Upon the election of an Abbott Liberal Government it is almost guaranteed that Tony Abbott will 'discover' the national finances to be in a far worse state than he now claims he believes them to be.

Consider the precedent where, because of the so-called "Beazley Black hole" Howard assumed, in 1996, a right to massively cut social spending, never knowingly given to him by Australian electors.

Without obtaining the prior mandate of the electorate, successive Australian governments have been seeking to establish a water-market in this country. For as long as the people of Australia are required to “buy-back” the nation’s water, especially during times of crisis, they will have no water security. Bidding-wars, as currently being waged by Senators Wong and Joyce, are now an unattractive and dangerous feature of Australian water policy: profits arising will be privatised but the impacts will be borne by the Australian public. The electorate of this country must be given the opportunity to indicate whether it wishes its water to be privatised and exposed to global speculation - or protected for future generations of Australians.

So many of our manufacturing industries have disappeared overseas, that opportunities for training and apprenticeships are limited, despite the provisions of vocational training at TAFES.
Why should we be having an immigration program to address skill shortages when we should be developing a better educational and training framework that produces and exports our own skilled workforce?

On Saturday 10 April, at a Brisbane anti-privatisation forum held by Search Foundation, the Secretary of the Queensland branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), an avowedly hard-line anti-privatisation union, revealed his view that the fight against the Bligh Government's fire sale was lost.

What you can do: If you are a member of a union affected by privatisation, particularly a member of the ETU, contact your union and demand that meetings be called so that this question be decided democratically by the membership. See also: "If the unions get off their knees, privatisation can be stopped!" of 4 May 10, Queensland Not For Sale - the Qld Council of Union's anti-privatisation web site, "Time for the B team" of 11 Apr 10 on johnquiggin.com and "Explaining Bligh’s privatisation push: Search Foundation forum" also of 11 Apr 10 on larvatusprodeo.net.

Updates, 2 May 10: Branch secretary claims ETU misrepresented by article and my response and a further response by Tony Reeves; Motion carried unanimously by meeting of AMWU members in Redbank Railway workshops in June 2009 calling for industrial action to defeat privatisation.

In the March 2009 Queensland elections, called early and conveniently before the Auditor General's damning reports on Health and Transport, Labor clung to power by concealing the likely privatisation of publicly owned assets and promising to maintain the state fuel subsidy. Regaining office, the fuel subsidy went, charges for registration and public transport rocketed and a $15 billion public asset fire sale was announced - although opposed by 79% of the Queensland public.

This is not democracy. This is not honest. It is not even polite. Help create a ground-swell by signing the e-petition calling for a new election. Not sure? Read why in this article.

Originally published: 8 Jan 10. Updated and revised: 12 Jan 10.
See also: "Anti-privatisation candidate confronts Queensland Treasurer" of 2 Jan 09, Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections of 17 Feb 09.

James Sinnamon debates Andrew Fraser on Privatisation and government encouragement of overpopulation in Queensland, proposing alternatives - Film. Filmed on Sunday, 30 November. Lasts 21 minutes. In three films on You-tube - links inside this article. 2nd & 3rd film of most interest. Please pass round to your Queensland contacts, but, since privatisation is coming up in other States again - notably in Victoria - this should interest people outside Queensland. See film inside

See also: "Courier Mail spins news of 79% opposition to fire sale to reveal its privatisation colours" of 11 Dec 09, "Queensland Rail workers strike against theft of public assets" of 9 Dec 09, "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09, "Media contempt for facts in NSW electricity privatisation debate" of 28 Sep 08. Why I am contesting the Queensland Elections, E-petition to Qld Parliament,"Call for immediate resignation of the Queensland government and new elections," on grounds of not consulting public on privatisation.
Update: Letter of 31 July 09 to Andrew Fraser, included as Appendix 1 (12 Dec 09), Full transcript, Table of Contents, etc. added (2 Jan 10).

Many Queenslanders, appalled at their state Government's blatant disregard for their wishes not to sell AU$15billion of worth of publicly owned assets, actually look to Rupert Murdoch's Courier-Mail newspaper to stand up to what has to be amongst the most inept and despotic of state governments in Australia's history. However, the dishonest spin encompassed in the title of the story "Asset Sale Anger on the wane"₁, together with the sub-heading "Christmas boost for Bligh", reveals that newspaper's true colours on that issue.

