privatisation

Categories under privatisation

Public Private Partnerships (42)

You know your policy sucks when…

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 9th, 2010 - 21 comments

Even Guyon Espiner is concerned about the lack of quality analysis and policy design. If the government were serious about helping families in need it’s priority would be getting people back into work and better pay and conditions for low income workers. The fact that is has gone with this Whanau Ora nonsense shows it has no real intention of tackling the causes of this country’s social ills.

Whanau Ora minister, Foreshore sell-out

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:25 am, April 9th, 2010 - 13 comments

Maori activists who want a better deal on the foreshore and seabed can rest assured that the Maori Party is about to sell them out. Tariana Turia just got herself a shiny new portfolio as Minister for Whanau Ora, whatever it is. Do you really think she’s going to give up a control over a policy that National has agreed to just for her? Do you really think she’ll stand strong on her principles over the foreshore and seabed if it means losing the Crown limo?

Whanau Ora report unacceptably poor

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:42 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 41 comments

The Whanau Ora Taskforce report is out and it fails to even attempt to answer simple questions like ‘why is Whanau Ora the best way to help families’. It provides no evidence it will work. Check out the graphic to the right – what does it even mean? All we do know is Whanau Ora will put public money in unaccountable private hands and be privatisation by stealth.

Hide to speak at privatisation conference

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:42 am, April 6th, 2010 - 23 comments

Last year, Rodney Hide said that John Key is a ‘do nothing’ prime minister, and his fellow ministers were lazy and didn’t pay attention what his was up to. Well, they might like to pay attention now: Hide is keynote speaker at a conference on local government later this month where water privatisation is the highlight of the agenda. Does Key support Hide’s push for water privatisation?

Fabian seminar gets big tick

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 8:00 pm, March 18th, 2010 - 19 comments

The first Fabian Society seminar in Auckland last weekend attracted a good crowd watch an participate as some of New Zealand’s top economic thinkers debated how to get the economy working for us. It has been judged a huge success. The next seminars will be in Wellington on Sunday 28 March and in Christchurch on 18 April.

Privatising national parks

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:55 am, March 2nd, 2010 - 16 comments

Over at Pundit Claire Browning points out that the National government is trying to get away with a huge con. They promised not to privatise state assets (in their first term), but now they are effectively privatising the biggest asset of them all…

Telecom XT

Written By: r0b - Date published: 2:39 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 41 comments

The heart of the telecom XT network?

Seriously though, when the 111 call system fails, lives are at risk…

Privatisation failures: Telecom

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:01 am, January 28th, 2010 - 28 comments

If Telecom were an SOE there would be cries to privatise it. These repeated crashes of XT simply aren’t good enough. Just the latest in a litany of failures since it was sold. Fact is, we should haven’t sold Telecom in the first place. Just needed to start running it properly. Now, we’re sending profits overseas […]

‘3 strikes’, typical ‘Do Nothing’ Key policy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:08 am, January 20th, 2010 - 90 comments

The ‘3 strikes’ policy is the kind of policy you put in place when you want to look tough on crime but you have no idea how to actually reduce it, in the same way a cycleway is the jobs plan you have when you don’t have a plan. We know locking people up longer doesn’t […]

Whanau Ora: privatisation by stealth

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:01 am, December 21st, 2009 - 23 comments

The government is beginning to explain more about its Whanau Ora plan, although it is still startlingly vague considering we’re talking a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars a year. The idea seems to be to get more money that is currently spent by social welfare departments passed on to private community groups, who will supposedly […]

Right’s privatisation arguments rubbish

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 3:05 pm, December 20th, 2009 - 152 comments

As a senior economist at a respected company, John Carran wrote some apallingly simplistic tripe in his article, “Exorcising the asset sale bogey“, Dominion Post, 19 Dec. It is as if the programme of privatisation in the late 1980s and 1990s never happened, and we have learnt nothing from those experiences and subsequent socio-economic consequences. […]

Capital market taskforce pushes asset sales scam

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 16th, 2009 - 47 comments

Another government-appointed taskforce of rightwing, market ideologues (this time appointed by Labour, the fools) has reported and, surprise, surprise, their report is a rightwing prescription without any supporting argument that it would be good for the country. The headline recommendation of the Capital Market Development Taskforce is that the government sell shares in SOEs. The […]

Brown picks up momentum

Written By: Sam Cash - Date published: 4:20 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 29 comments

It’s interesting to look at the trend behind the headline 11 point poll lead Len Brown has opened up over John Banks as reported in today’s Herald. In April Brown was only rated as preferred mayor by 6% of Aucklanders verse 17% for Banks. A head-to-head poll in late July put him one point ahead […]

ACC levy hikes another step to privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:40 am, December 11th, 2009 - 79 comments

As expected, Nick Smith has imposed substantial ACC levy hikes on families. For a worker on $40,000 with a car, you’re looking at $150 more a year. I would say that would take a large bite out of most people’s tax cuts but the fact is most people didn’t get a tax cut from National. […]

Privatising water

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:30 am, November 11th, 2009 - 21 comments

Although the topic has had a turbulent and confused couple of weeks, it seems that National want to privatise Auckland’s water supply. Govt contradicts itself on water privatisation Press Release: Green Party 29 October 2009 Statements from the Government on the issue of water privatisation are confusing and contradictory and give no assurance to the […]

Granny’s waterworks

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 2nd, 2009 - 17 comments

I think Granny Herald must have shares in Infratil, based on her rubbish editorial today: Particular fervour is reserved for private-sector participation in this sector, perhaps because water is one of life’s necessities. Rarely is it conceded that, in reality, it occupies the same utility bag as electricity, which in this country and elsewhere has […]

The best dividend is POWER!

