if you don't know anyone who was personally affected by it, you're coming off as a complete douche to those that have.
@A-mak: No, I'm coming off as someone who can tell bullshit from reality. Saying 2000 people died from it just makes the whole thing look like a farce.
The thing is jv, Dan and co are building assets that will be publicly owned and not farmed out to a bunch of industry fat cats who fund the lib party.
Dan and co are building assets that will be publicly owned
Inefficiently and not disclosing how they selected them. Either for political reasons or possibly conflict of interest/kickbacks involved. Tax payer ends up losing.
Out of interest did you actually think we should of built the east west link?
It was an election promise not to build it, the Lib government at the time knew Labor's position leading into that election, they even had legal challenges against building it but then on the eve of the election before caretaker conventions they signed the contract to build it knowing not a shovel of dirt or know tangible progress would be made on the road in that time except to lock Victorian tax payers into a contract.
Now it didn't cost us a billion not to build the road because we sold the properties back to the market acquired for the project so end payment was $527 million, sounds a lot right. But the project was going to cost $22.8 billion. So in other words we paid less than 3% of the project costs to not build the road. When you consider the cost benefit analysis was 80c to the dollar then tax payers saved considerable money by not going ahead with the project. To go ahead with the road would have been sunk cost fallacy.
the cost benefit analysis was 80c to the dollar
Rubbish.
Fake, made up numbers by Dan and his cronies.
@jv: You might want to do some research their champ.
They were the Lib governments figures that they kept confidential during their period of government. Lib government never released a business case for the EWL. They arrived at a 1.4 CBA by throwing in several other projects (West Gate widening etc) to hedge the terrible investment the EWL was.
You can look at the facts or u can put your hands in your ears and take the Fake news route
Imagine signing a contract with a billion dollar out clause in it two months before an election without releasing the spending, only for it to turn out to return 45c in value for every dollar spent (which would be a shortfall of over $8b). Not to mention tax payers would shell out $200m a year on top of tolls once it was built.
You need to learn about sunk costs. A bad idea doesn’t become a good one because you spent a pile of money on it.
A bad idea doesn’t become a good one because you spent a pile of money on it.
correct…
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/west-gate-tunnel…
@jv: Again you don’t understand sunk costs. The Westgate bridge will deliver a significant financial improvement, unlike the east west link. We cannot get back the money spent and the money to finish it will still be worth it so it should go ahead.
Blowouts are bad management, sure, but that doesn’t make a good idea a bad one. It is a necessary upgrade with an actual view to improving traffic on an incredibly overused bridge, not win the liberal party votes.
The Westgate bridge will deliver a significant financial improvement
No it wont, there are much better uses for that money.
It is a huge waste and burden for tax payers.
@jv: Sorry, I forgot that it’s being delivered by Dan Andrews therefore it’s automatically bad.
You complain the Labor government doesn’t release spending figures but when you do they’re all lies. What exactly would convince you?
You complain the Labor government doesn’t release spending figures
Didn't say that.
I said how they decided which level crossing to prioritise and why. Why is that a secret? The answer is obvious, just like the red shirt theft of public money.
There you go.
They doesn't state how they came to prioritise the crossings and Dan is fighting not to release the information. I wonder why?
@jv: Amazing how your opinions seem to be formed not by the history of the project, but by what you read in the Murdoch press just a few days ago.
There has already been an audit on the decision making back in 2017, 32 of the original 50 were chosen because of the paper I linked to, they were classed as dangerous. Only 4 were seen as not particularly high priority yet done anyway.
The article was idiotic, by the way. Angry old man was complaining that removing one crossing would block the removal of two others. All three crossings are in safe Labor seats, the idea they were pork barrelling doesn't make any sense because it's not clear who they were supporting. The one removed, Buckley St, saw the boom gates closed 58% of the time in the morning. It wasn't as dangerous but it was incredibly annoying.
There has already been an audit on the decision making back in 2017
So why not release the information? What are they afraid of?
A bit like Dan not releasing his phone records for investigation.
@jv: It's the same "why not release the information? What are they afraid of?" logic that sent the US into a tizzy, was my point.
Anyway, I know you're a Liberal stooge. The other thing that will convince me otherwise is if you release all your emails and phone records to show you've never had contact with the Liberal party. Until then, you're obviously guilty of something.
that sent the US into a tizzy
I don't really care what they do in the US. Don't visit there anymore.
ALL gov projects go over time & budget. Which is exactly why I don't get why people STILL want gov to own/run many important things. Some yes, but Esp tech, gov has always been 20yrs behind mainstream in tech, and ppl want NBN (which effectively banned priv companies building their own h.speed networks)?
Compare to Japan, they had 100Mbps 20 years ago. Their bus stops had more accurate info on how far away the next bus was 25yrs ago.
Not just Libs. Remember that Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank were sold by Labor, as well as Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL).
CSL is now one of the most valuable corporation listed on Australia’s stock exchange, with a market capitalization of $140 billion. In 1993, Paul Keating sold it for $299 million — roughly half a billion dollars in today’s money.
cant complain
i have made good money off that one
Wait…. you mean all politicians are corrupt? /s
CSL could have been a Telstra at the hands of the government
Commonwealth bank could be like the State Bank of Victoria in the hands of the government
Why Do The Libs Like Selling Public Assets
Who started privatisation in Australia by selling the CBA bank in 1991?
and also tried to sell the Royal Australian Mint
Who sold off Qantas ?
Daniel Andrews again.
