Bracks backs outsourcing government

BY CHRIS SLEE

MELBOURNE — As tens of thousands of people linked arms, sang songs, danced jigs and blockaded the World Economic Forum from September 11 to 13, Victorian Labor Premier Steve Bracks was also extremely busy. In between loudly supporting police violence against protesters, Bracks found time to chair a WEF panel discussion titled "Re-engineering the government-business relationship in the new economy".

The panel recommended that government follow the model of the lean and aggressively competitive modern corporation and confine its activities to "core functions" only. For all other functions, it should deal with private contractors.

According to Ray Cassin, writing in the September 17 Sunday Age, "The list of these supposed core functions ... turns out to be very small indeed: defence, diplomacy, monetary policy and fiscal policy". This list excludes everything done by state governments.

Bracks enthusiastically praised the panel's report which, Cassin pointed out, "effectively said this: provision of education is not a core function of government, and neither is provision of basic health care, or public transport, or adequate housing or even, presumably, the maintenance of law and order".

From GLW issue 423