Privatisation

The Greens (WA) believe that a strong public sector is essential for a healthy civil society. We support the important role government must play in providing the foundation for an equitable, humane and diverse society. We believe that privatisation can put at risk the equitable and sustainable provision of services.  Privatisations are often bad decisions made on purely economic terms. The Greens (WA) support rigorous, thorough economic evaluation of every proposed privatisation. 

Goals

The Greens (WA) want: 

• natural monopolies and other essential public services under public ownership and to re-establish such ownership as necessary
• the full cost of privatisation to be calculated in assessing whether to privatise state utilities and functions - such calculations would, for example, identify the true costs of stockbrokers and lawyers and other consultants paid in order to effect any sales and compare the loss of dividends/other revenue/capital gains against savings on interest and other savings from debt reduction 

Initiatives

The Greens (WA) will initiate and support legislation and actions that:

Economic Considerations 

• scrutinise claims that the private sector could manage certain government services "more efficiently" and advocate a range of options other than privatisation to effect greater efficiency
• promote "triple bottom line" accounting to include social and environmental accounting in government and government enterprises as well as financial accounting that promotes greater scrutiny when privatisation proposals arise

Social Considerations

• keep natural monopolies and other essential public services under public ownership and re-establish such ownership as necessary
• ensure the level of services in rural and remote communities is, as far as practicable, comparable with those provided in metropolitan areas to ensure the vitality and strength of rural communities and the quality of life in those communities
• support the retention of electricity, water and rail assets in public ownership if there is a possibility that services will decline under privatisation (especially to rural or marginalised communities)
• review the shift to privatisation and market based provision of electric power in the South West System as it is too small for competitive markets to work, and in the context of the high risk of natural gas failure revealed by the Varanus Island failure
• support and empower marginalised rural communities which have suffered a reduction in services, such as the closure of government offices in regional centres, loss of banking facilities and the flow on effects of other business and residents moving out of town
• continue to advocate that public services are of value to all members of the community; everyone holds a stake in publicly owned assets, whereas privatised entities are only owned by those who can afford to buy shares
• scrutinise any potential sale of government assets to ensure it will not lead to a reduction in employment or working conditions for the current employees

Environmental Considerations

• advocate that privatised utilities such as water, electricity and gas can contribute environmental damage by encouraging the increased consumption of these products to increase their profits
• advocate that government owned utilities can more easily adapt to measures such as carbon trading to mitigate climate change than can privately owned ones, especially in the electric power industry

Accountability Considerations

• support legislative changes that ensure that privatised utilities do not subvert legislative or regulative requirements such as planning processes, environmental regulations or taxation liabilities
• warn the public that privatisation of utilities and services means that there is a loss of accountability for service provision due to claims of "commercial in confidence"
• advocate for all government transactions, commitments, privatisations and contracts to be subject to public and Parliamentary review prior to contract signing, ending excessive secrecy and commercial confidentiality
• support legislative measures to increase the openness and accountability of governments, government enterprises and newly privatised enterprises
• expose any deals done by governments when selling assets with insiders such as ex-politicians or ex-public servants who may exploit their inside knowledge, contacts and experience to make excessive profits when buying businesses or contracting to provide services to governments.