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:51 am, October 30th, 2009 - 18 comments

At this point it seems a bit pointless coming to work this morning. I’m sitting in a dark office with the cheeping of UPS’s (uninterruptible power supplies) and ozone as the batteries discharge keeping servers alive. The entire crew are sitting around waiting for the power to come back on, like large number of people […]

Remember who they’re fighting for

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:30 am, October 28th, 2009 - Comments Off on Remember who they’re fighting for

This memo was sent by the Insurance Council to its members in 2005 but it may as well have been sent this week. Because as sure as National was keeping its agenda secret and having clandestine talks with the insurers about privatising ACC in 2005 they will be having the same talks under wraps while […]

Labour stands up for ACC

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:02 am, October 24th, 2009 - 14 comments

So – Labour have stood up for ACC. Bravo! History repeats. In the last year of the last National government (1999) they flogged off the profitable parts of ACC cover to their mates in the insurance industry (“opened ACC to competition”). The incoming Labour government reversed those changes and re-instated ACC as the sole provider […]

National announces ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:26 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 59 comments

National is going to privatise ACC. As part of the deal for support on its ACC cuts and levy hikes from the Maori Party and ACT, it will be privatising ACC’s Work Account (the part paid by employers for workplace accidents). First, there will be a perfunctory report provided by the ACC Stocktake Group, a […]

Maori Party supports foreign business over working Maori

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:55 am, October 21st, 2009 - 26 comments

It is a reflection of the schizophrenic nature of the Maori Party that one day they’re professing to care about poor Maori who are apparently missing out on their ACC entitlements and the next day they’re backing privatisation of ACC, which would lead to even worse outcomes for those Maori, because it might be a […]

Big bucks for Aussie insurers in ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:30 am, October 20th, 2009 - 9 comments

It seems certain National will begin the privatisation of ACC starting with opening the work account to private competition. As happened in 1998, private insurers will cream off large and low-risk employers with loss-leading special deals to gain market share, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden of the rest, and put up premiums later. […]

Told you so: Right pushes ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 19th, 2009 - 57 comments

Last Thursday, Colin Espiner was mocking all of us who said that National and other rightwing groups were trying to create a sense of crisis around ACC to soften us up for privatisation: “That somehow this is all just a VRWC* to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to […]

Woodhouse: ACC not in crisis

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:23 am, October 19th, 2009 - 13 comments

A fascinating interview with the Sir Owen Woodhouse in the Herald today. Sir Owen has led an amazing life – after helping supply Yugoslav partisans fighting the Nazis, he rose through the ranks of our judiciary becoming a Privy Councillor and President of the Court of Appeal, and is still going strong at 93. His most enduring achievement, […]

Spin-busting: ACC rises and cuts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:45 pm, October 15th, 2009 - 38 comments

The Herald’s editorial today largely reads like it was written by Nick Smith and John Judge, so let’s use it as the basis for some spin-busting (my source is the ACC annual report unless otherwise mentioned): opponents say any change would be a prelude to privatisation. Yet all this exaggeration could not disguise the fact […]

The Independent on National’s ACC agenda

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:26 am, October 15th, 2009 - 5 comments

Very good editorial on ACC in The Independent today. The article’s offline, but it’s quite clear about why the Government is trying to manufacture a crisis over the financial position of ACC: ACC currently collects sufficient levies to meet each year’s claims – it has levy revenue of $4.1b in the 2009 June year, compared […]

We still pay, ACC or no ACC

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:01 am, October 13th, 2009 - 25 comments

Labour’s David Parker has been a bit slow reacting to National’s latest attack on ACC but now he’s in play he has a killer point to make: if ACC cover is cut, the costs of what was paid for by ACC will still have to be paid for by society somehow. The treatments and lost […]

First, manufacture a crisis…

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, October 12th, 2009 - 49 comments

The first thing you need to understand is ACC is not spending more money than it is taking in through levies. It is not going bust. It is not ‘making a loss’ despite what Nick Smith writes and the media faithfully repeats, but, then, they got taken in by this same trick six months ago. […]

A leopard doesn’t change his spots

Written By: Sam Cash - Date published: 3:00 pm, October 6th, 2009 - 23 comments

There is a very revealing quote from John Banks in the weekend’s Dominion Post where he talks about his campaign strategy: Uptown, Auckland Mayor John Banks, a former police minister and radio talkback host, is doing his best to soften his public image. “If I wear my policy on my sleeve, I won’t get elected. […]

Electrical storm

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:27 pm, August 13th, 2009 - 40 comments

Breaking up the old Electricity Corporation into a bunch of artificially competing companies has been a 15-year failure. They’ve poured heaps of money into competing with each other (despite mostly being owned by the same people, us), they’ve under invested, and prices have gone up fast. What’s National’s solution to this failed National experiment (which […]

Those who do not learn

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 4:20 pm, August 11th, 2009 - 15 comments

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. National has learned nothing from the failure of the neoliberal policies of the late 80s / early 90s (when gaps in growth and income opened up with Australia). So they are gearing up to repeat them: [English] and other ministers’ utter single-mindedness of […]