1.7 Equity and Social Justice Privatisation and contracting out will result in access and equity issues being marginalised and will impact negatively upon social welfare. When profitability is the key decision-driver, equity and social justice concerns will be displaced by public relations and market share. The socially equitable cross-subsidisation of unprofitable but beneficial services is a characteristic of publicly owned and controlled enterprises. It has no place in the privately owned, profit driven corporation. The Greens consider that our publicly owned assets should remain in community hands.
Privatisation inevitably leads to foreign ownership of our community assets.
International experience suggests that large multinational companies will attempt to construct monopolies or oligopolies. Many assets that are currently the subject of possible privatisation were developed and paid for by previous generations of tax payers and service consumers. The Greens believe that these resources are held in trust by the current generation for future generations of citizens. The Greens question the moral rights of governments to re-direct resources away from the public sector. Under the current taxation regimes in Australia, the most likely disposition of the revenue derived from the sale of assets would be reductions in income tax cuts which would almost certainly advantage high income earners.