Cost of living crisis revisited

And any skills from the private sector can feasibly be “captured” through competitive tendering, without any need for private ownership or wasteful private finance.

Furthermore - in fields as diverse as health, education, ports, roads, rail, communications - if a PPP fails, governments are held responsible, and they inevitably have to “pick up the pieces”.

In the worst examples government is expected to intervene so as to limit competition and guarantee a market for the private operator.

In the case of transport infrastructure this has involved the closure of roads; and has even assumed generous compensation should transport alternatives (e.g. public transport) be developed.

And the outcome of private infrastructure is similar to that of a “flat tax” - and such a burden is especially onerous for the poor and vulnerable.

The consequence of all this is an inflammation of the broader cost-of-living crisis, and greater burdens upon citizens in their capacity of tax-payers and consumers.

Setting the scene for water privatisation in Victoria

Now, consumers in Victoria are being asked to foot the bill for a massive “PPP” in the form of a desalination plant in Wonthaggi. The project has been estimated at a capital cost of $3.1 billion. Columnist, Ken Davidson, poses the question of how a “desalination plant with water costing six times the cost of dam water compete?”

The answer is simple. Even when the plant provides far more supply than there is demand, consumers will be fleeced in return for “security of supply”. One outcome of the process will be a doubling of the price of water over the next couple of years. And in the face - potentially - of dramatic over-supply: “Victorian taxpayers will be slugged about $550 million a year irrespective of whether the water is used or not.”

Alternatives, such as systematic “grey water harvesting” from showering and laundry, have been ignored, as has the option of a water pipeline from Tasmania.

Treated grey water treatment systems, in particular, can be so effective as to be suitable to wash cars, flush toilets, use in the garden, and use in washing machines.

The pipeline option, meanwhile, is estimated to cost approximately $2 billion to build, and could provide “Melbourne with 350 gigalitres of water a year”. This at a cost of about $300 million a year.

So regardless of environmental concerns, in the case of the desalination plant, the option of the Tasmanian pipeline would prove to be almost twice as cost-effective - without even considering “grey water harvesting”. And surely further subsidisation of “grey water harvesting” must remain a serious option.