I was informed of a nice piece of material by, surprisingly, THEIR ABC, that dealt with one aspect of the privatisation disaster vin Britain, and it is only the tip of the rubbish dump on this topic. As detailed, there is an ongoing issue of the release of raw sewage into beaches and waterways by private water utilities in the UK. In 2021, there were over 370,000 releases of raw sewage, with one company dumping 21 billon litres into a protected marine area off the south coast of England. This all comes from the UK 1989 decision to sell off its water industry to corporate interests with predictable results: “The nine largest water companies have run up debts of $100 billion while issuing dividends of $125 billion. More than 70 per cent of the industry is owned by foreign hedge funds and private equity houses which have scraped from the country's existing stock of water infrastructure every possible scintilla of value.”
Australia has not gone to this extent yet with its water infrastructure, but the sell-off of public assets by the political leaders to their masters in Big Business has gone on in most other areas, with equally disastrous results. There is a correct sphere of activity for private enterprise, and one for responsible government, based around the idea that some goods are so important to the proper functioning of society that the profit motive, which can lead to corruption and crook dealings, needs to be monitored. But there is also a need for a robust free market to also operate. At present we have the worst of both worlds, with globalist-controlled corporates (who are socialist entities, not the free agents of the capitalism of Adam Smith), and oppressive woke Big Government, based upon Maoism, which is merging with globalist corporates in a new form of Mussolini fascism.