Private Public Partnership

Parliament House, Sydney

It's great to see you all here today, because when we decided to hold this forum, we were worried nobody would come.

The trouble was the word "Public-Private Partnerships", or PPPs. It's a very bureaucratic word, a dull word. Your eyes pass over it in a sentence. It sounds harmless - it's a partnership, like people holding hands or getting married. It's hardly a word that would get you out to a public forum in the middle of the city - unlike the word "privatisation"

Privatisation is a word that gets everybody worked up. Economic rationalists start rubbing their hands with glee. The rest of us start painting our placards or writing letters to our local MPs.

That's the joy, and the danger, of language. It can be bent one way or another, to one purpose of another. At the sweep of a spin doctor's pen, a dangerous trend can become a meaningless acronym.

We must always remain alert to these changes in language, because they can mask something that is happening all around us. The private sector is becoming an integral part of Government. But this isn't being accompanied by headlines heralding privatisation.

Instead, we have PPPs - and there are more and more of them in New South Wales and around the world.

· It's pushed by the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

· The World Bank is enthusiastically peddling the idea of PPPs in the health sector to developing countries.

· This includes private units in public hospitals, private clinics, private management, private financing, private construction and old-fashioned sell-offs.

· This helps rich Western companies get a big slice of poor-country markets under the guise of aid and development.

· It also gives them a say in governance issues and more direct lobbying access to those poor-country governments.

· Australia helps these institutions push the privatisation agenda. Of the $1.9 billion Federal aid budget, $255.5 million goes to those organisations.

· Blair's Third Way is a fast track to private companies getting involved in the public sector.

· In 7 years of the Blair Government, over 400 PPPs worth more than 19 billion pounds - well over $45 billion dollars - have been started.

· Cover health, education, defence, transport, information technology, environmental protection and public buildings.

AUSTRALIA - NSW

· When the Airport Rail Link was designed as a PPP, Labor opposed it.

· In NSW, there are many multimillion dollar projects going on, and many more planned.

· They cover housing, schools, prisons, roads, waste technology, hospitals and more - you can find a list on the back of the flyer that brought you here tonight.

THE GREENS AND PPPs

· We believe in fundamental role for public sector - accountable, transparent, and acting in the public interest

· We don't believe private capital, motivated by profit, can be relied on to deliver the best outcome for society at large.

· PPPs are more insidious than privatisation. To join a PPP, a government department must fundamentally reorganise how it thinks and works.

· PPPs force public servants to think like private companies - and that is a dangerous trend.

· While the public sector agencies still exist, PPPs shift the culture and values of those agencies towards a financial, bottom-line focus.

· And too often, PPPs deliver profits and benefits to companies while leaving risks and losses with the taxpayer.

· Other winners are: - investment banks who advise on PPPs - they are also becoming big advocates for more PPPs, and are donating money to the government (investment banks donated $241,200 to the NSW ALP between 1998 and 2001) - government ministers who look like they're cutting costs without cutting services - companies who get influence, access and an inside track on policy - and future contracts.

· The losers are those who end up with lower-quality services that cost more.

· That's because PPPs suffer from escalating costs, high consultancy fees, they're secretive and they cost more to consumers.

· Open government is also a loser, since PPPs are often covered by 'commercial-in-confidence' protections.

· The public service is a loser, as talented bureaucrats are lured to the private sector for higher pay.

ALTERNATIVES TO PPPs

The Greens believe there are other ways to finance infrastructure. I am sure Frank Stilwell will talk about this later tonight, as he has just written a paper for the Greens on debt.

You should pick up a copy of his paper, which is available here tonight. It shows that it's still perfectly possible to use debt, and it's not the economic evil that Treasurers seem to think it is. Frank's new economic thinking is an example of why the Greens are attracting more and more interest from ordinary people.

We are the genuine alternative. Labor and the Liberals both favour privatisation and PPPs - but we will continue to advocate a genuine "third way".

The trouble was the word "Public-Private Partnerships", or PPPs. It's a very bureaucratic word, a dull word. Your eyes pass over it in a sentence. It sounds harmless - it's a partnership, like people holding hands or getting married. It's hardly a word that would get you out to a public forum in the middle of the city - unlike the word "privatisation"

Privatisation is a word that gets everybody worked up. Economic rationalists start rubbing their hands with glee. The rest of us start painting our placards or writing letters to our local MPs.

That's the joy, and the danger, of language. It can be bent one way or another, to one purpose of another. At the sweep of a spin doctor's pen, a dangerous trend can become a meaningless acronym.

We must always remain alert to these changes in language, because they can mask something that is happening all around us. The private sector is becoming an integral part of Government. But this isn't being accompanied by headlines heralding privatisation.

Instead, we have PPPs - and there are more and more of them in New South Wales and around the world.

· It's pushed by the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

· The World Bank is enthusiastically peddling the idea of PPPs in the health sector to developing countries.

· This includes private units in public hospitals, private clinics, private management, private financing, private construction and old-fashioned sell-offs.

· This helps rich Western companies get a big slice of poor-country markets under the guise of aid and development.

· It also gives them a say in governance issues and more direct lobbying access to those poor-country governments.

· Australia helps these institutions push the privatisation agenda. Of the $1.9 billion Federal aid budget, $255.5 million goes to those organisations.

· Blair's Third Way is a fast track to private companies getting involved in the public sector.

· In 7 years of the Blair Government, over 400 PPPs worth more than 19 billion pounds - well over $45 billion dollars - have been started.

· Cover health, education, defence, transport, information technology, environmental protection and public buildings.

AUSTRALIA - NSW

· When the Airport Rail Link was designed as a PPP, Labor opposed it.

· In NSW, there are many multimillion dollar projects going on, and many more planned.

· They cover housing, schools, prisons, roads, waste technology, hospitals and more - you can find a list on the back of the flyer that brought you here tonight.

THE GREENS AND PPPs

· We believe in fundamental role for public sector - accountable, transparent, and acting in the public interest

· We don't believe private capital, motivated by profit, can be relied on to deliver the best outcome for society at large.

· PPPs are more insidious than privatisation. To join a PPP, a government department must fundamentally reorganise how it thinks and works.

· PPPs force public servants to think like private companies - and that is a dangerous trend.

· While the public sector agencies still exist, PPPs shift the culture and values of those agencies towards a financial, bottom-line focus.

· And too often, PPPs deliver profits and benefits to companies while leaving risks and losses with the taxpayer.

· Other winners are: - investment banks who advise on PPPs - they are also becoming big advocates for more PPPs, and are donating money to the government (investment banks donated $241,200 to the NSW ALP between 1998 and 2001) - government ministers who look like they're cutting costs without cutting services - companies who get influence, access and an inside track on policy - and future contracts.

· The losers are those who end up with lower-quality services that cost more.

· That's because PPPs suffer from escalating costs, high consultancy fees, they're secretive and they cost more to consumers.

· Open government is also a loser, since PPPs are often covered by 'commercial-in-confidence' protections.

· The public service is a loser, as talented bureaucrats are lured to the private sector for higher pay.

ALTERNATIVES TO PPPs

The Greens believe there are other ways to finance infrastructure. I am sure Frank Stilwell will talk about this later tonight, as he has just written a paper for the Greens on debt.

You should pick up a copy of his paper, which is available here tonight. It shows that it's still perfectly possible to use debt, and it's not the economic evil that Treasurers seem to think it is. Frank's new economic thinking is an example of why the Greens are attracting more and more interest from ordinary people.

We are the genuine alternative. Labor and the Liberals both favour privatisation and PPPs - but we will continue to advocate a genuine "third way".