The National Commission of Audit report was released in Canberra today and like any special interest group I expect newsagents to be asking what’s in this for us, how will we be affected.
It’s the call for flu privatisation of Australia Post that plays closest to our backyard. While I am all for a privatised Australia Post, especially their retail network, the impact would depend on how it’s done. On the retail network, for example, I’d give first right to local newsagents to acquire. But I doubt that will happen.
The Audit Report itself is what you’d expect from economic conservatives. The commission was put together in a highly charged political climate and backed by shrill about a budget crisis that is more fiction than fact in my view.
I think the place to start would be to separate the retail network and the actual postal service. So there would be one entity that owned all the red and yellow post boxes and delivered mail to everyone (including parcels and packages) and handled stamps and express post bags and all that stuff. Then there would be a second entity that handled the retail stores.
Having done that, you could then privatize the retail component and keep the postal service bit in government hands so it can continue to provide the very necessary service it provides without a new private owner forcing prices up or otherwise ruining things.
Mark
I think your question of whats in it for us is an example of the thought proccesses that got the western world into the high debt/deficit budget bind we find ourselves in.The real question is will we as a nation be in a better place in the future as a result of actions taken now.
The only argument Ive heard saying Australia doesn’t have a budget crisis is the line being peddled lately that as Australias government debt as a percentage of GDP is low in comparision to other first world nation (another thing you can thank those nasty conservatives Howard and Costello for) we dont have a problem. The equivalent of me saying my newsagency is going backwards but I dont have to do anything about it because the one in the next town is in a worse financial state. A ridiculous arguement.
Steve, we would be in a better place now had the riches from them mining book not been squandered from the early 1990s through to recent years.
The budget crisis today is fake in my view and according to plenty of economists. Certainly, it is no more real than ten years ago.
I am all for more careful spending by governments of all levels. However, I’d like to see a more equitable approach than the more one sided approach being proposed today. For example, the paid parental leave scheme. I’d cancel this completely and stick with the NDIS scheme.