The Guardian 30 April, 2008
Sydney Ferries
anti-privatisation campaign
The campaign to maintain Sydney Ferries in public ownership continues to gather support from the broader community as well as internationally. The latest entrant into the debate, Australian journalist and activist John Pilger, is a welcome ally on the side of common sense and public ownership.
The Maritime Union of Australia says privatisation is a flawed social concept. It is not about service delivery or social standards but about shifting political attention as well as propping up big business. The public purse takes the risk, the private owners take the profit. An entirely unfortunate and unsatisfactory social outcome. The union’s opposition is not only rooted in an ideological objection but one based on decency and fairness.
Service cuts, increased fares and attacks on jobs are inevitable results of this continued foray into neo-liberalism by the NSW state government. The union says its campaign will continue on all levels, politically, industrially and within the broader community.
John Pilger went public with a letter sent to the Sydney Morning Herald reprinted below.
The Herald’s campaign against state government corruption is missing one notorious breeding ground of corruption — government fire sales of public services, known as privatisation. Your report ("Privatise Sydney Ferries, department tells cabinet", 14-4-08), in promoting the proposed sell-off of Sydney Ferries as part of the natural order, quotes at length the Tourism and Transport Forum without telling your readers that this is, in its own words, a "CEO-forum" that "advocates the public policy interests of the 200 most prestigious corporations...".
In other words, it supports the likes of those who will make a bundle out of a vital public service if it is privatised. I catch a ferry almost every day, and whenever I am asked by friends around the world what is so great about Sydney, I invariably say the ferry service and the people who work in it.
I have got to know many of them, if not by name — from the deck hands to the skippers, they are among the best of this city and of Australia: skilled, helpful, gracious people imbued with the idea of public service. I spotted two of them on Sunday having to hand out timetables to tourists at Circular Quay from a trolley — because the ferry information office had been summarily closed down on April 7, clearly in preparation for the sell-off.
This, together with propaganda that the public is "unfazed" by the prospect of privatisation, are old tricks that mark the coming destruction of a genuine public service — if voters allow it to happen. Living in Britain, I have seen how it works — first run down the service and manufacture a media outcry at its shortcomings, then deliver it into the hands of shareholders who under "public-private partnerships" continue to fleece the public purse for years.
This is how Britain’s once superb railway system was decimated, both in terms of service and safety, while the profits rolled in to a few. Beware Sydney: don’t be conned by the usual corporate spin. You have a treasure in Sydney Ferries and its workforce. If all that is needed is $400 million to replace the fleet, it is a bargain.