Justice, Opportunity and Shared Wealth for all South Australians

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Privatisation of Public Services

The SACOSS submission to the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into Privatisation of Public Services in South Australia focuses on the impact of privatisation on income and wealth inequality. It argues that inequality will be increased where service outsourcing is based on lower labour costs outside of government, or where the rate of return to capital from privatised services is greater than the rate of economic growth, or where the pattern of consumption of a privatised good or service is more regressive than the state tax base. This is not always or necessarily the case with privatisation, but even though the some of the analysis is tentative with many caveats, the main argument is that these are key questions which should be asked about any privatisation.

The SACOSS submission uses the privatisation of the South Australian electricity network as a key exemplar of these issues, and in a supplementary submission and evidence to the Committee we applied the analysis to the privatisation of public housing and land.

Download:

SACOSS Submission on Privatisation of Public Services in South Australia

SACOSS Supplementary Submission on Privatisation of Public Housing

 

Published Date: 
Thursday, 15 July 2021