Privatisation is not a panacea

The simplistic view, that public services should be privatised when there are problems, needs to be rejected.

If there are management problems with public transport the answer is to improve the management and increase public investment in equipment, staff, training and maintenance.

A large, integrated service providing benefits for all citizens and organisations, public and private, at reasonable prices, the product of public investment and experience over a long period of time, is a collectively owned asset that should remain in public hands.

The unspeakable rail chaos in the UK after privatisation, with three different companies doing their uncoordinated own thing, may serve as an example of simplistic ideological justifications gone wrong.

In Australia, privatised airports and the power industry are moving in the same direction.

Some major public services are plainly unsuited to privatisation.

It is not at all a panacea for all problems.

It seems that Australia needs to learn that the hard way considering that voters apparently now support Telstra's T3 - or so the Howard Government claims.

Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach