Selling the future

BY ALISON DELLIT

During the 1990s, successive Australian federal and state governments sold public assets worth a total of $85 billion — equal to the combined size of the Western Australian and Queensland economies. Australia's privatisation program, one of the most rapid in the world, was second, in value, to Britain's and, relative to GDP, to New Zealand's.

The "jewels" in the privatisation crown were banking (the Commonwealth Bank and most state banks), telecommunications (Telstra), and transport (Qantas, Australian Airlines, Australian National rail services and 11 airports).

Privatised companies now account for 10% of the capitalisation of the Australian share market. According to economists Bob Walker and Betty Con Walker, the privatisations of Telstra, Qantas, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, Tabcorp (Victoria), TAB (NSW) and BankWest (Western Australia) were so underpriced that they amounted to the giving away of $48 billion of public wealth to private shareholders.

From 1990 to 2000, according to the Australian Council of Trade Unions' Richard Marles, workers' share of national income dropped from 61% to 54%, while profit's rose from 17% to 24%.

From Green Left Weekly, March 13, 2002.

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From GLW issue 484