And another example this time from across the political divide. 10 years earlier, in 1992 Prime Minister Paul Keating sold Australian Airlines (formerly known as TAA) - and itself half a monopoly - to Qantas and created an even more concentrated aviation market. Good job Paul!
In time Qantas took advantage, exploiting its market power vigorously in the period after the financial crash of Ansett,and before Virgin Blue(as it was then known) established itself as a competitor.
From a consumer's point of view, both sales (the airport and the airline) resulted in a loss of public assets and both resulted in consumers paying more as prices, like airplanes and hot air balloons only went up, up and away.
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And they say history doesn't repeat itself.
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