We all know that every time a public service is privatized, the costs go up and the service goes down.
And we all know why, because it has to be made securely profitable so that the investors can make loads of cash.
But if these services are, while publically owned, still profitable, if to a lesser extent, why privatize them?

This is where we have been played for the fools we are.
Lobbyists, (faceless ex politicians) are payed an obscene amount of money to represent private interests thereby forging the way for political parties to sell off interests at the expense of the taxpayer, so that private interest can make more and more money.

But its not just selling off public owned business that has these lobbyists chomping at the bit. Other multinational interests have seen the way of using lobbyists to advance their control and market share by conning the less intelligent and easily led (lest I say bribed) politicians to implement laws that guarantee profitability for private interest groups.

Super for example, once was a good thing to be in. Years ago, before compulsory super, super funds had to appeal to people to join and had to have a product that was sufficiently attractive to be worth while. Moving forward, when compulsory super was introduced, super funds no longer had to work so hard, and over time found ways to increase profitability through fees charges and unwanted add ons that cut deeply into super savings.

Medical insurance is another example. When I was first married, I joined a non-compulsory medical fund. I was given 100% of all medical costs back and the fund was still profitable. Then compolsory medical insurance was mandated, first my medical fund informed me that they were no longer "allowed" to give me 100% back, it gradually went from 100% to 80% to 70%, then specific procedures had specific repayments. Now I pay $4000.00 a year and have recently been advised that virtually nothing is covered for my wife's knee replacement.

There are many other examples, third party insurance, privatization of the commonwealth bank, leading to a free for all (or is that a fee for all) banking system where you can actually owe a bank money for leaving money in the bank and that money being eaten away by fees and charges.

No political party should be allowed to sell off public interests, no political party should be allowed to sell off what we, the taxpayer have paid for.

Finally, what sort of moron would sell off a lottery? Its mana from heaven, virtually no overheads, just pure profit, but some moron of biblical proportions has sold off the lottery???????
Or is there another reason, such as perhaps brown paper bags or other favors involved???

We have been conned and played the fool for too long, its time to ask more questions, that is if we are allowed to?

Governments are facing rising medical costs and their solution is to privatize so they no longer bear the responsibility for telling the insured that their medical costs won't be fully refunded.

Plus, governments get a nice lump sum payment from the new owners of the health system.

Its like a divorce between the government and the people where the government gets the lion's share of the communal assets. There is large measure of dishonesty in this situation where the government should be applying the proceeds of health asset sales to the reduction of health costs.

We’ve been played for fools alright and it started with the Hawke Keating government in the early 1980’s that’s when our politicians stopped working for the people of Australia whom they represent and became CEO’s for mutli nationals.
Keating floated our dollar which dropped its value to half that of the greenback, then all these oligarchies just waltzed into our great nation and bought up everything for half price.

They must have thought we were stupid idiots and all their Christmases had come at once.

Why sell the commonwealth bank (CBA) when it was making $5 billion dollars profit per annum back then.

Now when an interest rate cut is past the private banks all moan and only pass on a percentage not to mention all these fees that have creeped in to the system, if the commonwealth bank was still national when the RBA passed on an interest rate cut the CBA would have passed on the cut on to us all verbatim forcing these other leaches to do the same.

Why sell Telstra (Telecom) when it was making $7 billion dollars profit back then. Now they have no cash cows and the only revenue is taxing the good old tax payer once more.

Jeff Kennett here in Victoria privatized everything like his grandpapa had left it all to him as an inheritance, all under the false pretence that competition will make everything cheaper.

BULLSH!T…………………………!!!!!!

Well I have lived under both and I say when all these cash cows were national it was way way better for us all, bring it back any day, rather than having our cash cows the governments and tax payers assets in the hands of a few greedy men.

A few greedy men that have convinced our governments that their multi-national companies don’t have to pay tax here in Australia, that their doing us a favour by being here and providing employment for the people.

If a company has the same legal position as a person then they too are Australian and like all good Aussies shall pay their taxes, they can’t just be a citizen when it suits them.

Our politicians are always telling us that we are a wealthy nation, but hold on a minute who reaps the majority of our wealth again it’s a hand full of greedy men, the oligarchy, our governments get about 6% of the royalties.

In 2012 BHP Billiton made $25 billion dollar profit, if we split it 50-50 they would still be making $12.5 billion dollars profit and our government would get the other half, if they don’t like it they can fock off and our government can take over and get 100% of the profits.

If our governments still owned all these cash cows that they have been privatizing over the last 35 years or so including our wealth in mines and oil and gas, we probably wouldn’t need to pay personal tax, our pensioners could be living of the top shelf, our roads, education and health systems would be the best in the world, and services would much better than they are now.

The biggest enemy the middle class faces today is globalization and free trade, not only does the oligarchy reap all the benefits of Australia’s cash cows, but now they are exporting our jobs off shore and when it’s time to build in Australia they want to import a foreign slave labour force that works for a bowl of rice and sleeps in sardine cans, all with the blessing of our politicians.

Our politicians who pass laws that don’t affect them, when they retire they have a salary for life all funded by us the tax payers, they don’t care if petrol goes over $2/litre, they will live like kings.

It’s time we took a stance otherwise we to will become like that foreign slave labour force.

Agree 100% with all said so far....