Over recent years, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) head, Rod Sims, has issued a spate of warnings about, and voiced opposition to, the proliferation of privatisations being undertaken across the country, claiming that it is gouging consumers.
Now Sims has accused state and federal governments of using privatisation to increase tax by stealth by selling public assets and businesses at inflated prices on terms that allow the new monopoly owners to gouge customers:
“The idea you privatise to maximise returns has taken hold and it is destroying privatisation,” Mr Sims told The Australian. “People in the street say when you privatise, prices go up; well, that’s exactly what’s happening”…
