Page 2185 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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that voice of disapproval that we began to hear yesterday in Civic Square.
So what are the recommendations of the Priorities Review Board? I believe that they can be summarised into four - the privatisation of ACT services; the contracting out of public sector activity; severe cuts to public expenditure and services; and the fire sale of ACT Government real estate. By the privatisation of ACT Government services, I do not simply mean the selling off of public enterprises. While I am sure this is on the hidden agenda of corporatisation, what I am also concerned about is something that I believe is far more insidious.
The Government is setting out with a secret agenda of privatising public services such as health and education. They will not say this publicly as they know that it will not be accepted by the people of Canberra. The closure of schools and the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital have much in common. They will both have the same outcome. We are already seeing the impact of the Alliance Government's hospital restructuring proposal - longer waiting lists and the transfer of beds from the public to the private sector. This policy is simply designed to force individuals into private insurance and out of public hospitals. Who will be the losers? Those least well off, stuck with a public health system which under this Government will become increasingly second-rate.
The same applies to the Alliance agenda for public education: starve it of funds, decrease the quality, and force people into private education. The losers will be those who cannot afford private education. The Labor Party supports public education and public health provided equally to all. We do not support the elitist approach of this Government.
Turning to the more general privatisation theme of the report, I would like to make a number of points. It has been proven from Australian and international experience that privatisation in no way assists the recurrent budget. The history of privatisation also brings into doubt claims that it improves efficiency. It certainly has been proven to increase prices and reduce service quality.
I would like to make some comments about the first plank of the Priorities Review Board's privatisation agenda, and that is corporatisation. It is based on the analysis that the private sector is better, therefore the way the private sector does things is better also. This is far too simplistic. It ignores completely the different role of the public sector. Certainly some form of corporate model is appropriate for purely commercial public sector operations like ACTEW. But to corporatise GALA, a regulatory revenue raising body, or ACTION, with its significant public interest activities, must be questioned.
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