Update, 10 Dec 09: The Australian endorses Bligh Government's disregard of the will of 79% of Queenslanders
Further update, 11 Dec 09: The Courier-Mail changes tack from weasel pro-privatisation arguments to outright support for privatisation.

See also: "Queensland Rail workers strike against theft of public assets" of 9 Dec 09, "Media contempt for facts in NSW electricity privatisation debate" of 28 Sep 08.

The Queensland Government's $15 billion asset fire sale is but the latest salvo in a long undeclared war that it has been waging on trade unionists together with the rest of the Queensland public for years. With the strike by 1,300 Queensland Rail workshop employees against the fire sale, it is finally getting a taste of its own medicine.

Update, 11 Dec 09: A Brisbane Times poll question "Do you support rail workers decision to strike against the Queensland Government asset sell-off?" had 68% of respondents voting 'yes'.

Grounds are that the government failed to inform people during the last Queensland State elections of their intentions to privatise Queensland assets to the value of $15billion.

If you are a Queensland resident and Australian citizen, please sign the petition.

Tell Anna Bligh to get her hands off OUR public assets!

Time/Date: 4:30-6pm, Tues Nov 10
Meet Outside State Parliament, Cnr George & Alice Sts, City

See also saveourpublicassets.org and online discussion forums: "Out of the mainstream" of 7 Nov 09 and "Bligh’s bad arguments for privatisation" of 29 Oct 09 on johnquiggin.com, "Quiggin on Bligh’s arguments for privatisation" of   09 on Larvatus Prodeo.

As the English-speaking countries watch their governments transfer public assets and power to the private sector, eroding democracy, the people of France, have, once again, stood up to their government and mounted a massive resistance to privatisation. The Left in France, unlike the Left in Australia has simply not caved in on this and the Unions have retained their integrity in this matter.

In an article in the Christian Science Monitor Joseph Chamie, former director of the population division of the United Nations labels the notion that population growth is a boon for prosperity as "Ponzi Demography". In Australia, confirmation of this has come from none other than the population-growth-pushing and public asset fire saleswoman, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

See also: "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" of 24 Jan 09 republished on Online Opinion, "Is population growth a Ponzi scheme?" in the Christian Science Monitor of 17 Aug 09 by David R. Franks.

Victoria's Water Minister, Tim Holding, is angry that his government's regulations to allow country water to be funnelled to Melbourne via a north-south pipeline were rejected in the Victorian parliament on Wednesday. The opposition moved a disallowance motion to block the order, which regulates the delivery of pipeline water. The Greens and DLP supported the motion, giving the coalition the numbers it needed for it to pass.

"It will be interesting to see if the exact matters we have argued through the legislative process end up being argued in a court somewhere, where perhaps some of the facts we have been so desperately trying to expose can for once be tested. Perhaps the people in the community can be offered not just an environmental and social future but some answers to the questions they have been so regularly and constantly asking." Greg Barber, Greens MLC 12-8-09

“Today’s successful disallowance motion in Parliament highlights the overwhelming opposition to the Government’s attempts to loot water from food producers and the environment because it has failed to plan for Melbourne’s future water needs,” Mr Ryan, Liberal Nationals Coalition.

“The Order clearly breached commitments the government made to the environment, food producers and Victorian communities and shows the Brumby Government is prepared to place the future of farming communities and our rivers in jeopardy for the sake of sending 75 gigalitres of northern Victoria’s water to Melbourne."

The newly formed "Billionaires for Privatisation", featuring luminaries from
recently bailed-out banks through to coal company fat cats will walk
arm-in-arm with "Anna Blight" tomorrow morning at an anti-privatisation
rally in West End.

Time/Date: 11am Sat Aug 15, Meet @ Lizard Statue, Boundary St, West End
March to Bligh's Office (90 Vulture St)
Original article by Paul Benedek published on saveourpublicassets.org.
See also: Stop Thief! Rally on 15 August to stop theft of Queensland's public assets.

Tell Anna Bligh to get her hands off OUR public assets!

