Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 219
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
The 1980s also saw Australian Governments, both Commonwealth and State, moving
towards making "the public sector less costly and better tailored to public needs while
providing higher quality services to citizens". 4 In New South Wales, the election of the
Greiner Government in 1988 heralded a massive change in government organisation and
philosophy. The Greiner Government focussed strongly on economic management and
anti-corruption issues. Underpinned by economic rationalist principles, there was a move
towards increased corporatisation or privatisation of public assets and businesses; and
the introduction of efficiency-focussed cuts and private enterprise-style appointment,
management and accounting systems to the Public Service. The size of Parliament was
reduced and the ICAC (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) established.s
In the 1990s, a significant portion of the public sector was privatised in Australia. The
States initially privatised their banks and insurance offices, and this was followed in a
number of States by sales of electricity and gas utilities. The New South Wales
Government privatised Axiom Funds Management, the Government Insurance Office, the
NSW Grain Corporation, the NSW Investment Corporation and the State Bank of NSW
between 1990 and 1997.6 The New South Wales Government also introduced private
prisons. The Greiner Government engaged the private sector to design, build and
operate the Junee Correctional Centre, which opened in 1993. However, to date Junee
remains the only privately run prison in New South Wales.' The private financing,
construction and operation of infrastructure projects, such as the provision of roads, has
been another way in which the New South Wales Government has privatised' former
public sector services.
A complementary strategy has been corporatisation. In 1989 the Greiner Government
enacted the State Owned Corporations Act. This set up a formal structure for the
corporatisation of State bodies, with a view, in some cases, to their eventual
privatisation. It provided for the incorporation of government business enterprises as
"companies limited by shares" under the New South Wales Companies Code. It was
intended to make them socially responsible "by having regard to the interests of the
community" and improve public sector efficiency while reducing public sector debt. In
1995 this Act was amended by the Carr Government to accommodate a second model of
corporatisation, the statutory State Owned Corporation.
Speaking at a Conference in 2004 the New South Wales Auditor General noted that
in New South Wales alone there are over 600 boards (not including several hundred
trusts governing state land reserves). Of these, there are around 20 State Owned
Corporations (SOCs), and around 25 Government Trading Enterprises (GTEs). In New
South Wales, SOCs and GTEs have total assets of over $85 billion, net assets or
equity of over $65 billion ... and make profits before distributions of $1-2 billion per
year.
and that
4
BARRETT, Pat, Auditor-General of Australia, Privatisation of State Activities - Role of SAIs,
paper presented at the 18th Commonwealth Auditors-General Conference Malaysia,
7-9 October 2002. Copy available on the website of the Australian National Audit Office
see 2000 - To the Millennium on
, the website of the Parliament
of New South Wales
6
Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin, Privatisation, December 1997, pp.9, 14; copy on the
Reserve Bank's website
7
Privatisation of Prisons, Background Paper No.3/2004 by Lenny Roth, on
, the website of the Parliament of New South Wales
216
State Records Authority of New South Wales
