
Issue No 70		07 September 2000

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Tool Shed

The Minister For Silly Privatisations

Can the Federal Minister of Finance, John Fahey count? Can he use a calculator? You wouldn't think so from his appalling decisions on privatizations dating back to his time as Premier of NSW. This week he did it again.

The sale of the State Bank of NSW has to be one of the worst business decisions ever made. Fahey sold it for about a seventeenth of its value. The net proceeds were just over $160 million. A few years later it is making that per annum. It was recently valued at between $2.6 and $2.9 billion by Arthur Andersen.

In the time honoured tradition of the Liberal Party such uselessness and incompetence wasn't a ticket to the political oblivion Fahey deserved. Instead Mr Charisma Free was drafted to Canberra and put in charge of the biggest float in Australian history!

And good onya John you're nothing if not consistent, you botched that one up as well. Charisma Free offloaded the first tranche of Telstra - the most blue chip enterprise in the economy, strategically located bullseye in the center of the new economy as a firesale megabargain.

If Fahey was a bumbling character in a BBC comedy he'd be a good laugh. Of course in real life such a tool is the maker of other people's tragedies. This week in his latest cock up the Minister of Silly Privatisations could be costing 600 rail workers their livelihoods.

It's not often you see a union supporting a public asset sell off but the RBTU - stuck between a rock and a hard place with the sell off of National Rail, and after exploring all possible scenarios - concluded that jobs could be saved with a merger of FreightCorp and National Rail. Even if this meant the new entity had to be in private hands.

But for our privatization expert, the financial wizard whose very touch turns to mud, the parallel sale of both organisations doesn't fit the ideological strait jacket.

No way Jose. I know what's best. An incompetent and destructive tool.

Nominate a Tool!

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Issue 70 contents

Interview: New Internationalism
In its battle with Rio Tinto the CFMEU has pioneered global campaigning. National Secretary John Maitland talks to Workers Online about globalisation, a union response and using new technologies to organise .

History: Pickets and Police
S11 protestors would do well to be wary. Fred Paterson, CPA member of the Qld Parliament, was bashed by the Queensland police on St Patrick's Day 1948, when a Labor Government was in power in that state.

Education: The WEF -Why Should We Care?
An event like the World Economic Forum attracts all the spin doctors for every interest, often obscuring real issues. For educators the issues may seem remote but a closer look shows that services like public education could be dramatically affected by the unfolding agenda of global trade liberalisation says Rob Durbridge.

Economics: A Vandalised Economy
Since New Zealand was opened up to the forces of globalisation, it has performed dismally, both economically and socially. NZCTU Economist Peter Conway reports.

Unions: Our Vital Role in Society
Eight months into his new role as ACTU Secretary Greg Combet reflects on the challenges facing Australian unions.

International: Turning Up The Heat
John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO says the union movement can and will reform the global economy, for as Dr Martin Luther King taught us, the moral arc of history is long but it bends towards justice.

Satire: Threat to withhold pocket money derails S11 protest
MELBOURNE, Tuesday: Members of the activist collective S11 announced today that they had decided to cancel their protest at the upcoming World Economic Forum meeting at Crown Casino.

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