Time/Date: 11am Sat Aug 15
Meet @ Lizard Statue, Boundary St, West End
March to Bligh's Office (90 Vulture St)

See also saveourpublicassets.org

Victoria is outsourcing its essential services for competitive profit and marketing taxpayer-funded 'gifts' to taxpayers as if they were 'free'. The activities of the sector are to be monitored - but only economically - by a new body calledThe Essential Services Commission - which apparently approves of these 'free' gifts. Would you trust people with so little concern for democracy? A concerned citizen expresses her disgust at the whole scammy system, marketed by naive young people cold-calling customers at home. Comment inside from Essential Services Commission

350 people rallied outside Queensland Transport Minister Rachel Nolan's office on July 31, in protest at the Bligh Government's moves to sell off public assets. No-one, besides Nolan herself spoke in support of priviatisation at a subsequent community forum.

Original article by Paul Benedek published on saveourpublicassets.org.

See also: "Minister claims rail sale will create jobs" in the Queensland Times of 17 Jul 09, "Angry retort on rail sell-off" in the Ipswich News of 23 Jul 09, "Opposition fires up over QR sale" in the Brisbane Times of 22 Jul 09.

Unions will stage a protest against privatisation outside the office of Rachel Nolan, the Queensland Minister for Transport.

Where: Booval Professional Centre, 125 Brisbane St Ipswich
When: From 2PM, Friday 31 July.

Also published on saveourpublicassets.org.

Listen to interview.
New data shows that the effect of the rapid increase in privately-held water in the Darling Basin on the volumes of water available for essential public and environmental use is the main cause of the water crisis, not the drought. The Senior water advisor to the United Nations supports a call for declaration of a State of Emergency and the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the management of the water of the Murray-Darling Basin.

GYMPIE Regional Council plans to sell off industrial land at Tin Can Bay, Monkland and a home at Kilkivan to raise revenue because council income from ratepayers only funds a $40m budget. Apparently the Council has already committed itself to spend $115m. Surely only a council of half-wits would not have foreseen the need to cut expenditure with the global financial crash and the parlous condition of the state budget? Friends of Rainbow Beach say that, far from saving the ratepayers money, the council's plans to sell off assets will cost residents of Gympie Region even more.

In a media release on behalf of the Queensland branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), branch secretary Peter Simpson questioned the Queensland's decision to pay as much as AU$200 million to two companies Merrill Lynch and the Royal Bank of Scotland, who recently went bankrupt, for advice on privatisation, for advice on its privatisation fire sale.

Also published on saveourpublicassets.org.

Dorothy Pratt, independent member for the rural Queensland state electorate of Nanango, in a speech to State Parliament on 18 June, tears apart the Queensland Government's justification for its fire sale of publicly owned assets and exposes its past mismanagement of the Queensland economy. Her informative and cogent speech is typical of of many that go unreported by the pro-privatisation Queensland newsmedia.

Also published on privatisationistheft.net.

Picket 9am Tues June 16 (Budget Day) @ Qld State Parliament, Cnr George & Alice Streets

See also: privatisationistheft.net

Five weeks after I made my complaint, the ABC has responded. The reponse defends the ABC Brisbane local Radio journalists' failure to hold to account the Queensland Government over these issues: privatisation, encouragement of runaway population growth, housing unaffordabilty, plans to triple our coal exports as the polar ice caps melt, and the devastation of agricultural and wilderness areas by open cut coal mining, etc. The ABC deems these issues not to be newsworthy.

See also: "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 Apr 09, "Brisbane's local ABC radio fails to hold Anna Bligh to account over privatisation" of 28 May 09.

FairWaterUse: "The right to water will be declared an essential human right as a global commons. Under this definition, the right to water will be given precedence and advantage, in international and local law, over any other interests. Access to water will not be subject to market forces or to private or corporate interests. The precautionary principle of ecosystem protection must take precedence over commercial demands on water." The closing date for submissions to the Human Rights Consultation process established by the Federal Government is June 15th 2009.

Cursory inspection of the membership of the National Water Commission's 2009 Stakeholder Forum reveals a clear predominance of groups, governmental and private, which, behind the scenes, are passionately pushing the water-privatisation agenda.

In a leaflet handed out at the protest against privatisation held outside the Queensland state Labor Party conference on Sunday 7 June 2009, James Sinnamon, who stood as an anti-privatisation independent candidate at the recent state elections, argues that the unions need to take decisive action against privatisation now. Delaying action can only make the fight against privatisation harder.

What you can do to prevent the theft of your property:
Sign the petition against privatisation;
Attend protests against privatisation outside Parliament House at 9:00am on Tuesday 16 June, the day that the Budget that is to contain the privatisation legislation, is to be put to the Queensland Parliament. Note: not on Monday 15 June as previously advertised.