Privatisation is now going through a reckoning. Qantas is one case study. A business that should have public responsibilities was allowed to renounce them. Anthony Albanese said last month that he probably wouldn’t have sold off the Commonwealth Bank, a process that began in 1991 under Keating.
Privatisation became a dirty word in Australia around decade ago. It was a reason for the 2015 rejection of the Campbell Newman government in Queensland. The pendulum has started swinging back. Last year, Victoria’s Daniel Andrews returned electricity supply to public ownership.Yet the problem is not necessarily privatisation. Or socialisation. The problem is establishing a sensible balance of responsibilities. It’s about governance, not ideology.
The nation would establish the infrastructure, be repaid its investment, and the private sector ultimately would own and operate it. Of course, the Abbott government, opposed ideologically and politically, eviscerated it, left the copper wires in place and Australia’s half-arsed internet system is the result.
This is where the Albanese governance is headed now with Qantas. It’s not proposing to re-nationalise the airline. In launching a discussion paper this week on how to make the aviation sector more competitive, Catherine King floated the idea of imposing a charter of consumer rights on Qantas. Alan Joyce need not be an argument against privatisation, just a case study in poor governance structure.