El Modelo

It’s no secret that sovereign wealth funds bid for state owned commercial enterprises in Australia, such as NSW ports and coal mines. They will do the same with privatised government services.  Late last year an investigation by the Independent revealed that ‘foreign governments are making hundreds of millions of pounds a year in this way running British public services.  With Britain’s energy, transport and utility networks run by companies owned by other European governments, foreign exchequers reap the dividends while UK customers struggle with increasing fares and bills.’

We seem to be heading down the same path, and the details are regularly hidden behind "commercial in confidence" claims even though it's we citizens and taxpayers, through the government that represents us, who are the real party to the transactions.

Unfortunately there is little objective information or analysis available to ordinary Australians to permit us to rationally assess the claims of politicians. The media comes in in fits and starts but essentially follows the 24 hour news cycle in terms of responding to particular statements or announcements.  Labor politicians can't seem to do much better. Academic economists who produce informed and historically revealing critiques of government assertions and policies, including studies of overseas privatisations, aren't widely published and are derided by right wing think tanks and the conservative press. And the agenda that Tony Abbott promised to implement in his speech to the Institute of Public Affairs in 2013 no longer gets a mention, even though it clearly shows the path he is following. 

Without objective critical analysis or informed debate the Washington Consensus principles of fiscal austerity, privatisation and liberalisation are likely to be implemented in Australia.  The economic consequences are likely to be a boon for the wealthy - including overseas "investors" - and increased costs and rising inequality for the ordinary Australian citizen, as overseas experience has shown.