Didn't he try to sell Victoria to the Chinese government a couple of years back….
He should have been like Jeff Kennett and take over Tasmania and South Australia to form a super state. (Probably dropped the idea when faced with the prospect of ending up with Port Power.)
Yep, until Libs put a stop to it, thank f***!
They tend to do 99 year leases. VicRoads also getting sold off. Melbourne Water probably will one day.
Is there anywhere where privatization has benefited the general public? Wouldnt be many
where privatization has benefited the general public?
yep, most of the time…
Yeah there are heaps of examples… Oh wait.
Care to enlighten us to the sky news pitch jv?
dunno, i don't watch sky news. do you?
It’s greatly benefited those Sydney folk who love paying tolls.
Does that count? 😉
Damn it where's Diji1 when you need him?
I miss his epic Liberal/Labour rants, especially when they had absolutely nothing to do with the topic/comment he was replying to.
It's like he had a political version of Tourette's Syndrome.
The greens will fix it all.
This is the way
How else would an incompetent LNP member get a do nothing overpaid job a billion dollar corporation?
Because it’s easy to do, and it helps their mates.
God bless WA and Marky Mcgowan.
We almost sold off our Port, thank god we didnt'
We don't have any tolls
We have a semi-decent public transport system which is capped at $5 fares.
The liberals were even trying to privatise our energy which thankfully we didn't.
As much as i hate government inefficiency i do like having cheaper power, public transport and no tolls.
Inb4 - BuT It'S PeRTh
Oh yeah, and we're running at a surplus and sending a fair bit of GST over east.
This is where the Liberals being the "best money managers" argument falls over.
i do like having cheaper power, public transport and no tolls.
they're not really cheaper though
Well
They are heavily subsidised by the mining industry
That's right, you are spending public money (inefficiently) that could be spent elsewhere or used to reduce debt.
@jv: But we're already at record low debt and its being reduced daily. Unlike nsw and vic
I'd debate that running a public transport system is a core government provision and drastically reduces the number of cars on the road and enables transport for the lower socioeconomic class
But we're already at record low debt and its being reduced daily.
Good time to build some good public assets then…
A new hospital.
Improve schools.
A better footy ground.
@jv: Already building all of the above ;)
Not an issue as we dont have a massive infrastructure strain as our population is largely in check
Already building all of the above ;)
You're lucky you have a lot of private companies paying for this.
Dan is getting rid of the private companies, so he's cutting off his nose to spite his face.
@jv: It's called tax.
Every state gets a certain budget, and their government gets to spend it accordingly.
It's not WA's fault they're in a prosperous position and have effective financial governance :)
NSW dug themselves a hole the day they sold out to Transurban.
Not living in WA, but the overall take away here IMO is that WA lives within its means and some other States don’t. So they WA are currently in the position of not wanting to sell bits of the farm to service debt.
They need to pay for the hundreds of Billions worth of American/AUKUS nuclear submarines they signed for in the last days of the Feb Libs in power, instead of funding healthcare and education to ensure Australians access to free universal healthcare/equitable education.
Don't forget the billions they paid the French for burning the contract ;)
Peter Dutton really Peter Dutton'd Australia.
Look at the budget spend - the current welfare spend dwarfs pretty well any other single item apart from health. Defence it tiny in comparison.
With record employment levels I would love to see welfare cut to the wilfully unemployed - and put directly into education. Would help make this nation.
If you are going to look at numbers, at least look at them properly.
Do you realise that over 90% of welfare spending is on payments other than unemployment benefits - aged pension, disablity support, family and child payments etc.?
Dole bludgers makes a better Murdoch headline though.
Agreed, American investment in Murdoch media has paid off dividends already, look at the hundreds of billions(!) in decades long AUKUS submarines contract we have been locked into which benefits the American economy.
All these while the Fed government are wrangling over a few billions more to fund social housing and emergency departments properly. Interesting to note even mainstream media like ABC doesn't report this obvious big gap in future funding.
And now instead of funding veteran's healthcare properly, the LNP decided to allocate hundreds of billions over decades to buy US submarines. Is the LNP aligned with American rather than Australian interests?
Clinic asks veterans to pay for treatment, saying white card funding too low
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-15/act-gp-refuses-vetera…
Thankfully you don't need to be an educated economist to realise selling off public critical infrastructure is a terrible decision. This is not the 1980's, where Govt depts were lumbering, incredibly poorly run monoliths that the sleek private sector could outcompete and benefit the public on via cheaper costs.
We know thats BS - private sector will only buy if they can make money, ideally lots of it. Look at the rod we've made for our own backs with the electricity infrastructure and there's numerous articles about that pointing out how the general public is rorted on this fiasco the Govt forced us into.
Govts make short term moves to benefit themselves - sell off assets, make splashy moves for their own popularity & gain.
Long term the public will yet again be left at the mercy of businesses looking to recoup their pund of flesh and then some. It's looks bad at first glance as it's a terrible idea - we need to avoid it.
each of the parties has their own preferred method of betraying Australia and looking out for themselves and their mates.
You seem to forget before NBN broadband was basically in the hands of Telstra.
Thanks for the sarcasm. I had a good laugh. I guess the same with NBN.
You don't seem to understand the difference between assets with monopoly characteristics. Power distribution lines and NBN to the point. Nobody going to duplicate power poles or phone trenches to compete. Just like nobody is going to put in new trains to try to compete with Melbourne / Sydney metro where as you can start a Uber like company quite easily.
Back to school for you. If Google ain't giving you results consult ChatGPT.